Desperately Need Help with Reactive Tinnitus

I developed "reactive" tinnitus around 6 months ago and it has destroyed every aspect of my life far beyond repair. Because of this my free time has just become poison, I'm at a constant rock bottom and everything is just miserable.

It is absolutely NOT worth living with by any stretch for me. I am solely existing for a cure or effective treatment. I know, I am basically wishing for the impossible but I am desperate to go back to how my life once was. However, I have become mentally fatigued from this unbearable condition and I have begun to question if it's worth continuing to suffer for practically the impossible.

I wanted to know if there has been anything that has aided with reducing the intensity/reactivity of reactive tinnitus?

And just to clarify I mean objective reduction, not habituation related.

Thanks.

 

How did it start? The tinnitus, and reactivity?

 

@Silentreign, I also have a terrible reactive tinnitus. I am treating it with sound generators and a high dose of SSRI. Just almost stopped all benzos that was essential in the first few months. I think things are slowly improving for me. Back to work for the last few days and have less panic.

 

@Silentreign, you can get better advice by telling us the context in which you got the tinnitus, its possible roots and what any doctors you've been consulted by said about it.

 

@Marshall, @Gabriel5050, that's the thing... Unfortunately I haven't been able to nail down what caused it. Basically my right ear was blocked which I suspected was from wax and I began to notice a hearing imbalance between both my ears while no increase in my base tinnitus at all in that ear. So I started using ear drops for what I thought was wax and that's when it just kind of developed. Went to see a doctor and apparently my ear drum was very "red" and I probably had an ear infection. Started using medication for that and the "infection" went away or at least the redness subsided. But the reactive tinnitus remained.

I also had a COVID-19 jab that week and based on what I've heard about others experiences with them it could have also been from that? I'm not really sure.

Sorry for not giving more details to begin with, I thought writing a wall of text would have put people off from reading it.

 

@David S, thanks for that! Really glad things are looking up for you! I have been looking into anti depressants. I am not sure what I'm able to get my hands on in my country but Tofisopam seems to be a potentially great candidate for treating tinnitus based on what I've read. Have you had any experience with it by any chance?

 

About your reactive tinnitus...

Are you left with a lingering spike right after noise exposure or tinnitus immediately increases in volume when exposed to certain sounds, but returns to baseline once the source of sound that’s triggering the reactivity is removed? Or both?

Don’t give up hope, there are people here whose reactivity faded away or lessen dramatically. Time is a healer and odds are good for you too.

 

@Silentreign, I take a SSRI called Escitalopram. I also take a benzo called Oxazepam (but not too much anymore). For sleeping I take Zopiclone. You should also consider the sound generators.

 

Hi @David S.

My audiologist mentioned that by exposing myself to white noise through sound generators would gradually help the reactivity, although I think she is misunderstanding my condition.

Few questions you: Do you think your reactive tinnitus was caused my nerves, or damage, or a combo of both? How long has it been reactive? Does the antidepressant seem to help with the reactiveness?

I also see you had it almost go away completely before a sound trauma -- was that a natural reduction?

I'll give an update on the South Korea venture here soon -- it has helped reduce the volume and gotten rid of some tones, but unfortunately it doesn't seem like it did anything for the reactivity.

I've had reactive tinnitus before, with my onset, bit it only reacted to fans, where this reacts to literally any noise. It is also somehow intermittent... I did look at the users posts you recommended and it seems similar to my audiologists recommendations.

Thanks!

 

Happy that you got some relief in Korea even if it did not help with the reactive part. Let's hope there is some more effect to come later. What type of tinnitus do you think will have the best effect of the Korean treatment?

I think reactive tinnitus is related to some nerve damage of the cochlea. Could be partly damaged outer hair cells or some malfunction of the spontaneous nerve activity of the inner ear.

7-8 years ago I think I had good success treating it with sound generators. Over the years I had, like you, some worsenings (noise incidents). I treated those incidents with over protection and just let time pass for healing. I never got as good a result as with the sound generators and in retrospect I should have gone back to them many years ago.

