May You Help Me to Go on with My Life?

Hi everyone! I'm Brifa, from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Today, I'm having a terrible day. After weeks of coping rather well with tinnitus, now i think (i feel) it has gotten worse and I can't manage anxiety, panic and depressive thoughts. Asking to our loved/hated God Google, I've found this forum. I think that talking to people symphatetic with this (er, how to call it, "problem", "pathology", "disorder", "$h*t"?) could help me at least to not feeling so miserable. Thank you in advance for reading me.

First of all, excuse me for my poor english and my grammar and spelling mistakes. I hope participating in this forum could help me to improve my english

I've been suffering from tinnitus for the last three months, after a very loud party i attendended. In fact, after reading about Tinnitus (most commonlly called "acúfenos" in spanish-speaking countries), I've realised that I probably already had a very low tinnitus that I used to hear when it was extremly quiet (or with noise-blocking earphones), buy it had never bothered me so I never worry about it. I thought it was "normal".

Everything changed that night. After that, I've startated hearing a constant loud noise in both ears, but mainly in the left one (which is bothering most right now). During this time, I've attendend several doctors. My Tinnitus is even worse now than in the beginning, but at least I could learn the trully meaning of two words: underdevelopment and incurable.

I´ve allways known that I didn't live in the first world. Economic and governability crisis are a historical constant in my country, as well as important levels of poverty an inequality. But, as long as I belong to the middle classes, deep inside I always thought that, with enough money, I could have in Buenos Aires a quality of life pretty similar to the people of the developed countries. That dream fell apart when I tried to find help to my tinnitus. Almost no one know nothing about it. The first ENT I visited, two days after the noise exposure, made me and audiometry. As my hearing of pure tones apparently is ok, he told me not to worry, that "It could be caused by bruxism o cervical issues". Then I went to another ENT, who gave me stereoids and told me "It's going to pass". But the steroids didn't help me and the tinnitus cerntainly remains. After a lot of searching, I could made an appointment with a Doc who is supposedly the expert in the matter in Argentina. I had to wait two months for the appointment and I will have to pay a money I don't know if i have. Imagine that all of this happened to me living in a city that it's 21st in a world cities ranking. I can't imagine how could it be for a person living in a poorer country, in the middle of nowhere.

Worst of all, I discovered that the problem not only was the lack of serious specialists or good advisors in my city. The problem was, as long as I'm able to understand from my reading of scientific papers and english-speaking forum, that the illnes-problem-disorder-whatever is incurable. That driven me mad at the beginning, and it does once again today, when I think it get worse.

So that's my story with tinnitus. It's a recent one, from a not-so-old guy (I'm 29 yo). I know there's no cure and I know the research in progress will last at least 5-10 years to produce some reliable drug/treatment that could approach us to a cure (if it ever does). I have to accept it and carry on. I have to get back to my life, to my work. When this all started, I was writting the second chapter of my PhD Thesis. The first draft had been very celebrated by my Director. I should have ended it for the past week, but couldn't finish it. I want to, but I can´t, tinnitus doesn't allow me to concentrate. I also want to be ok again with my girlfriend. We are just about to move to live together. It's a beatiful moment, but i can't think of anything but this f*cking horrible noise i had all the time.

I know I have to "habituate". That's apparently the key word. But how to do it? Could you help me with that? I've seen people in this forum that have been fighting against tinnitus for years. How do you manage it? Does it eventually calm down, at least a little bit? Does it allow you to be happy once again?

Talking about the current existent "treatments", does TRT actually works? And what about the hyperbaric chamber? I've read about the "vagus nerve stimulation". What do you think about this new approach?

As well as tinnitus, I have Hyperacusis. There's something that could be done with it? Nowadays everything sound weird to me: my fridge, my boilling kettle, even my PC!

Thanks to all of you for your time to read this cathartic message!

 

Welcome to our club that we would prefer to not be members! Your English is better than many I know with English as their first language! I would not have guessed that English is second for you.

Today I was on the Facebook page for this group. There are a few success stories shared in interviews with a doctor researching in Brazil. I had to read the English captions. There were good stories of how some have been cured by various ways. I hope you can find encouragement in their stories. Also, on this site we have success stories you might like to read.

Most of us have had the ringing much longer. We have learned to get along with the ringing and protect ourselves from loud noises. We have also learned that the more we concentrate on the sounds and fight them, the worse it gets. If I listen intently to my ringing, it gets so loud I can feel it. Like my head becomes the bell. When I concentrate on things outside myself and ignore the ringing, it fades to the background.

Life is worth living. As we learn how to live with this ringing, things get better. We get stronger and move on. I find my ringing goes up while I'm on the forum, because I'm thinking about it.

