I've had tinnitus for about 30 years now, but it's gotten severely worse in the past year. It started shortly after, when, during a heated argument, my ex-wife snuck up behind me and slapped both of my ears at the same time while I was sitting down. It's mainly in my right ear and at times also in my left ear. There are days it gets so loud I want to bang my head against a wall to try to make it stop, but that doesn't work. It just makes my head hurt.
I've had 3 hearing tests in the past 6 months, and all of them found I have high-frequency hearing loss from 2 kHz to 8 kHz. They've told me that hearing aids may help with my tinnitus, but with prescription hearing aids not being covered by insurance, I haven't been able to get them yet.
I've been prescribed Lorazepam (Ativan) by my physician to help with the increased anxiety, but it makes me groggy, so I only take it when I'm having a very severe spike. I'm also on a mild sleep medication, which does help me fall asleep, but I usually wake up around 2 AM with that screaming, high-pitched ringing that feels like it's coming from my right ear. I've done a lot of research and now understand it's my brain causing the ringing, not my ears.
I've also been taking Lipo-Flavonoid, and it does help somewhat, but it takes time to build up in the system and has to be taken at least twice daily, even when my tinnitus isn't as severe, or else it comes back with a vengeance the next day. I've also recently started taking magnesium supplements. It seems that every single thing I do slightly alleviates the ringing, but nothing stops it completely. I'm fighting through it right now just to write this post.
I feel empathy for everyone who has this horrible, debilitating condition, and I welcome anyone to comment on my post here. I'll update periodically, and if someday I can afford a good set of hearing aids, I'll post my results as well. I've looked into OTC hearing aids, but of course, they're nothing more than amplifiers, and most can't be tuned to match the specific hearing loss frequencies of the user.
In my research, I've found that Signia hearing aids are currently the only ones on the market that use a tinnitus therapy called Notch Therapy, which is a therapy that retrains the brain to ignore high-frequency tones and focus more on lower frequency input instead. The science behind Notch Therapy, as I understand it, is that once the brain stops expecting to hear certain frequencies, it stops artificially producing them, which can reduce tinnitus to a more manageable level.
Please, everyone, don't give up. We're all in this together.
I've had 3 hearing tests in the past 6 months, and all of them found I have high-frequency hearing loss from 2 kHz to 8 kHz. They've told me that hearing aids may help with my tinnitus, but with prescription hearing aids not being covered by insurance, I haven't been able to get them yet.
I've been prescribed Lorazepam (Ativan) by my physician to help with the increased anxiety, but it makes me groggy, so I only take it when I'm having a very severe spike. I'm also on a mild sleep medication, which does help me fall asleep, but I usually wake up around 2 AM with that screaming, high-pitched ringing that feels like it's coming from my right ear. I've done a lot of research and now understand it's my brain causing the ringing, not my ears.
I've also been taking Lipo-Flavonoid, and it does help somewhat, but it takes time to build up in the system and has to be taken at least twice daily, even when my tinnitus isn't as severe, or else it comes back with a vengeance the next day. I've also recently started taking magnesium supplements. It seems that every single thing I do slightly alleviates the ringing, but nothing stops it completely. I'm fighting through it right now just to write this post.
I feel empathy for everyone who has this horrible, debilitating condition, and I welcome anyone to comment on my post here. I'll update periodically, and if someday I can afford a good set of hearing aids, I'll post my results as well. I've looked into OTC hearing aids, but of course, they're nothing more than amplifiers, and most can't be tuned to match the specific hearing loss frequencies of the user.
In my research, I've found that Signia hearing aids are currently the only ones on the market that use a tinnitus therapy called Notch Therapy, which is a therapy that retrains the brain to ignore high-frequency tones and focus more on lower frequency input instead. The science behind Notch Therapy, as I understand it, is that once the brain stops expecting to hear certain frequencies, it stops artificially producing them, which can reduce tinnitus to a more manageable level.
Please, everyone, don't give up. We're all in this together.
