Idiot Move: Blasted Myself with Soundbar at Best Buy

You make a good point, of course. I'm just really struggling, right now, and I'm getting very anxious and depressed about my condition.

I guess I just have a hard time seeing myself 'habituate" to this monster...

 

Bruce, check out my post about Dr. Minbo Shim who's training a doctor in Sarasota, FL. I'm being treated the first time 6-27, getting six treatments on my ear. PRP and growth factors. I'll be reporting back after the treatments. It's under the alternative treatments forum section.

 

Since my worsening it's taken a long time to reorganise my mindset.

I think accepting that this condition is not going to go away is the first major hurdle to get over, particularly for people like you and me who were habituated to tinnitus for many years.

I keep a journal. Actually it's just a very simple one with only a single word written against each day of the calendar month describing the previous day. At times I've used the word, Brutal. At other times the word, OK.

One month things might be 50% brutal. Or it might be 75% OK. It all depends. Tinnitus does what it will. The main thing for me is that if it's 50% brutal that means the other 50% was OK.

I've worked really hard to try and identify the kind of stuff that I might be doing when tinnitus ceases to be an issue. In fact to such a degree that it's non-existent. For me it's building work. Manual labour. Whether that's for other people or at home around my own house or garden, digging at stuff transports my mind into another dimension where I can completely forget about tinnitus and even hyperacusis. Building work (and growing some fruit and veg) means I can also create suff that me and the missus can enjoy, so that's an added bonus.

On the really good days/periods I've ceased to think that I'm cured. In fact I now make a point of reminding myself that there are still going to be brutal days ahead. Tinnitus is likely going to be a lifelong condition and it, not me, will decide when it's going to flare up and make itself known, or when it's going to remain calm. In a way, by keeping a very tight sense of control over my own perspective on this I think I've been able to let go easier and slowly surrender to my condition bit by bit. It's a strange process to be honest.

Stuff like this is how I've crawled my way through these past few years. Literally day by day. I don't think there are any Kumbaya moments with severe tinnitus. It's an extraordinarily difficult malady to live with. But if this experience has taught me anything it's how resilient I am. And I'm nothing special. My resilience and instinct for survival are exactly the same as yours.

 

Thanks, Scotty---I will check it out. Best of luck, and looking forward to reading your results!

 

Thank you, my friend, for a really inspiring and heart-felt post with some great ideas. I really like the idea of using one word to describe each day on the calendar. I think I will start doing that, myself.

Like you, I have good days and bad days. The problem, for me, is that even the good days, lately, are such that it is still quite loud and bothersome. That's a relatively new development. My hope is that I just get used to it, as I have every other times it's gotten worse, but I just don't know .

Everyone has stuff that they go through; ours just happens to be tinnitus. I try to keep a positive mental outlook, and look forward to things that I will be able to do in the near future. Will we ever be cured? My guess is that a full cure is unlikely, but a little bit of a respite would be nice.

Thanks again, I appreciate it!