How a Single Moment Can Change the Rest of Your Life

Hi everyone,

My name is Robert. I'm not sure when my tinnitus started. When I was younger , I noticed a slight high pitched sound at night when I wanted to go to sleep. I figured it had something to do with all the noises I heard throughout the day and that my ears needed to recover from those noises. I thought nothing of it.

Two years ago, a fright train loudly stopped at the trainstation I was waiting at. Even though the sound from the train was deafening and painful, I kept my ears uncovered. From that moment on I noticed that the high pitched sound in my head got louder. I used Youtube and ASMR videos to mask the sound so that I could fall asleep. I was able to live perfectly fine with that small annoyance.

Three weeks ago, however, I went to a disco with my girlfriend and some friends. I didn't take any precautions and I'm not sure if I even thought of any risks involved. After a couple of minutes there, I noticed I was standing in front of a speaker that was muffled away in some fake bushes. I tried to move a couple of meters away and kept dancing. After half an hour I thought to myself that this isn't a good idea, so I left. I didn't notice anything until three days after. But now my tinnitus has become louder. I can hear it above everything else.

I'm not sure if it's only psychological because I keep focussing on it every minute of the day. Maybe that's what is causing the spike. I can't seem to remember how loud it was before, but it wasn't this loud. It's around 11.000/12.000 hz. It was stupid of me to go to that disco, it was stupid of me to not cover my ears when that train stopped. I guess I have to live with the consequences of my actions. I hope it will get better as time passes. A cure for this seems too far away. I sometimes wonder what it's like to hear absolute silence. I hope I can cope with this down the road. Right now I don't feel positive about any of this. But I'll get there eventually.

Thank you for your time reading this. I hope you are doing well yourself.

Kind regards,

-Robert

 

I'm so sorry this is happening to you.

Take care.

 

It may settle down to its previous volume.

 

@Grimmfandango

Try reading a few posts in the success forum. It has provided me some relief. I hope your T calms down soon. Best wishes.

 

I really doubt a single disco night and one train is going to cause all that damage

I regularly went to very loud, small clubs throughout the 1980's and 1990's and didn't wear any protection - of course no one did back then, until around 2005 maybe I started to wear plugs , and still had zero T for another 10 years

 

Hopefully it will calm down soon. Hopefully temporary. Sorry you are going through all this.

 

Hi Robert, don't beat yourself up too much about not protecting your ears. We've all been there. At least you listened to yourself and left the party after half an hour. Give it time (a lot of time!) I think things will get better for you. Take care, Maria

 

Thank you for all the kind words. I feel welcomed. I'm glad that this is a place where we can share our story and that we're not alone in this.

Bobby B, do you think it's more psychological than actual tinnitus or that those two moments aren't the main reason for the tinnitus?

 

Hello Robert,

I'm not Bobby, but i'll answer you
Yes I think, a big part of T is psychological ...
It's very hard not to think about it and move on to something else, but I can tell you that you will pay less attention to your tinnitus.
For example, I have tinnitus for only a month and a half, they went off after a night out. Since then, I've been trying not to think about it, as if it never happened to me.
When I am in a noisy environment (restaurant, pub, streets, station, ...), I convince myself that I fear nothing (even if I try to be careful of).
For the moment it works and I manage to enjoy life as before, even if there are times when is bad.

Take care
Théo