Have you had to habituate a second time and were successful?

I know myself and a few others are in the situation of having to or wanting to habituate to T for a second time after their T got worse. I thought some positive stories from people who had to go through this and were fine again after a while would be great to hear right now. I know there are some success stories here in the success story section that come from people who went through adjusting to T twice (or maybe more) but I'd really appreciate seeing them here. Thank you. I have to get regular fixes of positivity in order to stay positive. Thanks.

 

Trust me, I'm in the same exact boat as you are.

 

Yes! I've had to do this multiple times for smaller/shorter-term peaks in the level of my T. But there was a big increase for me about 2 years ago and I was so, so upset about it, because I had gotten to a really good place with not noticing my T and because I blamed myself for it getting worse again. I got really down about it. But over time it did become less noticeable, and going through the process of habituating again has actually provided some benefit. Now I feel more confident that if my T gets bad I can handle it and get through it to the other side.

 

Thank you Tgirl. I know about the self-blame thing. In my case, increased T was medicine induced but I even blamed myself for taking the meds my doctor prescribed. As time goes on, I realize that there may have been a number of things that caused the T to increase mostly all out of my control. I still blame the medicine primarily but sometimes two or three things can come together. Your comment is very encouraging and I hope others will post too. Cheers.

 

It's easy to blame yourself, but it doesn't help any. I had a spike and lost my habituation last year when I took part in a trial. I was pretty angry at myself, thinking I shouldn't have bothered and shouldn't have kept using the device when it seemed to be making me worse.

But life is all about lessons I guess, I'll be much more cautious in the future. I wasn't in a great place for a while but I came through it, can't say I'm fully back to where I was but I'm not far away.

You can definitely get through and get back to where you were, it will take a bit of time and effort but you can totally do it.

 

I had an ugly spike a couple years ago. I put cotton in my ears because every little sound would get on my nerves. Eventually after a few months, the T was way down and I took the cotton out. At that point external sounds were tolerable and the T was not noticeable.

 

My spike just happened recently, do you think I should give it some more time to "heal" or something? Is there any chance it'll go back to base line in a couple of months?

 

Way before the internet and even the word 'Tinnitus,' I was dealing with this and having good results. When my T goes nuts, so does my sensitivity to most sounds - so in goes the cotton. It always takes a while. My longest return to baseline was 2 years, my shortest - maybe 2 months.

 

Hi Steve, you said it took a bit of time and effort to get better. Time will happen but what did you do for effort? I could use some help today. Thank you.

 

I had mild tinnitus for 9 years, and was completely habituated to the point I forgot about it. On 12/2012 my tinnitus become much louder and intrusive because of noise exposure (loud metal concert). Then it increased again on 2/2013 probably because of anxiety/stress or medications.

At first I battled with big depression and anxiety because volume increase and was in self-blaming hell. It took me year to finally accept my new noise and stop self-blaming. Now, after 14 months I am almost habituated again, and I am able to live normal life as I lived before T volume increase. No depression, anxiety anymore. I didn't do any special therapy and I am not taking any medications, this second habituation came with time.

Time and acceptance is the key. There is always chance the noise itself will improve or fade out, but what will surely improve is your reaction to it. Year ago I didn't believe I will be able to live normal life again, but I was wrong.

 

Mainly with masking and distraction, keeping away from loud places or where there will be irritating noise, getting headphones for my mobile phone (it annoys my ears), trying to focus on other noises instead of the T.

In general, the best effort I could make was with distraction. The biggest thing was in facing the anxiety response and trying not to listen to it, trying to put the T to the back of my mind.

I'm now back to the point where I have some (not that many) periods that I don't think about it, because I am so distracted it has gone to the back of my mind. The worst times are when I am vey aware of it - actually at the minute I have internet radio on and the last few tracks all seem to be lacking much high frequency content, so it's making it a lot more noticeable.

Totally agree with Map, time and acceptance. It's slightly annoying that we can't simply recognise that listening to the T is silly, we shouldn't do it, it doesn't belong at the front of our mind, then just push it out and forget it. I wish it was that easy but unfortunately it takes time.

 

It helps to have a strategy.

In my opinion, anyway.

Stephen Nagler

 

I agree with you there.

I'm aware that by not taking the time to sit down and plan out how I was going to re-habituate, I've extended the process. Definitely have a plan, research the things that will work and find what's best suited to you. Then instead of just being irritated by your T at times, you can reach for one of the ways you know will help.

 

... and if your goal is habituation, it really helps to be able to clearly define the term!

I mean, if you want to drive from Los Angeles to New York City, I would think your chances of actually getting there would better if you know where New York City is!

There are a number of ways to define habituation; one could probably write a book about it. But however a tinnitus sufferer chooses to define it, he or she should have a very clear idea in that regard and moreover be sure that the chosen strategy is appropriate for the chosen definition.

The above holds true if you want to habituate, if you want to re-habituate, or even if you just want to talk about habituation.

As I see it, anyway.

Stephen Nagler