Hi Everyone

Hi all,

My tinnitus just started about a week ago. I am a long time musician and have attended many concerts back in the day. I am 56 now. I may have had some very low level tinnitus for a while but after seeing a band at a bar, which did not seem that loud to me, maybe 2 days later a high frequency ringing started. This has completely disrupted my life. I am in the middle of school, trying to get a degree since I lost my job about 9 months ago. This put me into a complete stall on that because I can't concentrate or sleep.

My wife of course wants to run the other way and just tells me stories about people who suffer with things everyday and make the best of it and I should too. I have read stories on this forum about what a common occurrence that is but it makes me even more depressed that I can't get empathy from my own spouse. That's why I decided to join this forum.

The constant theme I see is that it gets better and you acclimate to the tinnitus. I have a question with regards to that. Is it better to forget about all the noise machines and masking type therapies in order to acclimate faster or are these things a good part of therapy?

I've seen a general practitioner who did a hearing test and said my hearing is good. I am currently waiting on a referral to an audiologist.

 

First of all, don't over-worry about it, it may very well be temporary and possibly not even due to the music you heard. Anxiety makes tinnitus symptoms worse, and the less anxious you are, the better you will feel - that is something that virtually everybody here agrees on. Don't be too hard on your wife, her reaction is not uncommon. Many people, even some doctors, think that tinnitus is not something which should cause the afflicted person any concern, and they need to be better educated about it.

There are a number of very good threads and posts by member Michael Leigh, about virtually everything you need to know regarding sound machines, ear protection, the correct mindset, and many other aspects of dealing with tinnitus. I'm just mentioning Michael because he's one of our most respected and active members, but we have many other members who are experienced with various types and degrees of tinnitus, as well, who provide excellent advice and information on a regular basis. I'm a newbie, so I can say much more, but I'm sure that you'llfind lots of info and support here, to answer your questions and concerns.

 

I'm a newbie too. I wanted to mention that I have found sound enrichment very helpful for sleeping (especially early on). I used it frequently during the day as well for the first few weeks when my tinnitus was very bad. I found that using total masking sounds allowed me to "take a break" from the tinnitus from time to time which was very helpful while I got my mind wrapped around what was going on.

I think that the conventional wisdom is that total masking is not helpful long-term if habituation is your goal, but partial masking is fine (something that you can hear the tinnitus over but still helps reduce the annoyance/distraction level). Especially at night if it helps you sleep better... Finding a way to get good sleep is key.

 

Welcome to the forum. It all depends on how your tinnitus is affecting you in your daily life. If your are super distressed by T with all kinds of negative emotions including suicide ideations, then it is better to deal with the problem of the bad reaction first. Masking will buy you time until your body will get more used to the new normal of having T and all its issues in your life. You can set the masking volume slightly below T so you can still hear it while it being distracted by other more soothing masking sounds. This way the brain will slowly be more receptive of the T without caving into mental trauma by T and so you can still function and live your life. About the spouse, I agree that often they won't understand why ringing ear can so adversely affect our emotions. Perhaps you can show them some tinnitus videos especially the one prepared by Steve via Tinnitus Hub, and Steve is one of the admins of our forum. Take care. God bless.

Tinnitus Hub: Sounds of Tinnitus

You can also let her watch this film by Zoe Cartwright who is completely deaf but with loud T:

Tinnitus Short Film - 24.7.52.10.

 

Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback. The thing that worries me the most right now is that my main type of work before I was laid off was coding microcontrollers. I changed my direction a little after getting laid off by going back to school to get my degree in software development since no one would even look at my resume because I don't have a degree. I found it hard to concentrate in noisy environments before this started. Now I'm wondering how I could possibly concentrate at all since I've done almost nothing in the past week as far as school is concerned whereas before this I was putting in about 40 to 50 hours a week on school. Just wondering how I could be a competent employee in such a thinking intensive field. Are there any engineers or software developers out there dealing with this and doing their jobs well?