Any Support Would Be Appreciated — My Mum Has Tinnitus

Hi, I am 1 7 year old son, who is very worried about my mum.

She has been experiencing tinnitus for 2 months and hurts me to see her suffer from it.

She has done a check up at the hospital and found that she couldn't hear from 6000 to 8000 hertz, in her right ear.

I have done some research and have found that acoustic coordinated reset can help relieve the pain from it.

I have found a video for the 8000 hertz zone and I am wondering whether or not I should advise her to listen to it on the right ear only or both. Another worry I have is the possibility of her having any other illness. I want to know if there has been cases of tinnitus being caused by an illness such as cancer or infections.

I sincerely thank you for reading such a long and unorganized story and any feedback would be appreciated.

 

Hi Andy.

Very sorry that your Mum has to go through this.

Tinnitus is a great cause of anexity and stress after it starts. If she hasn’t, I would recommend she talks with a physician about how they might be able to assist her through the first few months of tinnitus by recommendations of medications or counselling support. The doctor or specialist ENT may suggest an MRI because it’s primarly in one ear: I suggest you recommend your mother have this done to rule an ascoutic neuroma (very rare).

In regards to sound therapy, if your mother can find out her tinnitus frequency at http://generalfuzz.net/acrn/ by moving the bar around until it matches the most, she can listen to ACRN and it certainly gives relief to others and myself. There is also many phone apps that do white noise which may help her have relief. Listen to noise in both ears or have it playing through a speaker.

Lastly, tinnitus does get better for a lot of people as well so don’t loose hope.

 

Thank you very much for your reply. Have a nice day!

 

Hello A,
It must be very worrying for you to see your mum struggling with tinnitus.
My tinnitus started about 5 months ago and in the beginning I found it very distressing and I felt even worse knowing what a worry I was to my family.

The first 3 months were very difficult but I am now starting to cope better, it takes time and has ups and downs,but it does happen no matter how hard it is to believe in the beginning.

The one big thing that helped and still does help me is that my husband and daughter were a huge support simply by understanding that I was going through a difficult time and having a kind and supportive word for me when I was struggling. Another thing that helped a lot is that they kept me busy and even if I didn't feel up to it they made me go out and try to get through a morning or afternoon doing something 'normal' even if just grocery shopping. This made me start to feel more confident and I now am able to live my life just as before even though my T annoys me terribly at times.

As people on here say, it is very rare that T is a sign of any form of illness, but if you or your mum are worried a visit to your doctor is a good idea just to count anything out and make steps towards getting any help or advice available.

Other than that just keep supporting your mum, you obviously care a lot about her wellbeing and this in itself will help her.

Keep up the good work and it won't always seem so difficult, time will make it easier as other kind people on here will tell you.