Introducing Myself: Tinnitus, Panic Attacks

[mmu]

Hi,
I am a 36 year old male from Norway, as many of you struggling with T. I don't exactly know how long I have had it. I feel like I have had it for many years without noticing it. I remember hearing this cricket like sound in my left ear sometimes but never really paid attention to it untill 3 weeks ago. That morning when I woke up I noticed a weird sound in my ear. And since then all my attention is on it. I am continiously monitoring it and cannot take my mind off it. It is literally driving me crazy, have had some panic attacks at nights, losing faith in myself. I have been suffering from depression and anxiety for a while now which is even worse these days due to this crazy sound. Lost appetite, interest in things. I am a healthy person, was regularly doing sports, eating healthy.

When I was kid, I have had an ear infection in my right ear which caused some puss to come out. It lasted many years. Without any treatment I got rid of it. Then I was living in Bangladesh and not much good treatments were available in the village. Since my childhood, I have always heard less in my right ear. And then back in 2008, I got BPPV (Benign Paroxysmal Positions Vertigo) in my left ear. To me it seems like that was then I first heard this noise in my ear. Even though it took me a while I got recovered from the BPPV. I wonder, can BPPV cause T? Because I feel like I hear the T in my left ear.

As I was working offshore in the North Sea oilfield, I had to check my hearing every 2nd years. My audiograms from 2012 and 2014 shows hearing loss. I have always been very carefull with my ears, used the protective equipment, earplugs and so on. I have managed to get copies of my audiograms from the audiograf which I have attached with this post.Anyone who understands it well please take a look at it. Will appreciate that. @attheedgeofscience

Last couple of weeks I have been all over internet and studying T. The most difficult thing to deal with it is knowing that there is no cure for it. Going to bed every night is freaking me out. And due to long waiting time in Norwegian health system I am not getting any help, I will have to wait months to get an appointment with an audiograf. Many of you who have been dealing with T, can you please tell me that it gets better by time? I am trying hard to calm myself down. I don't hear the T when I am focused on something else, with friends or outside home.

Any positive comments will be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[New Guy]

Welcome to Tinnitus Talk mmu. I understand how bothersome Tinnitus is and how gets a hold of us. I've been anxious about Tinnitus for 5 weeks now and like you learning all I can.

If it doesn't go away our body will eventually learn to tune it out. There are methods for helping the body go through this process.

If you're feeling down read this thread https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/the-positivity-thread.3142/ . It has lots of great success stories.

If you're having trouble sleeping you can play sound slightly lower than your Tinnitus to make it less noticeable. I've had much success with this and you can read about here https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new-to-tinnitus-what-to-do.12558/ .

I'm currently listening to this YouTube video at a low volume to make my Tinnitus less bothersome:

There are plenty of people on this site that have been where we are and moved on with their life and we will too.

 

[CricketsGalore]

I know the panic. And the depression. But I do not believe it is incurable. In fact, it is described as NOT an illness in and of itself, but a SYMPTOM of an underlying problem. I've had pretty amazing success with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for several things, so I believe in it, and TCM says that tinnitus is related to either kidney or liver problems, which are really related to emotional stuff.

For sleeping, look up SleepPhones. They saved my life.

Hang in there. Don't lose hope. Everything has a solution. Consider TCM and read what it has to say about tinnitus. See if any of it fits your situation. Best of luck!

 

[Bill Bauer]

The most difficult thing to deal with it is knowing that there is no cure for it.

The good news is that most people experience fading compared to the level of their T in the first month. Check out the first tip in the thread below where I summarized everything (27 tips) I learned about managing tinnitus after reading the posts on this forum for the past year.
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822

 

[attheedgeofscience]

As I was working offshore in the North Sea oilfield, I had to check my hearing every 2nd years. My audiograms from 2012 and 2014 shows hearing loss. I have always been very carefull with my ears, used the protective equipment, earplugs and so on. I have managed to get copies of my audiograms from the audiograf which I have attached with this post.Anyone who understands it well please take a look at it. Will appreciate that. @attheedgeofscience

Rather than attempt to meticulously analyze your audiograms and perhaps – with a stretch – arrive at a plausible conclusion, I would prefer to mention in more broad terms that "the clue" behind developing tinnitus has to do with patient history (as opposed to objectively trying to obtain a diagnosis). So scan your personal life – past and present – for clues such as noise exposure, medication, unusual diseases, and head trauma (to name but a few). My suggestion, at least.

In much broader terms, I would like to mention that there has never been a more exciting time to be alive during the whole timeline spectrum of human history. Humanity has entered the 4th industrial revolution and scientific progress is advancing like never before. Perhaps AI will take a more significant place in history than the invention of the wheel did. Narrowing this down to an example from the field of inner ear otology, we are seeing at least three major pharma companies making progress with therapies targeting the inner ear (Decibel Therapeutics, Frequency Therapeutics, and Otonomy). Although it hasn't been mentioned specifically anywhere on public boards, my guess is that the recent announcement about developing a neurotrophin with superior adhesive properties will likely become part of the Decibel Therapeutics pipeline. On a separate note, as stem cell therapy continues to become more commonplace, we will without a doubt start to hear more stories about people getting a reduction in their tinnitus (as an unintended but beneficial side-effect of seeking treatment for some other condition).

Progress is relatively slow (especially when you need it), but in my opinion, there has never been a more exciting time to be alive...

If you are looking for scientific information on contributing factors which can increase the risk of developing tinnitus, then following literature examines that relationship:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/lary.24015