In Loving Memory of David Craig Muller

A friend of mine from our Tinnitus Skype Chat group, Craig Muller, has killed himself yesterday, after 2 years of suffering from severe tinnitus and accompanying ear pain.
He was 53 years old.

Craig's sister posted on facebook:

IN LOVING MEMORY
DAVID CRAIG MULLER
3-13-1961 - 9-26-2014

Rest in peace my dear friend. I'm so sad right now, I wish I had a chance to tell him about Autifony or Retigabine, but I haven't seen him on Skype for a while. I hope he has silence wherever he is.

 

I feel for your loss @dan , so very tragic and it saddens me deeply, I have tons of empathy for people that take their own lives and there family, things must have been really bad to make that final decision.
Though they are strangers to me my thoughts are with you and Davids family.

Rich

 

What a loss, real tragedy!
And some still dare to say "it's just a sound!!!!"
So sorry about your loss, hope he finds peace on the other side!

This story should be made public, should be in every bloody newspaper and on every bloody tv channel!

This is not a laughable condition as many people think, this thing kills people!

Sorry I'm absolutely furious!!!

RIP Craig

 

Thanks Rich and Markku. Its shocking to find out that a person who you have personally spoken to on almost a daily basis has gone. I know he tried many things from home lasers to trt with Dr.Jastreboff.
The only thing that helped him for a short while was a drug called Tegretol (Carbamazepine) which was given to him by chance, at one hospital he was admitted to on one occasion. He said that his T absolutely disappeared after taking this drug and he was even contemplating going off disability and back to work he felt better than ever. Then the drug stopped working and he fell back into a dark hole and I never heard from him since until this announcement on his FB.
So if I only could tell him to try Retigabine, I think it could have helped him.

 

this sad event does bring us back to the real world, RIP....

 

Shocking, makes you think about your own self. Bash me if you want, didn't want to read this.

 

Craig was also suffering from ear pain of an unknown origin. I don't think he complained about noise sensitivity, but would often mention a severe pain he felt that stretched from deep within his ear all the way to his brain. I don't think tinnitus alone is at fault here, although clearly that was a big part of it.

I remember speaking with him about the pain. He was doing TRT with Pawel Jastreboff at the time, and he told us that Jastreboff attributed the pain to depression. Jastreboff told Craig that once he treated the depression, the pain would go away. I'm not sure what to make of that. Was this responsible advice? How could Jastreboff know what was causing the pain when so many other actual medical doctors had no idea?

Craig was a simple and honest man. He did not deserve the cruelty this universe threw at him. Rest in peace, Craig. My thoughts are with you and your family today.

 

My sincerest condolences.

 

That's a good point @Sen , Craig was suffering from very bad tinnitus related ear pain as well which had gotten worse.
There was also some talk about some kind of ear surgery to try to correct this, but I cannot confirm that at this point.

 

RIP , this makes me really anxious reading things like this

 

Very sorry to hear.

Indeed threads like this boosts anxiety.

 

Sorry to hear this.
Dont really know what to say...

 

I'm really sorry Dan. Death is such a sad thing, as there is no coming back from it. It is pretty shocking to know that you were once talking to someone, but now you'll never get to talk to them again.

This is also why I hate it when new sufferers come on here asking for help and they are sometimes told, "Just give it time". Time doesn't do anything. What people need is hope, not time. If people have hope, then they can wait it out. But if they have no hope and are just supposed to wait for time, then exactly how long are they supposed to suffer like this? A week? A month? 10 years? 20 years? The rest of their life? People who're suffering need encouragement and real hopeful information that there are either things they can do now, or that there will be treatments in the future that are promising.

 

What a sad day this is ,truly sorry this has happened.Whats needed is a cure,how many more will this take before someone does something.How hard it is getting through a day with this .
Need more done ,I believe it's urgent ,but how do we get medical people to act ? I don't know .
Wish I had the answer right now ,before another pays the price.How depressed he must have been ,heartbreaking.

