Hello Family :)

Hi Everyone,

I've had Tinnitus for about 8 years It is truly the strangest thing I have ever encountered and for some the onset of it will send you threw a life you could never imagine. A lot of people wont understand what you are going threw and the only time they may try to relate is when you talk about it with them. The moment the conversation ends about what you we are going threw is the moment we continue to suffer alone with the ones we love separated by a sound that puts a wedge in our relationships.

Relationships are bound by understanding each other and the affinity of thoughts we share, once the onset of my tinnitus began no one could understand why I was so depressed and miserable. I lost a lot with tinnitus my job, my wife, my friends and my love for certain things in life. Everything that I understood about life and related to in life had to be relearned and newly appreciated with a new constant. A constant high pitched noise

Sound is one of the senses closely related to emotion and when we don't understand where a sound is coming from and why it is happening we fear it. A startling sound we may hear resolves after a moment and once we understand any startling sound we fear it less or understand what to do when it presents it self to us.

I understand what everyone is going threw with tinnitus 100%. I wanted to kill myself and hit one of the deepest depressions a human can endure, living minute by minute hoping it would go away and constantly suffering anxiety contemplating the ability to endure this sound for the rest of my life.

YOU WILL SURVIVE THIS AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY WITH OR WITH OUT IT, I PROMISE.

You must know I'm here with tinnitus and it has become a small stress in my life compared to what I prepared to do years ago to end the noise and many of you know exactly what I am talking about. There are many things that stress us in life and this may very well be one of the hardest things a person can endure besides a constant strong physical pain that only morphine can ease but with the severity of this condition there is truly a way to live life happily with it and find it normal.

Sometimes it will get louder sometimes it will get softer and sometimes it will seem like it's not there. Concentrating on the fix or what we did at the moment it seemed less is just chasing our tails looking for the answer and piles on more stress. I suddenly let go of that and said I don't want it to go away I want to learn to live with it because if I can then I am certainly strong and know that I have overcome something many cannot and if I do then I will surely let others know that it is attainable to feel good even with it right by my side

I will not hate my tinnitus nor will I love it but slowly I have become indifferent to it just like I am indifferent to the t cells that roam within my body. We will not forget it but we can pay it more attention. I use to be afraid to say to someone "you must accept this" knowing I would have to live by my word and do just that, start to accept it as my tinnitus. I will have it now, I will have it a few minutes from now, I will have it an hour from now, I will have it tomorrow, I will have it next week and next year and if I don't well my life as I know it now will not be normal.

I will have it with all of you and that is why I titled this Hello Family

God Bless Us All!

Michael Lapers

 

I hear so many stories how it went away and then I hear stories, like yourself, that it has been with you for some time now. I'm curious how yours started and what initiated this nasty thing. I have had mine for a year now from TMJ, I think, the TMJ is better with an orthotic I wore for a year but the T is still in my right ear, and yes it does go up and down at times. My NM dentist believed that it from something physical I did and affected my neck and jaw. Did you ever have any procedures done to alleviate this?

 

Hi Chicken,

I believe strongly that mine came from an ototoxic painkiller I took for 3 days after I suddenly had a back spasm.
I noticed a feeling of vertigo while on it and stopped taking it. After some research I found many medications are ototoxic and can damage the cochlea with whatever garbage they decide to put in a pill and sell.

Many antidepressants are ototoxic and blindly Drs are prescribing them for patients for dealing with tinnitus possibly causing more problems than solutions. It may be from tmj that you have tinnitus but that is not the key here.

Our minds are extremely set on finding relationships between occurrences and we will try to find a reason why something is happening. Monitoring our tinnitus is the key to our stress and the connection we start to put together obsessively seeking answers, I did this constantly and no longer do with all things it is a process and i notice the stronger willed people have the most problems with it because we see our self as being able to change our situations.

Nothing is stronger than a constant like gravity tinnitus will be there and if we fight against gravity we will surely lose so we accept it not as a defeat and not as a matter of concern but if monitored gravity every moment trying to figure out a way to live with out it we become defeated.

Right now turn your attention to gravity and try to figure out a way to defeat it's omni presence, do it for a moment or more than a moment, maybe an hour or so, surely it will start to drain your energy and drive you crazy. Somethings we accept with out knowing we have already and that is what will happen with your tinnitus just like the air you accept to breath and you will be there and have been there already in moments of life with your tinnitus when you feel it has lowered or raised in volume but in reality it has stayed the same.

