Masking Definitely Makes My Tinnitus Worse but Not Masking Is a Torture

I’ve come to realise - through my speaker and phone batteries dying on me at 3 am - that masking particularly at night - 100% aggravates and inflames my tinnitus which is already severe all the time. But no masking is nigh on impossible as the noise is f***ing awful and I can’t bear silence.

It’s something of a problem and flies directly in the face of audiologists pumping white noise in patients ears 24/7 as a ‘treatment.’

I think @JohnAdams found this too before he flew to Korea and for all intents and purposes cured his tinnitus with a few injections while we’re all being plied with nature sounds so we can ‘cope’ with this misery as our auditory system further rebels and our condition gets worse and worse.

 

I stopped masking Bam and went for ambient noise instead.

I think when I was masking I was getting more trouble with more noises. Now I've stopped I'm not getting as many switches in different noises, but still enough to make me sick of my life.

 

Hate to say this to you but that is totally not the case for me. The more sounds the better. In the beginning I might have agreed with you... seemed like the volume control went through the roof as soon as I laid down...

Definitely not the case anymore... I use white noise from my phone and thunder storm sounds from my Amazon Echo device... works great... I suggest you give this a shot.

 

@Bam I'm the same, fucked either way. Can't win

 

Bud don’t feel bad for me. It is what it is. I think I just need to try and wean my self off masking as it’s definitely slightly better when I don’t mask at night particularly. I worked this out because I was pissed and fell asleep a few times without masking and bingo it was quieter in the morning. It’s not the booze. If I drink and mask it’s loud as all hell again. Masking is a killer for me. But it feels so good....sex, drugs and masking!

 

Good move I think Al. You’re always in my thoughts mate. We’re both hanging in there by the skin of our teeth but we’re still here. The joy drain of severe tinnitus is almost inconceivably horrible. It’s like the darkest cloud ever sitting on top of your head. I understand you in a way that very few on earth could. Keep strong Al.

 

I believe that our ears also need to get some rest and silence as we sleep. Could you set the masking sound off with timer and sleep the rest of the night without it.

I can't mask mine, so I just wonder what the factory is manufacturing this time until I fall asleep.

 

Yeah this is what i’ll be doing from now on. Set the timer for a couple of hours and then go for silence....well silence with high pitched screeching.......Ah the endless joys of this wonderful affliction.

 

I have the Widex Zen White Noise Maskers / Hearing Amplifiers. When my tinnitus is particularly aggravated, this supplemental white noise only makes the sensation all the worse, since essentially an artificial tinnitus sound has been added to the natural one; to drown out the natural sound I have to ramp up the white noise masker to painful proportions. When I use only the amplification to cover that portion of hearing loss that causes this, I have to increase it to the extent where I can only be in a very quiet environment. Otherwise it is like having severe hyperacusis; every sound is excruciatingly loud.
I use the white noise masker when I go to bed, but my reactive tinnitus is such that by 4 AM it sounds as if there is a high pitched tea kettle two inches from my left ear.
This condition is the most devastatingly, exasperatingly elusive monstrosity I have ever encountered. It is resistant to any "management" methods I employ.
It reminds me of that hideous creature in the first ALIEN movie; no matter what the crew did, they couldn't get it out of the spaceship.
My last ENT doctor said that this will be an epidemic condition for the current retiring Baby Boom generation (which may actually spur real efforts at treatment).
If you are one of those highly driven, successful people who always insists that everything go exactly the right way, this condition can make a total mess out of you.

 

And yet we still have doctors even visiting this forum talking about tinnitus won’t kill you.

One day many years from now when a cure is available, the world will look back on this affliction and feel genuine pity for our terrible plight. Trapped for our entire lives in a cage of screaming noise that we cannot escape for even a second.

I knew the second this alien burrowed itself in my brain and started howling that my life was ruined and death was going to be better than this cursed life.

 

I really don’t like going without masking during the day but i used to find I couldn’t sleep with masking at night so stopped trying. It took quite a long time for my brain to get used to getting to sleep during the noise of the tinnitus but habit is an amazing thing and it learned to do it. There is another post from somebody in the success stories saying they learn their tinnitus was caused by noise at night. Mine wasn’t but I do think when I wake up it is quieter than when I go to sleep and I have wondered if that is to do with noise.

 

It’s tough. I tried again last night to do ‘silence’ but by 3am I gave up and whacked on the ‘tropical nights’ app. Then I fell asleep, but im concerned this constant chirping and sqwarking really isn’t healthy for the auditory system. As @DaveFromChicago points out we are really between a rock and a very hard place with this. Relief but at what cost?

One thing I know for sure is that all that stuff Michael Leigh spouts about having sound on all night helping reduce T and silence somehow increasing it, is not relevant for a lot of us. Maybe it works for mild T but not when your ears and brain are screaming blue murder night and day.

 

I don’t use masking either, Bam. I don’t consider it to be dangerous, but when I put it on my tinnitus can be heard clearly above it anyway, and to me, it’s just more noise on top of noise. Everyone is different though and some find relief from using masking, so I guess it’s a personal choice.

 

Yeah I mean I don’t ‘mask’ as such. Like you Ed I just have another high pitched screechy sound that I can sort of mentally blend the head noise in to and pretend they’re one and the same. I guess now it’s kind of an addiction or a pacifier, like a kids dummy or thumb.

 

I have to survive with masking all day long until Neutomod releases its shit. I hope this device can reduce my noise for some degree otherwise I will die. This is a nightmare and totally torture. No one knows the pathology of tinnitus if we are honest. They have now developed some treatment but what it actually does they even don’t know.

