Hopeless

I joined this forum to seek information to help my son. He damaged his ears in April by shooting a gun without ear protection. He has been suffering from tinnitus since that time. He some permanent hearing loss but not at vocal levels. The doctor said it was tone and pitch. The ringing in his ears, the doctor said may go away but it may not. My son is at his wits end. He is irritable, angry, short tempered and feels hopeless. He is 21 years old and is sending heart wrenching texts messages about "I am not going to win this battle", "I cannot take this anymore", "there is no cure, treatment or relief".

Please, can anyone help me help him?

 

Hello @Worried mom
There is a section on this forum called Doctor's Corner where you could ask @Dr. Nagler about helping your son. Maybe Dr Nagler even knows a good clinican in your area he can see.

 

First off, I'm very sorry your son has to go thru this.
If you came to this forum earlier, there were steps he could have taken to mitigate his tinnitus, my first suggestion would be an intratympanic steroid injection within 72 hrs of trauma. Then there is the AM101 trial that helps with fresh tinnitus within 3 months onset.
At this point I can say to try sound therapies with counseling, like trt (tinnitus retraining therapy) where you basically retrain your brain to ignore tinnitus and it has a success rate of over 80%.
(see Dr.'s corner with Dr.Nagler for a referral in your area)
Otherwise there are not cures yet - your son is right. Although there is a very promising chronic tinnitus trial about to start in the UK.

 

I am really sorry to hear this. I know what that feels like when you shoot without ear protection and tinnitus hits. I was a teenager back then when it happened to me. It took me some days to recover and those days were total hell.
I hope your son´s tinnitus disappears.

 

So sorry to hear about his struggles with this... As his mom the first thing to do is completely understand what hes goin through.. Its definally not easy for him since there is no cure at this time... But theres definally hope! They are workin on treatments and cures for this horrible condition. You could read up on the am101 trials.. And also the autifony trials. Other then that, until theres a good treatment for this, hes gonna have to accept it or habuitate to it where it doesnt bother him anymore to the point he just ignores it. Easier said then done but he could look into TRT counseling or cognitive therapy to help him. Also ask him can it be masked? Thats a good way to get through the day too... Again so sorry! But tell him theres plenty of hope for the future and try to stay positive!

 

I have true empathy for your son's distress with his tinnitus. It is always hard to face such an alien and new tinnitus sensation. A few years back I was hit with ultra high pitch tinnitus and then soon after that severe hyperacusis so much so that I couldn't stand any sounds around me. I was in similar suffering and was desperate like your son. I didn't know how to go on, and each day I had to deal with relentless anxiety and panic attacks triggered by my T & H. I thought no way I could survive this. But in about 2 years I started getting better and now I am living my normal, happy and productive life again. I realized also many people have T, even celebrities. William Shatner, for example, Capt Kirk of Star Trek, was hit by severe tinnitus after an explosion on the set happened suddenly and too close to him and Spark the Fulcon. Both of them had to be taken to ER and Shatner said he was even suicidal. But then he got TRT treatment help via ATA which turned around his situation. Then he became the ATA spokesman. He even did a show with David Letterman to talk about their T. Letterman has 2-tone T also, one low and one high pitch. I will include the link here for your son to see it, to know that people, even famous people get severe T like us and do get better and still live a normal and productive life. Tell him don't give up. Get some treatment like TRT or CBT and give it time. Perhaps ask him to join this support forum so he does not feel he is the only one with this problem, and hopefully this site will help him get better. Take care and God bless his recovery.

David Letterman with William Shatner - March,...

William Shatner speaks about his tinnitus

 

Thank you all so much. I will share your stories and the messages from William Shatner. I am willing to try anything to help him. He says that his cannot be masked. He said last night that it sounded like a room full of crickets and there is no break. He is convinced that therapy will not work. I know that a lot of success depends on ones attitude. How do you get someone who is so tormented to change their thinking and be open to retraining? He is so sleep deprived, which probably adds to the severity of the condition. All he talks about is not living this way......

 

For now for sleep and nerve repair take melatonin, ALA and NAC. All can be purchased for local vitamin stores.

Read a thread about STEM CELL THERAPY "My Trip to Bangkok" by author AtTheEdgeOfScience. It details a trip by a respected forum member who has had T since childhood and his LLLT Laser Light Therapy treatment. He achieved some relief.

Read another thread about Retigabine, a Rx med that has elimimated a new sufferers T after the first 5 months. Its a hot topic.

Warning about MASKING. Do not try to out volume your T. Masking is to be used a distraction to help move uour focus.

Your son is not alone and ppl have had mild to severe T since the beginning of time and especially since gunpowder was invented.

