If You Don't Know What Caused Your Tinnitus, I Envy You

Those for whom T came out of the blue, don't have to struggle with guilt and regret that many of the people who got T as a result of acoustic trauma have to deal with...

 

Mine came out of the blue, but I know what caused it.

 

I think its better to know, because when you don't you keep asking yourself is there anything you should do more to find out what caused it which is own kind of torture.

 

There is a cause for everything, and often times there are wrong causes assigned. There is a lot of bias on the world of T, and you must have hearing loss, and most likely you were exposed to noise (who doesn't), and that must be the cause of T. One can have T for a metabolic issue, but it will be assigned to some meaningless loud event that happened a few days before onset. As a result, the root cause will be hidden, and no doctor will bother to play detective when T is the main symptom. Ignorance is not bliss.

 

Those that got tinnitus and have no clue(how they got it), could simply stress themselves out more and have more stress. Some can even keep questioning themselves and ask WHY did i get tinnitus? I don't envy those people at all. It can be quite scary...

 

The memories of the day I got my acoustic trauma disturb me more than the actual T...

 

Mine was caused by another person. A coworker being an idiot whom I still work with. Do you envy me?

Every time my tinnitus gets loud I get angry.

 

I'm told that mine is from hearing loss but I have a hard time believing that. I'm 27, work as a nurse and really don't do much to expose my ears to loud noises. I went to clubs in my early 20's but I'm going to say it's been at least 5 years since the last time I went, why would I be suffering now? I've had two hearing tests done now and both show very minor hearing loss so why the T if I'm so close to normal hearing?
I don't know if it's any better to know the cause or not really.

 

I have it from music, i had a lot of great times at concerts and yeah t is crappy but it's not like i did something intentionally stupid like setting off a firework next to my ear or something. I didn't know what t was before i got it so how can i be angry at myself when i was just going to concerts like many other young people.

 

Don't know the cause. I assume too loud noise and stress. But still, the cause doesn't matter for me because it's incurable

 

@Bill Bauer maybe you should talk to a therapist about those bad memories, perhaps your T can lower

 

Hey Alue-

That must be frustrating - knowing someone behaving in a fashion that caused your current, enduring challenges that unfold just as the sun rises and sets. If I am assuming correctly, the anger is associated to the event and person that caused it - totally natural, and I am sure your limbic system has anchored that anyway. I feel for you.

I have scars on my inner upper arm where someone who was being childish - a man behaving as a boy for just a moment - made a mistake, and nearly killed me. I had to be cut out of a car wreck and rushed to hospital on a stretcher. This person was an unknown agent on this planet, a nobody. As I recovered, I found out I worked with the guys WIFE. Every time I saw her, I could feel red fill in from my feet and fill my whole body like I was a vessel made purely to fill right up with this anger.

The day I was set free was when I decided to forgive her husband, to put it all into a new perspective, and let the whole f! thing go. As part of the process, I wrote a letter to her husband, I approached her at work - she had already moved into another team on the opposite side of the company campus to avoid me - I APOLOGIZED to her for her distress, told her I forgave her husband, gave her the letter, consoled her as she broke down in tears when fully understand the damage that had been caused to my body from the accident, hugged her, and finally walked away with my head held high and profoundly NEW spring in my step and a stronger beating heart from the whole process.

Not only did I let this event go so I could move on, but I GREW from it myself. Forgiveness primarily (IMO) is about the person doing the forgiving, letting them release themselves from the mental habits that have formed as a result of some trauma......set yourself free Alue.

And @Bill Bauer , I think the power of the tool of compassionate forgiveness cannot ever be overstated. I am not saying it is easy, but it will help set one free.

mf

 

Mine was caused by an antibiotic. I poisoned myself. Being mad at myself isn't going to make it better.

 

Which one?

 

Paromomycin. It's an aminoglycoside.

 

Personal perspective.. I think it's worse to not know the cause where you got your T from. I don't know how i got mine. Nothing is wrong with my ears and with T being a symptom that means that something in my body give me a warning on something else, even if the cause are at the moment unknown.

Still have few medical investigations around the cause for my T, atm the closest factor is FM (Fibromyalgia) that been in the family for generation both for females and males.

If i had the option to know the cause i would prefered that, but that are my personal preference and it can be totally opposite to another.

 

Wow that's a tough one for me. If I had noise induced, regret would definitely be a huge issue. On the other hand, not knowing exactly why can also drive one mad.

 

Mine was from self inflicted acoustic trauma. I had to learn to forgive myself. It's very depressing at first to know you were part of the cause of something that has affected you so profoundly, but ultimately it is possible to forgive yourself and move on. I kicked myself in the ass for months, which did nothing to help my condition of course. Its helpful to write down how you feel
about the situation. No one would wish this upon themselves, none of us saw this coming. There is only one way forward. You sound like a wonderful person. I wish you the best, Trebor.

 

There's a lot more to it than just that. It's actually not the person that caused it that I'm most angry with. My injury was swept under the rug and I was even threaded by management to not talk about my injury or symptoms with other coworkers. Which hyperacusis really is a disability, one that my job caused and I'm threatened to not even talk about it. Since my injury was invisible, it's all in my head and I'm just making it up even though it has wrecked my life.