 

Craig tried surgeries, pills and in the end fought hard for docs to precribe Potiga, the seizure drug that some of you have taken with success. No one would prescribe it, even as he sat in tears begging. The medical establishment failed him.

The pain and sound was too much to bear. He was a friend. I tried to help..I am heartbroken.

 

Sad story. I truly feel his pain.
I hope I am not the next one. God help me. I am at high risk.
I have no ear pain, just a sound which takes all my energy and I no longer function how my family would need it.
But I know that I would leave sad wife, sad kids, sad mother and a destroyed family.
I don't know how much more I can take.

 

I did not know Craig but his death indeed must be shocking to those of you who did -- as well as to the rest of us. He clearly was someone who was willing to try whatever was available to ease his suffering and save his life. So very upsetting but ultimately, so very sad. My heart goes out to all who loved him.

 

I am very sorry for the loss of your friend @dan, and all of you that knew him.

 

So sorry RIP Craig

 

I'm so very sorry to her this. Thinking of you, and his family at this time xxx

 

Wow Lynn, that saddens me greatly. I am shocked to hear this.
Maybe he should of came on TT and we could of figured out some way for him to get his hands on Potiga.
No sufferer should have to beg for medicine. Outrageous!

 

Sorry to hear, but it hasn't been only for tinnitus.

 

He was aware of TT as he knew about others and their success. I believe that is how he heard about it. I kept telling him to keep searching for a doc, don't know what happened he just told me every doc said no

 

talked to Craig several times on forum and he was suffering horribly, crying to doctors to help him, let him try potiga or something, crying out for help on forums and people on forum did try very hard to help him but he also stated that if something happened to him that it wasnt due to depression, it was tinnitus because thats what brought his depression, he also had 2 surgeries on brain to try to stop it and trigeminal neuralgia.doctors need to get this horrible conditon out in public so more can be done to help us suffering from it.. so sad...

 

I met craig in the same chat that dan is part of. He was a kind man, that was suffering horribly. To lose one of our own to this often horrifying condition and the psychological issues it causes, is disheartening.

 

It should not be here on this forum.

 

Yes, he had t for two years caused by noise exposure. I think he had physical headache/earache with it also. His last post just a few hours before was about the noise driving him insane.
He seemed a guy who was willing to try anything and everything, and friends spoke of him as a wonderful person.
Please let's not label it depression. Researchers need to understand cases like Craig's with t being the root cause, and treat the tinnitus, rather than concentrating on the cognitive effects tinnitus brings.
Researchers turned aids around so quickly because of its fatality.
Having said all that ... In time, maybe Craig's t would have faded. Now we will never know. May he rest in peace.

 

Lisa, I think researches know what patients are going through and thats why they are in fact researches.
Btw a while ago there was another similar story here. There was a lot of talk about how it should have an impact on scientists and make them compassionate. So I sent the story (translated into English) to ATA and BTA. I got a reply fro BTA where they ssaid that they circled it among the researches. That was all. Of course I dont know the important guys there so maybe it reached no one. However, researchers are only human too and their knowledge and abilities are limited. I doubt they are just sitting around doing nothing and feeling indifferent. The solution is not always easy. And tinnitus has in fact been researched quite a lot - probably its just a difficult condition to treat.
Also, look at many other condition such as cancer- people die from that every day and yet we dont have very good treatments for it.
Perhaps in this case doctors should have been more attentive. However, when I was hospitalized I was in one room with a woman who literally hadn't slept in weeks. Her doctors had tried everything - different kinds of sleeping meds, antidepressants, therapies, natural remedies - nothing worked. God knows they tried but what are they supposed to do if nothing works? I doubt its easy for the to sit around and watch patients suffer waiting for science to progress.
I hope though that Craig got rid of a the noise and that the suicide solved that problem. At least he tried all the remedies available at the moment. My condolences to his family and friends. Hopefully in the future it will be possible to prevent such things.