Help Me Please

Hi,
I live in the north of Europe, so please forgive me for making mistakes in my English. I have had really, really bad T. since 4 december last.

In May of 2015 I had major heart surgery. It did not go very well. I had a pacemaker implanted and then went into rehab. On October 2014 my doctor decided I needed drugs to keep my heart rate more steady. I took Verapamil, Flecainide and Aprixaban for 5,5 weeks and then all hell broke loose.

I've had I minor case of T. before this happend. I could ignore it and would only notice it when lying in bed. I had a 5 day spike in T. after a MRI in March of 2015, but that just went away by itself to its normal level. But not this time. After 2 weeks of hell I stopped all my heart medication in the hope that the noise would go away. It only got worse. I started having very strange effect on my hearing. Sometimes I could not hear low tones, I got H. that fluctuated. In between anxiety attacks and bad bouts of T. I would was almost constantly nausiated. In january of this year I could not take it any longer and got into deep depression. I just wanted to die. This triggered me to be even more anxious because my dad committed suicide when I was 17 years old. My T. sometimes 'exploded'. I would feel pressure building behind my eardrums and if I got too tired/active it would just start SCREAMING as loud as I never could have imagined. This happend twice and really traumatized me.

My husband then called upon the help of our friends and family who came to talk to me and help out. I have three beautiful children (18, 15, 12 years old). I was very able to cope with my heart condition but T. has me in its evil grip and I can't seem to escape.

It got so bad I went to see a psychiatrist who wanted to put me in the psychiatric ward. I guess just for my own safety but I looked around and felt so scared and out of place. Thank god my loved ones were prepared to look after me and to keep me out of that place. I've been on Remeron 15mg for three weeks and have been taking Xanax 0,5 mg twice a day. The Xanax really helps to reduce the T. level and H. has mostly disappeared. The Remeron helps me sleep. Because I don't want to be a drug addict I tried halving the dose of Xanax this weekend. Bad idea. T. came roaring back relentlessly I started thinking about suicide so I stared taking Xanax twice a day again and that has calmed it down.

I'm reading the positive post and keep talking to myself. I go to see a therapist every week for CBT for depression. But I'm so afraid of the future. I don't think I can handle this. I'm going to loose my job because I cannot function even in daily life in normal way anymore. T. has changed me from a independent strong woman to a total wreak.

Help.

 

Hello the medical community is working to cure tinnitus but we just have to learn to live with it until then. Not easy and we must not allow this condition to ruin our life. It is a choice. I have had tinnitus for 20 years. Everyone us different but heat helps me the most so far. Infrared heat from a wand I bought. It has heat with infrared. Some articles claim it cures some people of tinnitus. It helps me so much and I pray it helps you too. I will pray for you. I refuse to give up and this forum is excellent and it inspires me to win my fight against tinnitus.

 

Sorry about your suffering from the bad tinnitus, @hartje5. I have deep empathy for what you are going through. Like many members, I have been where you are now, deeply anxious, sleepless, depressed, scared for the future and had suicide ideations. Here on TT, members understand what you are going through. You can cry and rant to us and we hear you and understand your struggle intimately, for many of us have travelled the tough journey you are going through. A new T is tough on many people, even the strong ones. The suffering is worst at the start and many people like myself were turned into a wreck like you, fearing for the uncertain future, for the loss of job or the ability to continue a gainful employment, and for getting insane or even suicidal. This is the total package of T suffering. But don't despair and don't panic. Things will get better. Believe it. Many people have done that, myself included.

Right now your body is resisting this alien sensation. Failing to get rid of that, it perceives it as a mortal threat erroneously. T is annoying, irritating, and alien, but it is not an end game. It is livable and can be habituated over time with some good strategies. The success stories forum is full of such stories. People suffered like you and me big time initially, but gradually recover and live a normal life over time. Read up the stories to learn their secret and strategies. But the common secret is good old mother TIME. Everybody needs some time to get better. The body needs time to break in this alien sensation of T. So be patient.