 

I have visited many forums and read many, many people with tremendous sufferings from tinnitus. There are lots of people with cricket sounding tinnitus. If your son does not have ultra high pitch dog whistle type of tinnitus, or those with multi tones (like David Letterman), or those with pulsatile tinnitus, then his tinnitus may be easier to habituate. Yet people with dog whistle T like me and others with multi tones and pulsatile tinnitus or those with electrical storms in the head, many of these people have suffered badly at the start but are ok now, and have habituated to their condition or they are not struggling as hard as before and are no longer having suicide ideations. If your son like music, google search 'celebrities with tinnitus' and he will see a lot of famous musicians have bad tinnitus too, people like Peter Townsend, Streisand, Phil Collins, etc. etc., but they move on and still live their life without being suicidal. So tell him to seek some treatment (like Shatner did) and don't rule out these treatments without trying them.

 

Worried Mom, I know exactly what your son is going thorough - I have hearing damage from a .357 Magnum being fired without hearing protection in an enclosed space. It was a horrible experience, over 18 months ago, and it left me with permanent tinnitus. Most of the time my tinnitus is in the background, but every once in a while it can be loud - sometimes I hear it when I am driving if I listen for it.

But I am back to normal. I took the following description of my adjustment from another thread I wrote. Your son will be fine, but it takes time, and he needs to know that. It's very difficult for him to process all this now. But perhaps he will see some parallels between where he is now and where I was, and he can know that he can recover (but he'll have to take some care with hearing protection).

Please note I adjusted in a relatively short time - a couple of months - but we all can get there over time.

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I thought I would post this message for all those people that have just come down with Tinnitus and are having a difficult time adjusting. I've had tinnitus for about 10 months, and when I first experienced it I thought my days of fully enjoying life were over. Now, 10 months later, I'm about 98% back to where I was, even with my permanent Tinnitus.

Time, acceptance, and positive thinking helped me immensely.

On March 16, 2013 I was subject to acoustic trauma - a .357 Magnum gunshot in an enclosed space without hearing protection. I had near perfect hearing before then. Now I have a high pitched tones in my left ear - about 10 - 11 kHz, and a lower, square wave sounding tone in my right ear - about 7 - 8 kHz.

In addition to the T and the temporary threshold shift, I had a bad case of hyperacousis for about three weeks. Then, for about another four to six weeks, my ears were very sensitive to higher pitched sounds. Gradually the hyperacousis went away.

In addition to the T, for about the first month I could not distinguish voices in a loud setting, and my right ear sounded like a "blown speaker." Yes, I saw a specialist, but there was nothing he could do (my hearing is normal up to about 8 kHz, and then it drops off).

I was a wreck for several weeks. I could not sleep at all, and all I could focus on was this damn noise. The entire world sounded tinny and artificial. I tried masking my T at night to sleep, and it did not work. Add to this my Type A personality, and my love of peace and quiet, and you can understand that I was not in a good place - something had control over me, and I could not control it.

Things were not going well. But during this time I talked to people I know - friends and family. Turns out I have three family members and a friend that have T. And about a month in I started noticing that I would go several minutes without "noticing" my T.

I started forcing myself to think of the positive things in my life. My wife, my kids, may otherwise good health. I also put my T in perspective - I know of several people that lost loved ones to health issues while they were still young. I also stopped hoping my tinnitus would go away. Odd as it seems, when I gave up hope of a full recovery my emotional state got much better.

After about six weeks I managed to get my first full night of sleep, and without masking. A victory indeed. I noticed that even when I was focusing on my tinnitus as I lay awake at night, my mind would drift to other thoughts.

I can now sleep at night relatively well and without masking, but probably about once a week I wake up to my T at night. Whether it's the T waking me up or my sleep cycle, I don't know. I just fall back asleep.

My ears are sometimes still sensitive to high pitched sounds and loud noises, and I do what I can to protect my hearing now. When I'm going to be in a loud place I'll take along a pair of earplugs, just in case.

My T is not so loud - driving in a car can mask most of it. But working in the office or watching tv, I can hear it if I listen to it. So be it. My mind has adjusted, and I do think part of that adjustment was me willing myself to accept the T and get on with life. I know that this is not easy for many people, and it was not for me. I am fortunate that I managed to accept it after several months.

I don't know if I have habituated - I do notice my tinnitus often, but I do not let it bother me, and I can go for very long periods of time and not notice it.

If I could tell you exactly what to do to accept it, I would. But I can't; we are all different.

I write this only to provide some encouragement to readers that are having a difficult time with their newly acquired tinnitus. Trust in time and yourself. Good luck.

 

Sorry for your soon

All I can say, try LLLT as soon as possible. At leait he will sleep better. It worked for me and still doing it.
All he best