Losing All Hope, How Can I Cope?

I'm loosing all hope. I just can't deal with Tinnitus anymore, it's getting worse not better. Before Tinnitus I already suffered from Bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety and the Tinnitus has pushed me over the edge and made things completely fall apart.

I lost my job in February, have become financially ruined, lost my apartment and had to move back home. I'm 31 years old and just can't take it anymore. I attempted suicide in June because of everything just being too much and not wanting to live with severe T anymore. Since then I've tried to stay positive trying vitamins and diet to clear the tinnitus but nothing has helped. I've lost all hope and don't know what else to do. My life feels ruined.

It's been so bad that I even convinced my doctor to prescribe me Potiga(trobalt) but my insurance refuses to cover it and I can't afford it since I don't have a job.

Does anyone have severe t, like me that can't be blocked out by loud fans, tv, music. the kind of t you hear all day no matter what? If so how do you cope? are you able to function? I'm a web developer but can't do that anymore, the T causes to much of a distractions and anxiety. Just don't know what to do anymore, but I definitely know I can't keep going on like this.

 

How about going to a psychiatric hospital, they can pump you full of drugs and make you numb?

 

I spent 2 weeks in a Psychiatric hospital in June. The drugs don't help enough. I'm on 4 different ones.

 

Hi ,
Please don't give up on life and you have found a great forum for support.
Tinnitus comes from the limbic part of the brain where our emotions are too so you can understand why the unwanted emotions like stress and anxiety and panic can come with tinnitus and confidence and low mood can take a dive.

Your not alone with These feelings anymore as we totally understand where your coming from.
We are here with round the clock support.

Your life has taken a dive but I promise you it will get better as you learn to build your life up again even with tinnitus.

Tinnitus can be mental torture at first but your brain will adapt and it could go away as fast as it came or become apart of you but it will get easier.
Check with your doctor if you could have some talking therapy and see if their is any room for improvement on the medications you are on with Bipolar.

Sound therapy set below your tinnitus will help.
This can be done through the night with natural sounds playing set below your tinnitus sound.
your brain will work hard to pick up the natural l sound you have chosen set below your tinnitus and push your tinnitus to the back ground and help cope better in the day.
Standing units or mp3 ,or download free apps to listen too but don't use earphones.
Pillow speakers work best.

It's so important you get full support while your so vonerable to tinnitus with emotions hitting hard while habituating to Tinnitus.
Don't feel less important in yourself loosing your job as it can happen as other members on here have lost their jobs too.
We totally understand and between us all we can help support you....lots of love glynis

 

Just like the rest of us you have no choice but to deal with it.....Keeping busy usually helps not think about it...go out and do things and let the background noises mask it......You are not ringing alone....We are ringing with u.

 

yes we are all ringing with you, buddy. Every morning wake up to jet engine and bad ear pressure,,,and another day starts,,,,,,,,,what gets me through ,would I rather have certain other illness ,disability ....no I wouldnt.

 

Get around people as much as you possibly can.

Go out and talk to the mailman if you have to. Make yourself converse with the cashier at the grocery. Chat with an elderly neighbor. Say something you think will make them feel better. Even if you think it could never help, and that you'll be uncomfortable, find someone, somewhere, and do it anyway.

This forces your hurting brain to sync with a healthy brain, and it forces you to have something resembling a healthy thought. Those healthy thoughts may hurt at first, because they will be intruders-- they will contrast with your grief. But force yourself to continue. Talk to people over and over. It won't cure you instantly. But it "will" help.

 

@Blujay, Great advice. I still use drugs and hoping Otonomy comes through to help us. What was it like in the early 1900's? Did you ride a horse?

 

@sonicboom2000, Watch some old Columbo episodes.

 

@just1morething Columbo I never get tired of watching them. Still shown in the UK. OH !! There's just one more thing ? Tinnitus isn't going to win.

 

Yes me. That's all I can say.
My advice would be to apply for disability, if you haven't done so already.

 

Go to google and search "mynoise". Check that out and see if any of that will mask your tinnitus. If so, you can get hearing aids and transmit the sound to them as well as getting a hearing check to see if your ears need amplification. In my case amplification got rid of some of my ringing but not all. Maybe this will help with the fight or flight emotions.