T is not something you can rush or will it to go away. Don't fall into the trap of the lies of this T bully. It tells you T is an end game. I fell for the lie a few years back and suffered big time. Now all I can say is that I wasted a lot of mental suffering had I known that I would be living a normal and absolutely enjoyable life despite my ultra high pitch dog whistle T and severe H. My T is so loud and piercingly high pitch that it cuts through almost all sounds, including the jet noise in my last few flights. I can even hear it above the raging rapids in the salmon river I fish. It packs with so much condensed energy, like a laser in a night sky, like a dentist drill with 10 times the pitch.

I never thought I could stand this sound for long nor ever habituate to it. But never say never. I am living a normal and happy life again and I have written my success story like others do. I list many important points & strategies which have helped me. If you have time, read up as many success stories as you can. It helps to calm you and give you hope. Learn others’ insights on how to getting better. Just copy success. Have patience and wait out the storm. Your good life can be back. Believe it. Take care of yourself. God bless.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...w-i-recovered-from-tinnitus-hyperacusis.3148/

If you haven't tried masking your T yet, here are some suggestions:

1) Mask at bed time so you can sleep better. Find whatever sounds/music that are soothing to you. You can use a sound machine or sound pillow for this, or a computer with speakers. I even used ipad earbuds with some soothing nature sounds set a low volume just to distract from focusing on the T shrill. This way my wife didn't have to listen to my masking sounds.

2) If you need masking on the go, try use an ipad or use smart phone.

3) If you have computer and speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds:

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

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

or make your own rain sound: http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/rainNoiseGenerator.php

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

 

Thank you so much for your replies Billie and Sandy. Billie I read your success story every day I really admire your strength. The depression indeed makes me think very distorted. On good days I can see the distorted thoughts clearly and I try to correct them. Some days I just can't seem to do that, I'm just too tired and depressed.

My T. sound is an extremely high pitch tone, it sounds like yours, it moves around in my head, from ear tot ear, sometimes both ears sometimes its in my head and sometimes in my throat (which I really hate). My eardrums sometimes ache and I get a sense of fullness. When I get physically active it gets worse.

The Xanax and Remeron are making my T. less intrucive and more steady (in one place in my head) and Xanax makes the H. mostly disappear. T is not so much moving around anymore and quieter. Though this is a blessing the medication is making me very tired (maybe the depression and my heart problem is contributing to this, I don't know). To tired to live a normal life.

I am afraid the Xanax and the fact that my T (not the sound) is constantly moving around and changing in loudness is preventing me from habituating. I've tried halving the Xanax dose this weekend. T came roaring back, depression got worse. So I caved in a took my 2 x 0,5 mg again. Depression is more dangerous than T.

I hope that some day I can disconnect T. and H. from my emotional state. For now that still seems like an impossible thing to do. I don't know how yet but I hope I'll get there. I live for my husband and children now. Not for myself.

 

Are you adjusting the medication without medical supervision? That can cause severe withdrawal effects, including tinnitus and worsened tinnitus, as you discovered this weekend. There is a lot of info on the TT forum about benzos that will help you understand more about this.

You've been through a lot. Your new level of tinnitus is still in the first few months. It will probably settle down. In the meantime, continue to take the Xanax and give your body a break from the anxiety. That will help you to disconnect T and H from your emotional state, as you so accurately phrased it.

It sounds like you have wonderful support from your family. I think you'll do all right in time.

 

Thank you Cheza for your reply! I've tried reading on the forum about benzos but get scared from reading all these post because people are so different in their opinions. Do you have experience with taking / stopping Xanax? How did you manage? I'm seeing my psychiatrist this friday but all he has to say about it is that he considers my dose to be very very low. I'm probably one of the few people by the way who don't sleep well on Remeron. I was awake at 3.00 a.m. :-( and haven't been able to sleep ever since.