Finally Some Changes

Hi all,

I'm a musician and have had tinnitus for 18 years (very loud hissing) and since a burnout 2 years ago I had new multiple tinnitus sounds (low freq buzzing, new flute sounds, morse code), for me this was a real hell and I stopped playing music live as my ENT said it was because of music as I have moderate hearing loss above 6000Hz. I took all my courage together to continue work but the last two years have been very difficult. I also have sleep apnea and had two surgeries for this in a year so a lot of stress and not so fun things and no break, not even after a surgery (I'm working as a freelancer). On top of this I have faced a few terrible traumas so it seems I have some kind of post traumatic stress going on since a long time.

This summer we went like most years for some camping in the french Pyrenees and what's great there is that river and nature sounds covers most of my tinnitus except the high hissing tinnitus, so I was completely distracted from the new sounds there as I couldn't hear them. What's fun is that when I came home from vacation 2 of my tinnitus sounds were completely gone, I already got rid of my low buzzing tinnitus last year but this was really a surprise to me. The first two days, I really did my best to search for the tinnitus but couldn't hear them at all, so for a few days my tinnitus was gone, until yesterday I can hear it again but very low volume in very silent places, but still much better and I wonder if it's not just me searching for it.

I don't really know what happened for sure but there are a few changes in my lifestyle maybe that did the trick. I usually am very careful to what I eat, little alcohol, no gluten, not too much sugar. But this year I had enough of it and went for a pleasure diet during vacation , with some sport (running in mountains and bicycle) and a LOT of sleep, more then usual. Maybe it's just the sleep and the fact of being far from work that made the change. This has been the first vacation in years where I could take such a good break from stress. Also my hyperacusis seems much better, I support louder music and sounds again, this happened at the same time.

In the past two years, like most of us, I also tested a lot of supplements, but with limited results. But there are a few ones that seem to help, or at least I think so as I started these just before I went into vacation. So here's my protocol for now in case someone is interested, I'll update in the next weeks to see if the tinnitus comes back or if I can keep it low.

What to avoid (these seem to trigger tinnitus for me or make it louder)

- stress (work and emotional), anxiety (especially money and health related)
- lack of sleep
- clenching teeth during night and work
- sleep apnea, when I have severe sleep apnea at night I have definitely worse tinnitus in the morning
- everything that's supposed to give you more serotonine (tryptophan, 5-htp), at least for me it makes me very depressive and makes tinnitus even worse as well as giving me major anxiety
- loud sounds ... not sure anymore, last week I was exposed to two very loud noises, one in a store and one with my daughter who screamed in my ears for fun and while it made my ears ring a few seconds it didn't make my tinnitus worse at all, but I think that it's always best to avoid loud noises in general

What seems to help

- sleep, whenever you can, as much as possible
- some yoga stretching during the day
- sport
- breaks from work (difficult for me as I work as freelancer but I try to)
- having fun and a good drink with friends
- eating good and a lot, also for pleasure, I lost a lot of weight when I had my burnout and seem to have difficulties to gain weight since ...
- stop thinking about difficulties, especially money issues and family stress
- I started EMDR therapy 7 months ago and feel this is helping me to get rid of some negative thoughts and traumatic events I had to face in life
- supplements: zinc picolinate 20mg, hydrolised collagen peptides 40mg + vit C in the morning (help a lot with eczema in ears, acne, gut, and overall health), vit D when I don't get enough light, methylfolate also seems to help especially with depression, but for some reason it gives me dry eyes so I stopped using it a few days ago
- covering the tinnitus sounds with river, nature music is great because it helps not to think of it all the time
- meditation (very useful to get your sleep back)

Sad enough my high hissing tinnitus is still there but seem to calm down at moments to a lower volume, so maybe there's hope, we'll see. I had a friend who had major tinnitus and it took him 5 years with meditation and a lot of work but he managed to got rid of it or lower them to a more comfortable level, and now I have to believe him.

Hope this post can help, I was completely desperate 2 years ago, but now I see that it's maybe not all definitive.

Good luck,

Hans

 

Well done!!! Just goes to show how often stress is involved

 

Indeed and I have the impression that getting back to work is not really helping things, I can hear slightly the old T's coming back, it's much much lower as before, hardly noticeable so we'll see, but this really is interesting and learns me that I definitely need to change some things in my life to keep myself zen.

 

Damn

Wow man hang in there. You're a soldier.

 

So it lowered in volume?

 

Thanks John!

 

Well in the first days two of my T's were completely gone, no way to hear them even with the biggest effort, but one seems to come back (morse code type of T), the other one also but at a very low volume barely to hear and I think it's because of my teeth clenching/sleep apnea which is worse since a few days, I also have pain again in my jaw in the morning, I guess because of the stress of work that's also back.

So here's what I think is happening :

stress from work and family seems to make me clench teeth and gives me also bad nightmares, which worsens my sleep apneas, and the result is T's in the morning with a bunch of other issues. It's clear to me that I needed a break from work after my burnout 2 years ago, something I never did because of financial reasons. It's a very complex thing, but for sure for me I start to understand what happens.

 

I took some Methylfolate + a coffee + nicotamine ribosone this morning, my high hissing T has lowered significantly. I also had good feedback on my work and took a break walking with the dog so must also have played a role But it shows how much stress makes my T fluctuate.

 

Some update 2 weeks after my vacation. Some of my T's seem to come back from time to time and the pattern is always the same and related to stress.

Yesterday I went to sleep, I only could hear my old high hissing T and I felt very well, relaxed, then this morning I woke up with sleep apnea and a bad dream, I felt just horrible and one of the other T's came back, after a few minutes of worrying about work yet another one too ... incredible, this is life living with a burnout.

burnout, worries about work, money, family stress => difficulties to breath & clenching jaw at night => sleep apnea => awful T in the morning

I must try to win the lottery and take a real break from work ...