I am now back to the sound generators 12 hours a day. Even if my tinnitus and reactivity are worse now than a few years back, I still hope for some improvement over time. It is harder this time around. It took me a few months just to tolerate the sound generators for a full day. Next step would be to raise the volume. I am using pink noise. I have now used them just for a few weeks, so it is too early to say anything about the effect but I think I have had a minimal improvement.

I am also on a low dose benzo. It might help slightly with the reactiveness. Despite that, I want to come off as soon as possible. Makes my mood far too unstable.

SSRI does nothing for my tinnitus but it will take my focus from it. This time around I do not really know the full effect of SSRI because I am still on the benzo. I am not too sure that the SSRI is helping me too much anymore.

Once I am fully adapted to the sound generators, I will start to use natural sounds during nights as well. I will use good quality speakers and natural sounds up to 18 kHz. I think that is a good compliment to the sound generators that only emit sounds up to 10 kHz.

Take care!

 

I would say that it's from the COVID-19 jab based on it being so reactive.

I developed tinnitus in 2011/12, which slowly went down over the years. But it wasn't reactive.

Some six/seven weeks ago I got my first-ever COVID-19 jab, and my tinnitus spiked back to where it was when I first got it in 2011/12. Horribly loud.

But what's different is how reactive it is.

Back when I first got tinnitus, I could at least mask it, and the masking certainly wouldn't make it worse. It was not reactive.

But my COVID-19 jab tinnitus is VERY reactive, and when I try to mask it, the tinnitus gets aggravated.

It's a terrible situation, because masking is how I was able to cope with it way back when. Now it's a much worse situation.

 

Not to hijack this thread but I think any tinnitus could benefit from the treatment in Korea and it needs to be tried everywhere.

I would suggest more people with the funds to do so try it out. The issue is is extremely stressful, at least for me it is/was. Just being in a foreign country not for pleasure. If my girlfriend didn't come with me, I would have left halfway because of the immense stress I was having.

 

@Silentreign, I got reactive tinnitus the same week as the COVID-19 jab, it has destroyed my life for a whole year now. I had a different type of tinnitus for 20 years but I only had that each time I got a cold and only for 3 weeks before it went away again. This new tinnitus has absolutely ruined my life for the last year, I can't mask it. Not meaning to make you feel any worse, but if you find anything that helps please let me know, and I will do the same.

This will sound VERY odd but I have gotten an addiction of watching videos on YouTube where people suffer terminal illnesses, to try and make me feel like "at least I don't have what that poor sod has".

 

Reactive tinnitus is so freaking annoying man.

 

I am suffering with reactive tinnitus since April and it's pure hell when mixed with already loud tinnitus... it's made my tinnitus x3 louder. I don't know what to do anymore.

 

I also have reactive tinnitus. I don't know what to do about emotional pain. But living is so difficult, fear of anything triggering it. The things that can do it seem so innocuous, or random. It's like I don't want to leave my prison cell, oh sorry I meant room.

 

This is difficult because the health professionals don't recognize reactive tinnitus as a subcatergory of tinnitus. If one doesn't acknowledge its uniqueness, then how can one ever get good advice from these professionals?

So far the best advice I can give for us with reactive tinnitus is to be aware of what our ears/brain are reacting to. Once we have that list, then we have to decide which ones we can avoid by possibly shutting off a device like A/C, minimize level of sound, for example sound from watching TV or YouTube video, or do our best to ignore or mask it with sound therapy even though we can't mask it entirely.

However, when using sound therapy, we have to be very careful not to put sound too loud since that will only increase our tinnitus. So that's where things get complicated. For me using BTE (behind the ear) sound generators helps take away focus off loud tinnitus but it also agitates the reactivity making it difficult to cope when not wearing them. So I don't wear them anymore. But I still use ambient or pink noise sounds or meditation type music during day & night. Sometimes I just can't take listening to any sounds at all after listening to it for days & so my reactivity is lessened but still reacts to my A/C, heater, TV/YouTube, etc.

My biggest fear right now is that I am waiting to get root canal & I have no idea if I can go through with it due to my reactivity.