I Need Hope — Is There Anything I Can Look Forward To? (Tinnitus Onset About 6 Weeks Ago)

Hi everyone,

I introduced myself yesterday. I’m 23 years old. About six weeks ago, I got tinnitus from a night out at a club. Three weeks later, I did a course of prednisone.

I thought it had decreased, but realize that it hasn’t diminished since then. I’m becoming really sad and hopeless. I am upset that I will never again hear silence.

I had a great life before this and am not the same person anymore. I feel so helpless. Is there anything I can look forward to? I figure that at this point, if it would’ve gone it would’ve gone.

 

Relax.
Take magnesium daily.

Seems your tinnitus is mild... You still have time to improve. There's people with tinnitus and with hyperacusis, that makes the panorama more hard.
Hope you get better.

 

Yes! There are several technological breakthroughs in the works that may help us in the near future.

 

Thanks @1000 and @JohnAdams. I really appreciate it. I have been taking magnesium, zinc and B-12 daily.

I know that a lot of people have it much worse off than me. I didn't have hyperacusis. But I am really sad and it's hurting my family and friends. For my own peace of mind, I am praying that this will get better. I've had surgeries for other health problems in the past, but have never felt this hopeless.

 

Yes. For many T does get better in time. You still have time for it to fade.
Good luck!

 

It will get better and you will improve but its impossible to say that its permanent. You gotta have hope that it will shift or turn into something which is easy to deal with. It is possible to have tinnitus technically and it completely not affect your life, it's just that there is a tipping point with it.

There is also some hope that we will get some relief soon from devices and maybe even repair the damage one day with drugs. Each day you will feel different about your tinnitus, every day is different but time is the only thing that will make any real difference.

 

I appreciate it @GregCA. Are there cases of noise-induced T resolving or fading after six weeks? Since damage was clearly done to my inner ear, I find it hard to imagine!

 

Yup. You'll find examples at https://www.tinnitustalk.com/forums/success-stories.47/

 

Thanks for the link, @GregCA.

Also, unfortunately, despite not having hyperacusis, I do have ear pain in my left ear (the side with worse T) likely due to TMJD. I was diagnosed by two oral surgeons this week after I started to experience TMJ pain two days after my T onset. Must've been the stress.

 

The TMJ could be the cause of your tinnitus and the nightclub just coincidental. I had another severe noise come on when I got TMJ. I got a lower mouth splint from the dentist, wore it all day except when sleeping and saw a cranial osteopath weekly and 5 months later my second and most horrific noise disappeared.

 

As others mentioned there are 3 different devices in the works, all of them based on a similar principle (bimodal neuromodulation), and the information that we have on them is unusually promising. The devices are MuteButton 2 from Ireland, the University of Michigan device by Susan Shore, and the University of Minnesota device. The MuteButton 2 is actually scheduled for release to the European markets early next year - that is, in mere months.

I've been a tinnitus sufferer for decades and active on this forums since 2015 and this is the first time there is actual, well-founded hope for a treatment in the very near future. We've had our hopes up, then dashed in the past, but this time... this time it seems to be different.

 

@Aklara319
You can look forward to it getting better as it does for most.

 

Thanks for the replies everyone! I did my first session of HBOT today. I figured why not try while it’s still early?

 

Hello,

I'm in similar situation as you, alhough I'm not sure if my tinnitus has been caused by noise. It seems that the noise only aggravated it or added another tone. (I think so because my vascular treatment seems to have a positive effect on my pulsatile tinnitus)

Could you tell me what dosages of Prednisone did you get? I got a 90 mg dosage within 24 hours of my last spike, but I it caused multiple panic attacks. Today I started course of Dexamethasone, but I'm not sure my dosages are high enough.

 

I did a taper up to 45 mg for 4 days. 4 days at 20. 4 days at 10.

 

23 is young but you are an adult now. Children are protected from the harsh realities of adulthood and they often don't comprehend why their parents and adult figures in their life are such fuddy-duddies. No one gets through life without permanent life altering scars. This is the first taste of bitter medicine that the early adult bachelor type lifestyle is reckless and unsustainable. This won't be the last pitfall in your life but it can be one that you recover from if you choose to live a healthy lifestyle and educate yourself on how loud noise can damage you.

This is not to invalidate your sadness but life will get better for you. Please let yourself grieve for silence. Take the time to process your emotions and talk about them with someone you trust. You may not have silenve but with time the sound softens and becomes easier to block out.

 

Nice to hear this from a veteran of "hoping for treatments"...
Thanks for posting and hope we can have relief soon!

 

I’m sorry but 99.9% of people get through life without being subjected to anything close to the torment of chronic head noise.

 

Incorrect. Out of every 100 people alive today, 1 or 2 will face something bad enough to die by their own hands (see data source below); and we know suicide is wildly underreported. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. No one, literally no one will get through this life without suffering debilitating illness and/or depression and/or losing loved ones and/or suffering from malnutrition and/or losing a limb or whatever.

