All I Wanted Was to Be a Mom — My Vent Story of How Tinnitus Has Broken My Life

@ErikaS, the ENT is almost making it sound like that "little high ring" is gonna go away in mere months. If it eventually goes away or gets better, you've gotta be careful not to risk a new setback, which is the part where I messed up. After I developed bilateral tinnitus and hyperacusis in 2012, it took me 2-3 years to find life tolerable, and around the 6 year mark my tinnitus quickly became rather unnoticeable. A few years later I had become careless around loud noises and suddenly developed a second tinnitus.

The GPs think I oughta come up with ways to manage my stress, instead of taking leave from work. And they're quite right that stress plays a big part in it, but gave me no other indications than meditation and psychotherapy, both of which rub me the wrong way as there is really an opposition between studying and engaging in boring conversations with strangers. One GP issued me four paid days off, but said next time it's on me if I want to take leave from work. So essentially, I guess it's on me if I'm managing the stress and anger poorly, notwithstanding that I'm pretty much a teetotaller.

I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents although I don't really know what you're going through and I've never had symptoms of clinical depression. (If I would've had that, maybe I could have extended my clinically depressed partner a more appropriate emotional support. By the way, they don't help you with being this person... it's as if the best bet for the clinically depressed person always were not to assume the best of their partner...)

 

Back in 2013 when my tinnitus journey began, you could not visit any tinnitus community without hearing about AM-101. At some point I started digging into the science behind the drug and its mechanism-of-action on the NMDA receptors i.e. the ones that respond to glutamate (the primary neurotransmitter). The next big news story was Trobalt (and that thread is still going some 10 years later). Trobalt acts on the ion channels in the neurons and ensures that a proper nerve impulse is triggered. Anyway... at the time, together these two topics led me to read up on various publications shared on pubmed. As a consequence, I started seeing tinnitus through the prism of neurophysiology. Acquiring that knowledge, was somehow what got me out of my standoff with tinnitus. It taught me both "what to do" – and also – "what not to do"...

From a tinnitus perspective, there are obvious things to stay from like ototoxic drugs (e.g., wide-spectrum antibiotics). But what about painkillers (that contain salicylates) or certain antidepressants that regulate serotonin levels? As an example, SSRI medication was warned against in this article. But problematic substances aren't just found in medication: you can find salicylates in a number of different foods as well. And the spice MSG aka. monosodium glutamate (often hidden behind the innocent label "yeast extract" on content descriptions), is also a problem if a person has existing tinnitus. My very own tinnitus has been barely audible since 2016. But if I ever wake up in the morning and can sense a bit of extra "head noise" that eventually dissolves during during day, I can always trace it back to having (unknowingly) consumed food with MSG added to it.

So... what's the morale of the story? Be curious, educate yourself on neurophysiology and apply that knowledge to your own situation. Once you do, things will start to fall into place. Mind you, it's a process and not something that's achieved in an afternoon.

As always, remember: "Chance favours only the prepared mind" — Louis Pasteur, biologist

 

Hey @Stuart-T, sorry I am only responding now. The drops I had used were too much of an oil base and didn’t have a “carrier” to help drain, and I used too much so it kind of built upon itself I guess. I too was so afraid that the microsuction had something to do with all of this, but the fact that the hyperacusis settled in a matter of 2-3 days and tinnitus didn’t come on until the ear infection got out of hand, I was having a hard time putting anything against the microsuction, also because it was literally 5 seconds in each ear if that.