Cjohnso409 Requesting Help

Hello, CJohnso,
Please tell us more about your tinnitus. How long have you had it? Are you currently under a doctor's care?

Welcome to Tinnitus Talk!

 

Hi, again, Cjohnso,
I'm so sorry your tinnitus is at a high, unbearable level. All of here on Tinnitus Talk are fellow tinnitus sufferers, just like you. Although I am certainly no doctor, I can sympathize, and offer a few suggestions that may be helpful.

It's good that you have the prescription for clonazepam; I have never taken that drug myself, but several other people on this forum are taking it. They say it does seem to help, and it also will help to calm your anxiety over the tinnitus. Have you been taking it for a long time? If not, you might try giving it some more time to work, to see if it will bring the volume of your tinnitus down a bit more, or help you feel calmer and better able to cope.

Tinnitus can cause you a lot of worry, anxiety, and misery, and it can also disrupt your sleep. Are you having trouble sleeping? You could try taking the clonazepam just before bed, to see if it will help at that time of the night. Some people take Ambien or other sleep aids at the outset of tinnitus to help them get through the night. It's not advisable to take both clonazepam and a sleep aid at the same time, so you might want to check with your doctor about what is right for you.

I'm currently taking some natural supplements that have helped me cope. Some of these include magnesium, melatonin, vitamin B12 (or you could try a vitamin B complex), fish oil, systemic enzymes, zinc, and GABA. None of these is a drug, they are natural supplements, and they help some people more than others, but you could try experimenting and seeing what would help you. We're all different, and what works for one person might not work for another. You have to experiment, and see what helps you most.

Several people on this forum use nature sounds as background noise when they sleep, or when the tinnitus becomes most frustrating. Being in a sound-enriched environment really does help. I have a sound machine with a babbling brook sound which really helps me. You might try Jim's nature sounds, for which there is a link on this site. Those have been helpful to a lot of folks.

Have you been to an audiologist to determine whether or not you have some degree of hearing loss? You could try going to an audiologist, and they could assist you with a tinnitus masker or hearing aid that might take the edge off your tinnitus. There are many new developments in hearing aids these days, and one of them might be right for you. We've been hearing good things about a hearing aid called Widex with zen tones (soft, bell-like tones that distract the brain from noticing the tinnitus). You could ask for a free trial of a hearing device to see if that might help.

Some people with tinnitus are trying TRT (Tinnitus Retraining Therapy), which is a method of training your brain to not notice the tinnitus. TRT is available through ENT's and/or audiologists, and this might be something you'd want to look into.

Most people with tinnitus find that, with time, the tinnitus becomes calmer and more bearable on its own. You are going to be fine; the main thing now is to try to find ways to be calm, to get some sleep, and to learn how to cope with it on a day-to-day basis. I'm sure others on this forum will have additional suggestions for you that may help. There is no one cure for tinnitus, but there are ways to manage it right now --- and there is a lot of research being done out there right now that will benefit all of us in the not-too-distant future.

Does anyone else have suggestions for Cjohnso?