Hello, Yet Another New Tinnitus Sufferer!

Hello, I am 62 years young and was just coming to the end of a cocktail of antibiotics and steroids for a chest infection when severe tinnitus set in. I have had it for about 4 months now and it is very loud and continuous. In the beginning, like many on this forum, I was completely thrown by this and in a terrible state. No need to explain I'm sure!! Thank heaven for my very supportive husband who really got me through the first few weeks. I have had an appt with ENT consultant and was provided with hearing aids with maskers. I wore these for the first 2/3 weeks but felt they made my T worse when I took them out.

I decided there were only two ways to go with this, either to live with it, or just not to live. The second option is not an option at all. My decision then was to fake it till I make it! I started making myself go out, meet friends etc, and that slowly enabled me to get some semblance of normality back to my life.

My GP gave me anatryptaline and Valium to help me cope, but as I have never had to resort to this kind of medication before I did not take them. I have coped so far by taking herbal sleep tea before bed and rescue remedy sleep capsule, it seems to work for me.

Obviously, I have read a lot about habituation and am living in hope that this will eventually happen to some extent. My tinnitus is very loud impossible to cover up and I hear it above everything, tv, in the car, everywhere. It's unbearable when I'm inside!

Very occasionally I might have an afternoon or so when it doesn't seem quite as bad, but these times are brief .
I do not feel so panicked by it now and I am amazed at myself by how I can sit and watch tv with this unbelievable sound going on around me! It's like gas escaping from my head. I had a loud whine over the top of it in the beginning but I think that has gone now! It is such a complex condition that it is difficult to describe it to others.

I have to say a thank you to this forum as I don't know how I would have coped without knowing that there are others in the same position and so willing to give support.

For now, I plod on day by day and live in hope that it will quiet down eventually even if only a little. I am thinking 18 months 2 years!

Anyway, many thanks to any who read this, yet another tinnitus sufferer!! Sorry post so long but it takes a while to explain in the beginning.

 

4 month is a short time, i started to heal after 6 months. Now it is one year in and I have half days good and half bed. Avoid loud places and medicine (i would suggest to avoid also valium and benzodiazepine). Hope you will have more good days, just have patient, lot of luck, Lele

 

Thank you for your kind words leledany. I hope your T is being kind and giving you a little respite.

 

Hello Daffodil, hope you feel better soon. As time goes by you will improve if you try to live your life like you did befor you got T. Do all the things you did befor and you will find small windows of time when your brain focuses on other things besides your T and you move out of that fight or flight mode that we all have when first afflicted with the sound. I have had T that I hear over the TV and almost everywhere except the shower. After a period of time you actually habituate and your brain kind of pushes it back out of your consciousness and you really dont hear it every minute like at the beginning. I can now go for hours and not notice it but that took over one year to achieve. At night I do play sounds of nature to sleep for most folks when your brain is not occupied with other thoughts the T seems to creep in. Sounds of crickets, water running, birds chirping or ocean sounds are relaxing and blends with your T for a decent nights sleep. I tried all the suppliments and snake oil cures and nothing seems to help. Xanax and valium helps if your really struggling but is not recommended for long term use. Try to protect your ears from loud sound and highly recommend seeing an ENT to check your ears for impacted wax, infection or any other abnormalities. You will get better with time and even when you hear the T it wont bother you for the most part. Most folks improve with time and dont even care about it anymore......Many of my friends have it too..

 

Thank you so much for your kind reply WA. It is amazing how many people you seem to hear about who have tinnitus in varying degrees. I'm just living in hope that it will eventually calm down a little but realise this could take a long time. I'll post occasionally to report any improvement if and when it happens in the hope of encouraging othersAgain, many thanks.

 

Welcome to the forum. You are doing quite well considering your T being quite new and so loud. Habituation will come. It may be slow at first but it will happen and as your brain starts to get used to the new sound and the new normal of T, it can harden to the sound in a process some called neural plasticity. I don't know if you have tried these masking sounds. Hopefully you can find some which can help mask your T. If your T is high pitch, try the heavy rain, waterfall, cicadas, even shower or faucet sound. When my ultra high pitch T first arrived year ago, I had to use faucet sound a lot to get some relief from the oppressive high pitch T. Try these options of masking if you need them. Take good care. God bless.

1) Mask at bed time if having trouble sleeping, by using a sound pillow or sound machine with pillow speakers. There are good sound machine & pillow therapy systems like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Oasis-...d-Oasis-Therapy-System-Speakers/dp/B00MH5HKTA

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipod with nature sounds or music using itune. If you have a smart phone, you can download free APPs for soothing or T-masking sounds. Use wisdom in the use of headphones or earbuds as extended use or excessive volume may hurt your ears. Try set the volume slightly below that of your tinnitus.

3) With PC & speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds to see which one masks best:

TT's excellent audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: https://mynoise.net

or download free sound generator ‘aire freshener’: http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or click play to mix these sounds with this simple sound generator: http://asoftmurmur.com/

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

 

sorry to hear that you have t to deal with..

which antibiotic were you taking?

have you seen the back to silence video?

 

Thank you so much billie48 and DebinAustralia for your kind replies. It is so helpful to know there are people who understand
I was so upset in the beginning, for many reasons, most of which you will all know, but I have 2 lovely little grandchildren for whom I do a lot of childcare and the sound of their voices was unbearable. I am coping with this better now and just keep telling myself I have to as they are so important to me. Tinnitus is such a cruel thing when it is intrusive and severe.
There is no doubt I felt debilitated by it in the beginning, but I stuck to a routine and tried to keep going as normal! It seemed the more I did this the easier it became, not that it is easy, I do have to quell the occasional feeling of panic, but I know it's early days and I am just projecting myself ahead in the hope it will slowly get easier.
I think what got me out of the really bad panic stage was firstly reading others positive stories on here and secondly deciding I was just going to 'fake it till I make it'! Sounds silly but I think it slowly started to work.
I hear it 24/7 some of the worst time being going to bed and waking up, it is so loud on waking up that I have to het up whatever time I wake so I don't just lie and listen to it so I think it is making me tired.
I can't remember which antibiotics I was on unfortunately, I know I started with amoxicillin then was put on another one which I think was one of the mycin type antibiotics.
It's terrible to get this at any age , but I do feel for the young people on here who are genuinely suffering badly. I am constantly warning all the young people I know now to look after their ears not sure they are listening though by the way they roll their eyes to the ceiling

 

One thing I have found is that whistling is the best masker!, having the added bonus that if you don't feel happy you sound it!