Let's not compound the hopelessness of others by claiming that us tinnitus people are some especially unlucky group. The vast majority of humans suffers or will suffer like we do, it's nothing special, just a normal part of this shithole existence. If not convinced, please do a Google search for Restless Legs Syndrome forums, or chronic pain forums, or bipolar forums, and you'll very quickly see that ours is not the only affliction that causes lifelong suffering, but is cruel enough to not actually kill you. AND we actually have upcoming treatments to look forward to, unlike some of the groups I mentioned.

(Mortality data for the U.S. for 2017: CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm. Keep in mind that the U.S. is a rich country, this is probably worse in other countries.)

 

Well said. Empathy and perspective are important. Life is full of ceaseless pain and suffering for many people.

I know parents who have lost children. They would trade their suffering with any of us without hesitation, but I would not trade my pain with their pain — not even in my darkest moments.

 

Bam, your writing is excellent and I find it difficult not to upvote every post you write because of it. You are great at painting a picture of the suffering these noise conditions give us.

However I also find myself often disagreeing with certain aspects of your posts. It's clear to me you are stuck in the 'bargaining' phase of grief. This is because you can't stop comparing this condition to other ones, thinking that the grass is greener. But no other worldly entity is going to hear your bargaining and trade it with the flick of a wrist. You can't exchange debilitating tinnitus for all your limbs. What is more likely is that you can be given all these other health problems for free.

Nature isn't balanced, there isn't an order to it, and it won't stop at just tinnitus, especially if we don't take care of ourselves. One traumatic health problem can lead to another. That cancer patient a lot of us say we'd rather be? Also has severe T and H because chemotherapy leads to progressive hearing loss. That person in a wheelchair that I used to say I'd prefer being as opposed to having cp, probably actually has cp too from whatever injury put them in that wheelchair.

T sucks. H sucks. It takes away what you can do. It takes away your peace, your relaxation, your comfort, your focus, your ability to think. It's not the only thing that sucks. Saying it is worse than every other problem in existence is a dangerous road.

It is the destruction of empathy and caring. It is a darkness in one's heart that drains out our kindness, making it impossible to relate to others.

Because when nothing is worse than our own suffering, no one else's suffering matters.

 

I’ve considered this a fair amount ironically......What if I were to be diagnosed with cancer next week?

It would take me all of five seconds to decide not to have any chemo or treatment. The doctors would probably raise a few eyebrows at this, perhaps try and get me to change my mind.

But I would not and I wouldn’t even brother to explain to them the nature of the torture, the misery, the hopelessness and the exhaustion of what I’m dealing with second by second each day.

And I definitely wouldnt exhaust myself further by getting them to see that dying of cancer might be seen by some as a gift when potentially facing decades of severe T.

If you cannot understand this or are in denial about how awful this affliction is, perhaps read some posts from @Allan1967 who hopes his smoking will kill him or @Basshell who after 30 years of this has delved to another level of hell. Or @1000 or @Telis or @vermillion and many many others.

I think you will find it hard to convince them there is a worse condition in existence. And yet despite what you say in your post, they all strike me as caring and empathetic individuals who have not lost that aspect of their personalities.

 

I wouldn't say I'm deliberately smoking myself to death @Bam but I'm most certainly aware of the consequences, which is just as bad I suppose.

I smoke to find comfort in this. Stupidly it'll be my next and last drama and if it takes me from this world sooner rather than later, I can live with that as will my family. Not ideal, but better for them that I die a more 'natural' death rather than by my own hand.

 

I have to keep agreeing with Bam. That's because no one is saying they would "rather be...". It's more they are saying they are (as I am) constantly at their wits end and really want.it all to stop one way or another .That's what the torture does to you. We are all, ultimately, saying it in isolation.

 

Apologies if that came across wrong Allan. The implication was that you are, like many of us, somewhat neglecting your health because you have zero interest in a long life with severe T.

I am the same. I was basically T total before this and now I’m a functional alcoholic. I drink three times my weekly allowance because I don’t give a fuck about my long term health. Like you I just want to sleep, find comfort wherever I can, numb the hell and hopefully die sooner rather than later.

This is not a normal state to be in and is certainly not a happy existence.

 

@Bam Are you considering getting a Neuromod (MuteButton) device once they start selling it?

The device will most likely launch next year:

 

Do you know for FDA approval, do they need to prove it works to get this or is that just a stamp to say it won’t harm you?

 

I want to see convincing proof the thing works first. I’ve already pissed away a fortune.

But yeah no doubt i’ll give it a go. If it genuinely works and significantly reduces this bullshit to a nice ‘only hear it in a very quiet room’ level which is sustainable going forward, I will be their most vocal supporter.

 

No offence taken and no need to apologise whatsoever @Bam ....totally in tune with your wavelength.

 

It is not denial of the awfulness of tinnitus, it is the perspective to realize that we alone do not suffer. An empathetic person would recognize that everyone has a different definition of what could possibly be the worst thing to happen to them.

I just clicked away from a different forum that I frequent. Three suicides and two currently suicidal members in the last few days. That’s not unusual, the forum often has suicidal members or members struggling with the suicide of a loved one. People convinced that their suffering is unbearable, that their life will never improve, that everything they ever hoped for is out of reach, and that they are no longer the person they once had been.

It’s heartbreaking to read their posts and the stories shared by countless others who have felt that pain, too.