 

Note: the study at barwon health using nac for bipolar yielded very positive results. They put participants on 2000mg/day for 8 weeks. Planning to do larger scaled studies so that nac may become an adjunct to standard treatment in future.

Most helpful tip for me can be found at the back to silence thread on this site.

Consider ketogenic diet and/fasting

Consider acetyl L carnitine 1000mg/day as per Gopal et al.

 

Yes. I just got home from dinner with friends at a local restaurant. It was loud in the restaurant, the conversation was lively, and the entire time the tinnitus was letting me know that it wasn't going away. Right now it's hissing and whistling.

I cope by doing whatever I can to distract myself, whether it's reading, watching Netflix shows, videos about dog rescues, that sort of thing. At this point I'm living a basically useless life, but that's just the way it is.

Edit to add: I thought you had found a supplement that was helpful. Is it no longer working?

 

Thanks everyone for the words of encourage, I really need that right now. I'm trying to have hope for the possible drugs that could treat tinnitus, but it's hard when 90% of clinical trials fail and only 2% of drugs ever get released and a profitable. I just really hope something comes along. I stocked up on trileptal and am taking extremely high dosages of that right now to see if it helps. Here's hoping.

 

I had a few good days and thought it was working, my ENT said it was probably placebo effect. He thinks it is the little hairs in the ear and that no vitamins or diet will be able to help. Which is very discouraging.

 

What exactly is Nac? I've never heard of that

 

Have you had a hearing test?

 

Yes back in May. i have no hearing loss.

 

Most of us come up with little or no hearing loss.

 

Are you still on ADS? @sonicboom2000

 

If you're on 4 different drugs, you may be doing more harm than good. What are they? Temper iff them gradually and see if you'renot better without them. Then try hydroxizine and teanine or whatever enhances GABA in your brain. Before you give up you should try all the options. If you had psychological problems before, you probably took drugs to treat them ? What do you take now?

 

you need a test which covers high frequencies (8-16+ khz) as well as a DPOE. Standard 0.5-to-8khz beep tests are pretty worthless unless you're profoundly deaf.

Degree of tinnitus seems to not really correlate to degree of hearing loss, but I sincerely doubt that there's almost anyone out there who has 0db thresholds in both ears all the way up to 20khz and still has tinnitus.

 

Yes, I have severe T in both ears 24/7 which has gotten louder over past 5 years. Coping is difficult. For me the insomnia is the worst part of it. Then the anxiety. I can cope with low moods OK. I manage to work but some days are very tough. I found going to a support group beneficial. You may want to look into it if there are any near you. In the UK there are quite few dotted around. I found a good one. It's good to talk to others who truly understand. You are not alone.

 

Nac = n acetylcysteine is a precursor to glutathione (antioxidant)

 

ADS?

 

Remeron, Trileptal, Latuda, Buspar

 

I also have a T that i cannot mask easily. Very high freq. Yesterday i was on the plane going to LA and back for AM101 screening and throughout the flights i could easily hear the T hissing. And as i know that fact i stopped trying to mask it a while ago. The amount of the external sounds does not actually change my perception of T unless it's too high, like 100db. Actually when i go to bed, it becomes quieter, maybe because my brain activity goes down and T is caused by the over excitement of neurons.

@sonicboom2000, i was suicidal 2 months ago, do not give up my friend. I'm 100% sure that there'll be some treatment, not very soon but in 4-5 years. The only thing you, me, all can do until then is to protect the ears, try not to fixate on T, have a good sleep (do whatever you must for that) and passively convince the limbic system that this is not dangerous and give it the chance to tune it out.

 

You havn't had T for that long? Are you still able to work? My T seems much worse when I lay down, especially since I'm on my side so the masking doesn't work as well.

 

Yes, i'm able to work. Actually I'm much better when I'm working as it's a huge distraction over T.

Yes, T is worse when on bed because nothing distracts you from T. But you have to sleep, otherwise you'll be tired and notice your T more. Which in turn shall make you nervous and T shall be louder. Vicious cycle. So, sleep good (do anything to let you sleep), accept the sound, and let your brain tune it out.

It works on me while I can hear my T over almost everything. There's no reason it shouldn't work on you. It only can be slow, that's it.