Exhausted...

Hey all,

I'm Del and I work as a freelance illustrator. English is not my native tongue and I am writing this on phone with a massive headache and loud pulsing in my ear, so if I make any typos or grammar mistakes please forgive.

I actually don't have a proper diagnose right now nor I want to self-diagnose it but I have been hearing this pulsing sound in my left ear for a couple of years. It never goes away but often becomes so loud that I cannot think, hear, sleep or understand what I am listening, reading or watching, it distiracts me horribly, triggers headaches and migraines that continues for weeks. I also have ADHD and depression together (both diagnosed), which makes my life as an artist very hard already. While I can deal with them to some point with certain treatments I cannot do the same with this tremendously life cripling pulsing sound in my ear. It makes me exhausted, stressed, agressive and anxious all together. I became angry by the simplest things. I feel like a walking time bomb as it just sucks the life out of me and all I can do is be a bygoner as my personality gets drained by it. I have lost friends because of it and I am scared to build new connections just to see people run away from me like I have the plague.

Last year at some point it became so terribly loud I went to see an ENT again. He checked my ears, and started me to a treatment what he briefly diagnosed as tinnitus but it didn't feel like he was taking me serious and neither his treatment were doing anything to solve the problem. Whenever I called or visited him, he just kept telling me to take my meds, so I did and nothing changed.

Around last weeks of this January, the noise started to get louder again. I was dealing with some life changing developments for my career and had a new focus of creation with bunch of smart and talented new people, and everything was amazing, I was so happy and excited... till I had another breakdown because of this pulsing in my ear, ate through my nerves (and it get combined with something rather triggering for me) then I had the most unfortuned and rude outbrust. I do want to make amends for my behavior to people I upset but how I can do that when I know it can happen again and again and when my only solution is isolating myself? What will do that to my work? My friendships? No client or friend going to be THAT understanding.

After that pulsing sound became even more louder, I have not been able to sleep or eat over a week (and several days now too), so called my doctor again and he tolds us that he had no idea what was going on and that he never seen something like that before. I urged my folks to do their own research because at this point I am too tired and hopeless to do anything by myself, eventually we booked an appointment from another ENT, who also really didn't seem to be taking me serious but at least he ran some tests and didn't give the "you have to live with it" nonsense yet but pointed us to other doctors. My hearing and blood tests, and ultrasound of my neck came normal, cardiologist also found nothing. I have appointments to brain surgeon and neurologist next week.

Another unfortunate thing that the pulsing sound isn't objective, so others cannot hear it and I slowly start to think all is in my head but then when I press on my neck, over my vein, the sound lessens. And I do that sometimes to stop the loud noise. I even tried applying warm and cold patches, tried yoga, breath exercises, some other stuff that I don't even remember their names anymore.

I am looking for answers, tips, help, for a treatment and in the worse case a way to cope with it. That is how I found here and decided to join. I have been in tears all week, all day today too, screaming at times because I am just so fed up with it and I don't know what to do anymore. I just want the silence back.


-del

 

bystander* not bygoner, sorry.

 

I have the flu ATM and having T put in the mix is not making it better.I try to be uplifted about it but one thing i do know now is to not fight it too much,and not fixate to get the silence back.It seems to be working as the T is less part of the thought process.

( i do know where you're coming from,i have a chronic sleeping problem for years and it really changes a lot of things in your mind)

 

It is sadly impossible to give my attention to anything, regardless how hard I try. It is just too loud.

 

You can't by any chance mask it with natural sounds?

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

 

A warm welcome to the forum Del.
It sounds like you have pulsitile tinnitus .

Do you notice if it gets louder when moving around or when stressed?

Have a read up around the boards and we have a pulsitile forum too and Karen can give you some great advice.

The unwanted emotions with tinnitus can be hard going and you might find talking therapy/ counselling beneficial.
Keep posting for support......lots of love glynis

 

@Dutchy I have tried those too but nothing maskes it and to be honest currently any other sound irritates me :c

@glynis Thank you Glynis, and no, it gets loud randomly. I have been on bed or on sofa all week, didn't do anything of note and still it remained loud and steady, only very few moments it lessened but then it was loud again. I actually have been reading the forums and the whooshers.com articles for two days, I just decided to join today (I was bit reluctant because I haven't been to any forums since I was in high school, too distiracting for me). I also do plan to have this subject up with a terapist and a life coach friend, to try more alternative ways but I am too beat up right now to generate energy for those :c

 

You need to understand that the pulsing in your ear is not the problem. It isn't why you can't work and get along with people. I bet you can still hear people just fine, especially because this only occurs in one ear. If you can't hear people, it is because you are focusing on the sound.
Your subconscious mind needs to understand that this sound isn't a threat. If you keep telling yourself, "I gotta fix this sound; I gotta get rid of it or I can't live", then you most likely won't get better(although drugs alone might do most of the work for you). You must trust that you are not some special case, but you are just like the rest of us that were freaking out just as badly as you are, but whose mindsets changed. If you can trust that, then you will stop thinking, "oh, no! I will go insane if I have this condition a year from now", because that causes more panic.
You won't go insane. It is a harmless sound. Your mind can consider it exactly what it is. But it takes patient, intelligent, training. You have to work with your mind patiently like a coach.

 

I didn't think I am some special case, and yes, of course I am freaking out because when the sound becomes LOUD I have problem to do what I am supposed to do. It is impossible to ignore it and burns through my nerves, makes me more agressive and less patient. And no, it is not harmless.

 

Thank you Karen, I have been reading the forums and I admire your endurance and will to help others. <3

Mine lessened a bit this morning (I hope it stays like this, I might finish the last piece I have been working on today!) and I am bit more hopefull towards my next appointments.

 

Once your mind considers it harmless this no longer happens. What would happen if your mind considered it something to blocked out like how much pressure is on your legs when you sit in a chair, or talking to someone next to a loud dishwasher(the loud dishwasher doesn't make us freakout, we just talk a little louder)?
Imagine if you had a phobia of dishwashers. What would happen if you were talking to someone next to their dishwasher? You would become agitated, and impatient and would start trying to manipulate the person into moving into the next room, or would hope they leave the room so you could turn their dishwasher off and hope they don't notice, or start thinking of excuses to leave. It would be very stressful.
In this case, is the sound of the dishwasher harmful? Yes, the dishwasher is harmful to your nervous system, your overall health, your relationships, your job, your life.

There are at least two solutions:

1. Get away from the dishwasher
2. Realize the dishwasher is not an actual threat beyond what your phobia makes of it​

Now a person could spend the rest of their life avoiding dishwashers, but the best thing would be option 2.