Back to Misery Again After Recovery from Tinnitus — Thanks to a Firework on New Year's

@GeorgeLG, you can never go wrong with Dire Straits. I met Mark Knopfler a few years ago, incredibly nice man!

 

Sting is a fellow tinnitus sufferer. Great guy who does support hearing charities too.

I think celebs have lots of issues, mental, physical health. The drugs are probably so common there because of all the mental pressure to perform.

i have an IT job and if I’m having a hard day I can just hide away in my laptop with a grumpy face but still do my work I can’t imagine being a signer or actor who has to be full of energy for the audience, regardless the mood.

 

Hello @Matty1996, I’m so sorry to hear about your recent setback and struggle to rehabituate yourself again. Your story resonates so much with me as I too am there right now and feeling pretty hopeless about it. I understand your frustration at having come so far and through no fault of your own, to be set back. I often liken tinnitus to a game of snakes and ladders.

That’s pretty amazing that you had experienced silence for so long too after your first onset. Hold onto that. You sound like a strong, mentally positive person which is so important in dealing with this.

I’ve had tinnitus for 6 years and recently caught COVID-19 which has made mine a high pitched unmaskable frustrating cricket noise which has caused me so much anxiety and stress and I feel very frustrated, like you as all the positive advancements I have made I feel are wiped out. Seeing daily progress gives me strength and when you can’t see that, it’s tough.

I see you and you’re most definitely not alone here. Take comfort in that. I believe you will get there again xx

 

Thank you very much for saying so. I'm sorry to hear that you are going through a spike as well due to COVID-19, it's quite unfair to have such a setback when it's due to something so beyond our control. I hope that it's just a minor setback for you in the grand scheme of things and that you can recover your progress.

Last night was a little bit easier I think and so far today, everything has been quite mild, good signs I hope. I'm feeling a bit more optimistic.

 

Thank you so much for your kind words!

That’s amazing! Sounds like you are making some good progress there! You sound like a pretty switched on guy and I have every confidence you’ll get through this! x

 

@Matty1996, I really feel your pain. Having overcome/habituated to tinnitus & hyperacusis three years ago, they have both come roaring back into my life full force after getting COVID-19 a little over a week ago. I'm sorry you're having to deal with these issues again, my friend, and am sending you good vibes for health & healing - You beat it once, you can beat it again!

 

I got to thinking about this thread and the tone of the discussions here. I answered the question quite literally regarding what songs used to give me energy but I was thinking today about songs for healing which I think is more in line with our group here. I have been performing since 1965, music has been a part of my life for 60 years. As an adult I have been largely a hard rock guy as illustrated by the songs I listed earlier however...

Many years ago I was in a music store when this song came over the speakers. It’s not usually my kind of music and I thought what a strange song for this store to be playing, and then she hit me. This angel started singing and I was so instantly moved that I started crying on the spot. I had never been so emotionally impacted by anything musical in all those decades. I rushed to the front desk to discover this obscure relative unknown artist, Eva Cassidy. She has such a beautiful and emotional voice. She never met with much commercial success and was taken far too young from illness but of every song I have ever been inspired by, I think that this probably belongs on this forum most. I cried again looking for this link as I listened to her. What a tremendous gift she had. And to take on such a song, Judy Garland’s masterpiece. Most artists won’t go anywhere near something this iconic but her interpretation is just beautiful:

Eva Cassidy Somewhere Over the Rainbow

George

 

@Roosevelt DuPree, snap! Same for me too! It’s so frustrating isn’t it! Hope you’re coping ok x

 

I'm sorry to hear that you experienced a worsening from COVID-19 too. It's particularly unfortunate because of how difficult it has been to avoid.

Thank you for the words of encouragement. For me today has been quite positive, the first half of the day has been very mild, everything seems to be going down somewhat. It may spike back up in the night again, but it's enough for me to be optimistic at least! As you're also not too far into your spike I hope your recovery can happen just as swiftly.

 

After 2 overall rather mild days, I had another difficult night which has remained the case so far today. My tinnitus seems ridiculously inconsistent however, it's gone from a high pitch tone at the start to haywire electrical chirping to crickets and now to this strange intermittent electrical whooshing sound followed by these short beeps, really quite bizarre. Volume is all over the place, last night and this morning it was far too loud to focus on anything else, then I went outside and I could barely hear it over the ambient sounds, so I don't know what to say.

It's been difficult today, but I am taking the inconsistency as a good sign. I remember from the first time round my tinnitus was quite irregular too, though nothing as strange as now. It's still early on and at least I have had some calmer days and moments, hopefully I get more of those as time goes on.