 

I believe what you say Laperson to a point. Mine actually does fluctuate at times, it is not the same. Probably because it is somatic and in one ear. Coincidentally, the same side as the TMJ. I also to Dr. Jastreboff one day last year and based on what I told him he did say it would go away--I guess the question is when??? I think you believe that once you have it it's there for good. In the beginning it did drive me crazy and just beginning to live my life was very hard, but I'm trying as you did and sometimes it really works.

 

Hey Chicken,

I know how hard it is Chicken I don't want you to be discouraged about what I wrote and all things are possible, if it is possible we get tinnitus it is surely possible it can go away I'm just writing what I wrote as a way for people to see that I still have it after many years and want to share that it' can become more than manageable and hardly annoying at all.

I really need to express this as hopeless as I felt I remember reading others saying just what I am writing and felt it will be forever before I feel like that. I want to be a comfort here not a deterrent. Just know even when you can't that your going to get through this and be in a place that is just as peaceful as before you had tinnitus.

 

thank you Laperson, it is always a pleasure to read the responses and "pep talks" from my friends on TT Forum. I always feel encouraged and all you guys keep my head up and make it so so tolerable.

 

I wanted to add my Mom has had tinnitus for a long time and she says when she eats hot things like hot sauce or chilli peppers mostly hot pepper like things it lowers hers.

She liked taking cayenne fruit http://www.walmart.com/ip/SV-CAYENNE-100-COUNT/10416559

I want to see if people are willing to do scientific studies on taking Cayenne fruit capsules for 2 weeks and review the findings.

 

Thankyou for this Michael. I feel its just what I need right now. I identify so much with how you were before you reached acceptance. God Bless.

 

Hello laperson

Your words are kind and meant to encourage but there are many different types of tinnitus. Although yours may stay at the same level and it is your perception of it that changes, some of us do have tinnitus that goes away completely and then comes back.

Welcome to the forum.

Click

 

Definitely agree with you and I hope we all have that same blessing!

 

Hi Chicken- I was looking for any " fix" to my tinnitus too. I have been to a TMJ doctor also and was diagnosed with mild TMJ disorder and was prescribed a elastic mandibular advancer. I really didn't have any pain in my left TMJ.

I was searching for a way to stop the noise, but the oral appliance doesn't seem to have helped much, if any. The TMJ doc thought that it would, but it might take months. I haven't found any other way to treat it either. I can understand your frustration.

I am scheduled to get a upper neck cortisone injection on 2-27. This may help my T, at least thats what the doc thought. It would be in the C1-C3 area. I am also investigating sleep apnea as a potential cause. I did other posts on this.

I will update if I have any luck with the neck injections. I have other things that could of caused it too, like noise exposure & ear infections. So far I don't have any good advice for you, but understand your suffering. We may in fact be chasing our tail like laperson said, but we still need to know how to manage it if thats the case.

 

j1mt:

I truly had TMJ, popping clicking pain in the shoulder neck for at least six months, my mouth even deviated to one side after root canal procedures on the left side and my mouth was open for a long time. a week after the root canal i was bent over in my driveway and scrubbing and that night my ear started the t and i couldn't open my mouth more than a inch or so. awful. my nm dentist was wonderful and the tmj is really gone when some discomfort in the muscle at times but that damn t in the right ear sucks. i had injections in my right jaw, the homeopathic version of a muscle relaxer, that helped. i'm still going to a chiropractor for my shoulder though. research the tmj thing, more people have t from that than suspected.

 

Chicken:

Yours sounds like full blown TMJ disorder which I didn't have. I was just searching for a answer for my tormenting T and someone told me to go to a TMJ doc. I do have quite a bit of crepitus in my left TMJ. That is why I thought the appliance might help my T. I went to a prolotherapy doctor and he did injections to my neck and both TMJ ,but I don't think that helped, and it was all cash.

Seems like everyone will do anything to get rid of their darn T. I am having the cortisone injections, as I stated before to see if that helps. Sometimes unstable upper neck vertibra can cause T as some nerves to the ear come out of that area, at least that is what I have been told.

I have been to chiro's recently and stopped for now ,until I get results from the neck injections. Good luck and update me on your condition, as I will update you on mine. Hope we don't continue chasing our tails.

 

Laperson,

Your original post is spot on, for me. I have had T for 5 years and have experienced all you spoke of. Especially, chasing of the tail. Anyway, great post... Thanks