Fear of All Noise, How Do You All Cope?

Hi everyone,

So it's now 2 months since my tinnitus began (acoustic trauma from 2 day festival).
It started in my right ear, then 3 weeks later started in my left. Lucky enough my left ear doesn't ring as much anymore, it's on and off which is a relief for me.
However my right ear is still ringing but over the 2 months decreased and there were times I could barely hear it.
Unfortunately for the past few days there's a new high pitched sound, not loud but much more noticable than what I had before.

I'm terrified this is from everyday noise.

I've become so paranoid, bringing my musicians earplugs everywhere with me. But over the past week I decided that overprotecting the ears is not good and that not everywhere is ear damaging noisy.

Walking up to the local grocery store (15 minute walk) I felt that traffic was noisy but there wasn't much cars, it's just every time a car passed it was very loud.

This made me worry that I'd done more damage.

Then just random noises have happened over the week. Like ladies public toilet, someone made a crashing noise, no idea what it was but really was so loud.

Then a car siren went off the following day.

I'm trying to live my life without putting earplugs in everywhere I go but with this new noise in my ear, I'm worried all of this made it worse....

How do you all cope? I know maybe my ears are just changing.... but I'm worried it's a permanent thing.

Sorry for long post.

 

It takes time and lots of it. Coping/habituation takes lots of time and lots of effort. You have to have a plan and slowly work at it. it's not a bad idea to protect your ears, but over-doing it can have a negative impact on the mind. over-protection can lead to more fear, stress, paranoia and possibly hyperacusis.

The stress itself can cause lots of problems. It's not always the noise that is bad. Stress itself is just as bad and even worst at times...Curbing that stress and controlling that stress, is crucial for those that suffer with tinnitus....

 

I understand where you're coming from. I was a complete mess at 2 months in and afraid of most sounds like you. The way I conquered this was by forcing myself to get out of my apartment and confront my fears head on. I'm not saying go stand next to a highway and force yourself to listen to traffic, but start out slow by taking a walk around the block with earplugs readily available in your hand if an emergency happens. I live in a big city and wore muffs or plugs everywhere, so afraid of a spike or making the tinnitus worse. To help remedy my fears, I'd wear the plugs/muffs on the busy streets but take them off on the more residential streets. I'd walk a few blocks, measure how I felt and then continue on. Key for me was to NOT search for loud sounds in the environment around me. Just walk, breath, and try and take your mind off of fear. I distracted myself by counting windows on buildings or guessing the make/model of cars going by. I benefited most by pushing myself to go outside and overcome the fear. Even if it's for 10 minutes. Fight the anxiety as much as you can. There's no easy fix, but over a couple of months you will feel much better. I firmly believe that you can overcome it and not allow it be a permanent thing.

 

Thanks @fishbone and @housemzk for your replies.
I try hard to not stress about it, but as an anxious person, it's very difficult. I think absolutely every noise is going to make it worse, which is ridiculous but it's the terror of there being no cure that causes the panic.
Today I've told myself to not think about it and get on with things, no matter what and it does help.
But it's almost like I have this paranoid routine that developed with my T, checking my ears to see if it's louder, talking about it non stop, noticing every noise....
But all I can do is try my best.

 

It sounds like you have a mild form of hyperacusis. It will eventually pass. However, I would recommend that you listen to the signals from your body (i.e., the noises Feeling too loud, and the new T tone) and avoid/protect yourself from the noises that sound too loud to you. Eventually your H will be gone, those noises will sound ok, and you will be able to stop protecting your ears.

I wear earplugs to a place and if I see that over the past week there was no need for earplugs there, I stop wearing earplugs there. Now you know to wear hearing protection when you are walking down that street, when you are inside of that washroom, etc.

It helps to carry a pair of Peltor X5A muffs with you everywhere you go. This way, if a car siren or a fire alarm go off, you can slip them on quickly and be protected.

 

After a few months you will not be paranoid, although the noise will still be louder.

 

Took me a long time to get over it. Didn't have so much trouble when I first got tinnitus, but the hyperacusis (funnily enough it was self induced with a bad valsalva maneuva by accident) made me very paranoid. Spikes and others things are common when you first get tinnitus, the anxiety and depression doesn't help.