 

I’m so sorry my friend. If it makes it any easier im right in the fire with you and if I can keep myself afloat to try Neuromod, it failing to help will almost certainly result in me taking my own life. I cannot live like this. All the joy is gone. To live for many years like this seems to me either a pointless exercise in extreme masochism, plain cowardice or you have an overwhelming desire to live for the benefit of others. But how long can anyone stand being tortured selflessly?

I’m out walking in my favourite park on a beautiful day with my dog. This simple pleasure used to fill me with contentment and now I have to have my phone in my breast pocket pumping out rain sounds to distract my from the screeching in my ears and I feel utterly hopeless and tortured.

The world has no idea of how life destroying this is. The urgency to cure it should be a top priority in the medical world and with governments. It’s utterly life changing in the most unimaginably hideous way and will push you to the brink.....and over.

 

If the tinnitus doesn’t kill us either the booze or some other god forsaken spin off from this will.

I go cold turkey at night and actually plug my ears with my fingers to trap the noise in to get back to sleep when I wake at silly o’clock. I do this to trick my brain into telling me that this is as loud as it will get and when I’m awake tomorrow it’ll be much quieter! Hope that made sense!

 

I described it the other day as an ‘underworld’. A stinking, rotten co-existence of our lives. It’s like happily walking along a beautiful tree lined pavement taking in the lovely sights and sounds and falling into a stinking, rat infested, dark manhole, unable to get out but you can still kinda see life above carrying on regardless. The frustration of knowing how good our lives were before this is really heart breaking . Unfortunately no one is really interested until they’re hit with this bullet x

 

[QUOTE="Vicki14, post: 424709, member: 13466]

I go cold turkey at night and actually plug my ears with my fingers to trap the noise in to get back to sleep when I wake at silly o’clock. I do this to trick my brain into telling me that this is as loud as it will get and when I’m awake tomorrow it’ll be much quieter! Hope that made sense! [/QUOTE]

Jesus Vic. That’s hardcore! I kind of understand the thinking. When I wear plugs on my motorbike it’s like being assaulted by noise. I wore crash helmets a lot in my life from age 6. I used to feel so secure and happy when I pulled one on. Now it’s torture with the plugs in but I try and think of the relief and the feeling of being closer to silence when I take the plugs out. Like your night time trick.

 

And you can’t blame them. Not in a million years did I think this would happen to me. I felt almost invincible before I woke up with this and now I feel like I’m flirting with death every single day. As you quite rightly said it’s like we’re sloshing around in a pile of inescapable shit staring at a world we’re no longer able to enjoy. Could there be anything more heartbreaking and tormenting?

 

I also noticed that sometimes when I try to use my white noise machine when going to bed my tinnitus can go a little crazy. I don’t really understand why because the noise is kept very low volume (way below my tinnitus) on my nightstand facing away from me, but it can still make it change a little. I don’t really get it because I can listen to it when I’m not going to bed and it doesn’t do anything to my tinnitus. Very strange.

My white noise machine has a timer though so I only keep it on for an hour while I am trying to fall asleep. I try not to keep it on all night.

I usually never try to mask my tinnitus during the day besides normal everyday sounds.

Have you tried a different speaker? Perhaps bad quality speakers can affect the frequencies which are aggravating your tinnitus?

 

I don’t use any nature sounds anymore as it does irritate my ears. I juts look for a chilled out radio station like a oap and put that on a timer, that doesn’t irritate my ears at all. Anybody else tried this?

I can’t sleep in silence, it’s too intense I’ve tried many many times.

 

Same for me. My tinnitus competes against other noises, so I don’t find it helpful which is why I never gravitated towards masking. I know for many it’s a huge relief though.

 

Sometimes I listen to a YouTube station called chillstep. Something called lofi.

Zelda & Chill

 

I have had a few nights in the past where I fell asleep with the BBC world service on and didn’t switch on the masking. But my T has been worsening the last few months with increased intensity and another sound in my better ear, and now I have no choice but to use loud cicada sounds to drop off. Against a radio or music at any volume it’s just way too intense.

 

It’s strange the way it helps some and not others? I wonder if it is the different frequencies? I’ve tried different apps and even invested in a white noise machine but I always found it was more aggressive in the morning until I swapped the nature/water sounds for a chilled out radio station.

 

It’s crazy Bam, i listen to the radio station wether it’s a nightly talk show or just chilled out tunes and even though I wake up multiple times it seems to suit my ears better than white noise or nature sounds.

Sorry to hear about it moving into the good ear man, same happened to me but the other ear still dominates the rave in my head.

 

I agree. I need to try and get back to this. I’m addicted to jungle sounds. I just cannot bear the silence of the bedroom without them. But they’re definitely digging my hole deeper.

 

I can’t sleep in silence, like you I’ve tried many times and it’s just too intense mate. Try the radio station again even if it’s a stupid talk show thing we’re they talk about what colour is best to paint your bathroom, I try and zone in on it and I drift off for an hour then rinse and repeat the process until I’ve had a few hours sleep and the birds outside are having there morning meeting.

 

Shit bud. It’s a tough slog huh? Living in constant broken sleep and trying to keep positive every day to make it to......another day of the same. Does it get tougher than this? I really don’t think it does. You’ve done so well to keep upbeat. The depression of this is dragging me to the floor. Neuromod are not helping. I would rather know where I stand than have some false hope carrot dangled constantly out of reach.