 

Here's an update after a while. It seemed like things were calming down again gradually, the strange beeping and other unusual tones went as did most of the aural fullness and sensitivity. It was slow, but there was some improvement. My mood was improving greatly and things looked optimistic.

Sadly, I seem to be rather unlucky when it comes to random noise exposure and this last Sunday I was exposed to someone shouting. Since then my tinnitus has been quite loud and noticeable again and is yet to properly subside. My ears also seem to be more sensitive to noise again and some of the aural fullness has returned also. Sleeping has been difficult again and overall I'm feeling a lot more down compared to last week.

Thankfully, none of the beeping or the haywire electrical sounds have resurfaced so far, and the volume, though loud and intrusive, hasn't reached the catastrophic level it was around the start of January. This morning was also somewhat mild for about an hour or two or so, which wasn't really the case for the previous two days.

All in all, I hope it's just a relatively minor setback in the wider process of healing, and as the weeks pass, the tones begin to fade again.

 

@Matty1996, how are you now? I hope you are feeling better.

 

Thanks for saying so! I have rehabituated and the worst of the sounds have definitely gone down again, though the tinnitus in my right ear persists and the volume is still louder than it was before the fireworks.

Most of the time it isn't particularly noticeable, the biggest hurdle/impact on my life has been not being able to use headphones, which is admittedly a bit depressing.

Overall though, significantly better than the beginning of the year.

 

Happy for you! I hope it continues to fade and you can write another success story here.

At least you don't have hyperacusis, which for me is worse than tinnitus.

 

I hope so too!

My experience with hyperacusis is that it usually fades with time, moreso than tinnitus. I remember the first time around I was sensitive to sounds for a few months, things that never would have bothered me before such as the sound of plates and cutlery or doors closing were painful. It gradually went away completely and did so a while before I noticed major improvements in my tinnitus also.

You're still early in and I know for a certainty things can improve given enough time, so plenty of cause to be optimistic yet.

 

Hi @Samy, how is your tinnitus now? I noticed a while back you said it spiked due to a car journey.

I've been having the same problems and have had to resort to foam earplugs and earmuffs to avoid the noises ramping up to unbearable levels every time I drive to and from work - good times.

 

Thank you for the gentle words. I really hope my hyperacusis fades soon. When my tinnitus is not spiking, I can sleep without meds. But the hyperacusis makes it impossible for me to live my life like a normal person.

 

Hi @Tom_Tom, sorry to hear that you are having the same problem. My spike was gone after a week, but this trip made my tinnitus more reactive :/ now it reacts to running water, white noise, car rides... It’s very annoying. I think there’s a link between reactive tinnitus and hyperacusis, from what I’ve read on the forum.

 

@Samy - pleased to hear your spike went down eventually. It's interesting that your tinnitus became reactive rather than started out as reactive. I suppose that would suggest the reactivity isn't necessarily a direct result of a certain type of noise trauma and that, hopefully, it can resolve over time in the same way it appeared post-trauma... who knows.

I'm in a similar position in that my tinnitus (acquired 2 months ago) didn't start out as reactive but seemed to become sensitive to noise over time. Like you, pretty much anything ramps up the volume - even my quiet laptop fan is enough to get it hissing away like an angry wasp trapped underneath a glass after a few minutes.

I also had a 'chirping' noise that would happen every time I heard a noise. That was a wild few weeks but it seems to have gone away (touch wood).

Wishing you a consistent recovery over time! Hope you are hanging in there alright.

 

How long did the setback take?

 

What made you decide to break up with your girlfriend?

 

I didn't and never would've done so. It's more that the tinnitus was a catalyst for us to drift apart.

She didn't have much sympathy to start with, seemed to think I was overreacting about it and would often be dismissive. I also became a lot more withdrawn as a consequence and for a few months I was feeling extremely pessimistic. She spent a lot less time with me and found new friends and interests over the internet that she would rather spend her time on.

She became quite a different person to the one I had met years prior but I still miss her every day. Tinnitus has been much easier to get over in that respect.

 

@Matty1996, I'm glad you improved. I had something similar happen to me today.

I was walking near a park this evening and some kids lit a firework near me then ran off. I was about 6-8 meters away and it was almost like one of those small aerial firework shells only exploding on the ground. Definitely illegal. It was much louder than being underneath an aerial firework and even kind of had an echo. You expect that sort of thing on the 4th of July, but not on Halloween! I guess they did it to 'scare' people that were out trick or treating.

Luckily I had foam earplugs in which helps some, but I'm still pretty shaken up and my ears feel more sensitive and tinnitus is a bit louder.

 

Hi @Matty1996, do you recall with your first time recovery how long it took for sensitivity to dishes, clinks and clanks to resolve?

Thanks.