I sort of went hermit for a bit, realized I needed to push myself little by little and eventually got my hearing sensitivity back to normal. Slowly exposed myself to more and more noise, at a very moderate pace. Early on I would use plugs for noisy restaurants, loud public events, movies, etc. Slowly exposed myself to more noise without plugs when I felt I could handle it and then noticed noise didn't affect me as much anymore and continued to improve from there.

I do most things without plugs now, I use them for common sense activities like using power tools, loud bars/clubs, concerts, etc. Haven't needed to use plugs in a movie theatre for a while but cinema's can very greatly so I keep them on hand in case.

Anyway, main point of my post is that in time your sensitivity to noise will get better. Be sensible and protect you when think you need it, but don't go into full over protection mode and use your plug all day every day. Do exercise for the anxiety, try to keep active and do some hobbies, work, socialize to the best of your abilities. Biggest mistake I made in the early days was sit around and think about my tinnitus endlessly, then get worried doing anything outside of my house - that thought process was real negative for me and halted my progress returning back to normal until I realized that needed to change.

Good luck! Look into stuff like NAC, Niacin, Melatonin, B12 aka Methylcobalamin and magnesium. There are studies that indicate these can protect hearing but my research is probably dated now (was obsessive back in 2013/14 but haven't kept up since then).

 

@yonkapin your post is just so relatable but has made me feel better, seeing as your ears are not reacting now as badly as they had in the beginning. It's absolutely awful waking up every day and choosing to stay in rather than go out in fear of exposing yourself to noise.
My worst fears are the unexpected ones. For example just now I knocked a glass off a glass bowl and the noise... although only a few seconds, hurt. But I fear I'm making everything into a big deal, like I'm dwelling on the worry of it becoming worse rather than just moving on. It's awful but starting from yesterday I've decided I can't dwell on it any more, I'm making it worse and I believe my brain will forget about it if I continue to ignore it.
For example the weird high pitch noise I was hearing which prompted me to write this post? As soon as I accepted my ears acting up and forgot about them yesterday, it disappeared.
It's going to take loads of time but I'm hoping to get where you're at by next year.
I take magnesium but haven't tried anything else as my tinnitus isn't very loud and it improved greatly from what it was so I figured I'd just leave my body alone as I do eat healthy most days and drink lots of water.

 

Glad I could help a little, and yes I can definitely relate. It's very common to be very sensitive to noise when you first experience tinnitus.

I remember dreading washing the dishes because if I clanged the plates too loud it was torture. Or going to cut the grass, even with hearing protection. Or having someone yell too close to me, dogs barking, etc. I remember dropping a plate once then freaking out whether it was going to make my tinnitus or hyperacusis worse, and then the fire alarm went off at the same time which made things even worse but then I realized by the next day nothing had really happened and my ears were fine.

It'll take time but you'll get there. Positive mindset is key. And exercise was a massive help in my case.

 

I've been experiencing T since 2002. I was still quite young at 28 back then. There is no point in denying that it does thrust you into a new state of awareness that you didn't have prior. I now try very hard not to 'hyper-focus' on my hearing and take precautions in loud environments which I probably wouldn't think to do if I didn't have this condition.

 

You will never be able to completely avoid these incidents. However, doing what you can to minimize the number of times these incidents happen ought to be enough to promote your recovery.

 

@yonkapin
Oh my god, I would've totally freaked out in that situation, with the alarm going off as well... It's almost like when we have T we're attracting more and more noise haha, but I think it's more of a case of us noticing noises more.

I'm trying my best to ignore my ears today and it's really helping. In a way I felt like a slave to my ears, kind of like having ocd, checking and checking...

I'd like to go to the gym, specifically classes but I know the classes are very noisy.... perhaps just a gym membership.

Thanks so much for the support.

@Static Sophie 73

28 is so young. I'm only 24 myself and I just feel kind of cursed, thinking of living with it forever... but I'm not going to go there, postive thoughts only now haha.

@Bill Bauer

Exactly, there's nothing we can do about these noises, I think they're the ones that scare me the most, how you're not prepared and BAM! the fear kicks in and you're in full panic mode.

 

Well I cant do these things:

1) Clubs
2) Concerts
3) Festivals
4) Loud Veneus
5) Resturants
6) Cafes-inside, Café-outside yes
7) Certain stores like Home Depot
8. Walking outside next to a busy road
9. Rolling down window so wind hits my ears..loved doing this on my trips
10. listen to audio in the car
11. no cinema