Did your injury cause a permanent condition or loss of use? If I were better tomorrow I could move on, I have even forgotten about it and let it go when I was feeling okay and the tinnitus wasn't bothering me as much, but when it does torment me it all comes back.

 

Hi Alue-

Thanks for sharing more details, they help to put the previous comment into more context. Reading your situation, I can why it is hard - the response by your management seem like it violates many things, but most importantly you, your trust, and obviously your boundaries as a person who deserves to be treated properly. None of what you share above is doing that. I agree, hyperacusis is a disability; I have it too.

For me I have multiple scars on my body, some visible all of the time. I was t-boned by a car doing over 100mph and I was stationary. The impact caused multiple injuries, broken bones etc - all of those areas I feel pain in when its cold or I exert myself. I had damage to my pelvis. It disallows me from doing certain activities - I cannot run on tarmac, it has to be soft. I cannot squat either because I have an ache deep inside my pelvis area. My daughters wanted me to join them in a school sports day, 100m dash. I could not do it because of my pelvis problem.

Most times I forget about my scars until my youngest daughter normally points them out, and I do forget about my pelvis issue until I am asked to do something or I see something I would like to do and realize "ah, I cant do that". The other part to that car crash is that I still get flashbacks of the very nanosecond before the world went black. It took me years to be able to look at that memory and not freak out. I dont freak out today, but writing this, the memory is there and it does pull up a whole basket of darkness with it....but I always choose to just put the basket down and focus on something else.

In my original post, I did not intend to say you have no right to be angry at your situation. The post mentions getting angry every time the T gets loud; and so I wrote my response from a place of empathy and compassion. Knowing what I know of anger in my own life, getting angry every time the T gets loud is taking you from experiencing happiness, and probably not helping the T. Neurons that fire together, wire together, so getting loud T and then angry will become a habit.

Forgiveness has absolutely NOTHING to do with anything other than letting the person doing the forgiveness be free of their negative emotions. You have to want to let go of the emotions though for it to be of any use. It doesnt mean what happened was right, it doesnt mean those people feel any differently, it doesnt even mean your management team or the person that played a key role in your event is affected by your personal forgiveness process.

I will also add this - one possible reason, assuming I dont have Menieres (I still need more tests), is that my immune system was SOOO rundown after 6 months of EXTREME stress at my workplace, doing 100 hour weeks almost every week since last August, that my body got an infection that caused my current situation. There were a myriad of possibilities presented, but this was the most likely one. I got ill, from being overworked, and now I am deaf in my left ear and I have a very loud dentists drill in my head 24/7, with hyperacusis. I have every right to be furious at my employer. My wife was even talking about getting a lawyer to me when it all happened. A sentiment I have shared in another post though, is all of that will just take me to hell in a hand basket. I am disappointed at my situation, but I have let it all go. Since returning to work it has been almost as stressful as before my incident, but I have learnt new things about myself, how to work with my employer, how I deal with co-workers etc. I changed a number of thinks about what work means to me, and ironically I am enjoying my work again, which I havent experienced for a number of years in fact.

Again though, forgiveness is about the person forgiving being able to move past the hurts and negative emotions, and start to feel alive again.

mf

 

I feel you. The person who caused mine is a manager at my work who delivered poor training and exposed me to noise unnecessarily. I know it wasn't intentional, but I have so much anger and frustration that I just don't know what to do with. Lots of "oh dear, hope it's better soon" at work. I'm still in very early days, so hoping for improvement.

 

I just read your story. I don't know what worker's compensation is like in the UK (I'm in the US), but you need a lawyer. The OSHA regulations on noise exposure are way too high and woefully outdated. The NIOSH ones are too high, but they are better than the OSHA ones. I could pick them apart, but the biggest takeaway is they are based on what is "safe" for most people, not what is safe for every individual. I use the term "safe" loosely because their method for measuring hearing damage in the studies they based those levels on is flawed.

Talk to a lawyer and see if one will take your case pro-bono. That's what I did, they don't earn anything until the case is settled, then they get a percentage of the settlement.

 

I can understand that. It happened only a few weeks ago for me, so I very clearly remember the horrible screeching noise that caused my hearing damage and tinnitus. I don't think I'll ever forget that. I hope the memory fades though.

 

Just like a joke eventually stops being funny, those memories will eventually stop causing such an emotional reaction. It might take 6-9 months before it happens, though.

 

the normies don't even realize loud noise can cause tinnitus.

don't envy that.

 

You're right, I feel no guilt, even though I may have gotten my T from many yeas of logging with out ear protection, loud music, but not for sure. I have always had problems with that ear since I was a child. Low level hearing in that ear since I was young. But no matter what, I feel no guilt. Just one more thing I need to deal with as I get older.

 

I have no regrets and I've forgiven myself a long time ago, you are your own worst enemy when it comes to T. What you think about and how you react to those thoughts will either uplift you or devour you.

 

Do you work with infants? My grandmother, an RN, did and was quite hard of hearing at a relatively early age, requiring hearing aids for the rest of her life. Not sure it was caused by the babies screaming, she never said it was, but I wonder.