For local help for you, I wonder if the doctor that made the videos on the Facebook page might have a local referral for you? She lives a lot closer to you than most of us.

Try not to be discouraged. Look around. Find someone with ringing like yours and/or perspective like yours to see what they have done to improve. Poke around! There's a lot to see! Lots of information. Hopefully you will find something here to help you find relief.

Welcome!

 

@Brita ,
Welcome to Tinnitustalk! Your English is very good!
Living in a first world country doesn't often help with tinnitus so don't despair about that. Money cannot cure this.
You have not been experiencing the loud T for a very long time and it is quite normal to feel anxious and fearful in the beginning when your body's limbic system is reacting. The anxiety is likely to decrease over time. I know it is difficult but keeping your mind busy with other thoughts and projects is helpful so working on that thesis might be a good thing for you. I had no success with steroids or TRT. Is there a therapist in your city who practices CBT? Habituation takes time.

 

Thank you for your answer, song interpreter! I'm having very difficult days. I know I have to be patient, but the tinnitus become so intrusive, so annoying. I'm not being capable to handle it. I will try to relax. I will look around the forum to find something to have some relief.

Could you please pass me the link of the brasilian doctor? It seems very interesting! I imagine he attends at Sao Paulo. Not so close but no so far indeed. At least I can check his cv and write him asking for a doctor here en BA.

About my english, thank you! I guess so many hours spent watching Seinfeld has been worth it

 

Hi Lorac! Thanks for your answer. I have moments of calm and entire hours of madness. It's very difficult to concentrate in anything else. But I will try to stand up.

I really dont know if there is CBT therapists here. It's kind of a "freud-lacanian" in city in what therapist concerns. But the way, sorry by my ignorance, but does not CBT be part of TRT, along with soun therapy?

Thank you so much again!

 

Hi Brifa,

Welcome to the site.

You expressed yourself well in your post! What I would like to say to you is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, it will get better for you. Hopefully it will vanish for you completely or even at a minimum subside to very low levels. In the event that it does not, do not worry. Over time, your mind will acclimate to it and your nervous system will not perceive it as an intruder. How do I know? As I type this to you, my left ear is ringing, but I could care less. I've had tinnitus since March 2016, so it's been 8 months. It took about 5-6 months for me to get to this stage, called "habituation".

Just hang in there and enjoy life with your girlfriend.

 

Welcome to the forum, @Brifa, It will be nice to have certified CBT therapist to help you. If not, you can do many alternatives. For example, you can contact Dr. Hubbard who is at the Doctor's Corner to answer question. He may be able to help you with CBT counselling remotely. You may have to find out his rate of service to see if you want to proceed with remote CBT counselling. You can do it like me with self-help CBT. Basically you research on CBT on-line or buy some CBT related books. You try to find out what cognitive distortions are and how they can create such a misery with your tinnitus suffering. I talk about some aspect of self-help CBT in my success story with some books I purchased or recommend for new sufferers to read. I also share some helpful strategies which turned around my hellish suffering from ultra high pitch T and severe hyperacusis. You can read more detail in below link. Take care. Don't panic and despair. Things will improve. God bless.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...w-i-recovered-from-tinnitus-hyperacusis.3148/

 

Here's the link you asked for! I think there are eight different interviews. I hope you find encouragement and hope here with us!

https://www.facebook.com/TinnitusHub/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE&fref=nf

 

Hi Mike! Thanks for your words, they are really encouraging! I hope it gets better or that, at least, I could get habituated. The last days I coped better. The worst thing to me is not sleeping (with the help of white sound, of course), but concentrating to read and write (which is a big problem as long as my work basically consist of doing that).

 

Thank you very much, Billie. I've read your post and it was really, really helpful. Your succees story is inspiring. Your wise advise helped me to calm down and to avoid bad feelings.

Thanks to all of you for your counselling. After a terrible, depressing week when i could do nothing but staying at bed with a mix of anger and sorrow, the last days i could resume my life again. I'm still having very bad moments, specially in the quiet enviroment of my home study, but I try to move fowards. I'm doing some research to find CBT therapist, as you advised me.

Thanks again to all!

 

Hey there, welcome. I just wanted to say I went to ENT (ear nose and throat Doctor) and as soon as I came in, they told me I have to live with it. It's not the lack of money, it's the lack of information on how to fix T. I just naturally got used to it. After weeks of crying and hating my life, I grew up and decided to keep on living my life. I only hear my T when I'm settling down before going to bed. If it annoys you, try doing something that makes you drowsy. Maybe excerise, knitting, or reading a book. Those never fail to make me sleepy. Try getting an occupational therapist to take all your worries and problems so it doesn't build up into anxiety. Best of luck.