My 5-month experience with tinnitus

Hi all,

This is my 1st post. I'm a 33-year-old man. I got T 5 months ago. It was really hard at the beginning. It got worse because of the "no cure for it" answer. I tried so many things to cure it (e.g. G Biloba, vitamin B, amitriptyline, stugeron, betaserk) but unfortunately nothing works well. I'm still taking betaserk because I think it helped a little bit and it doesn't have side effects. At the end, it seems that we have to accept the "no cure" status and try to live with T. This is the only thing we can do. This is what I tried to convince myself and I'm now much better and I still hope to get rid of it and enjoy the silence back. May God help us with this!

Regards,
M.

 

I'm at a little over 5 1/2 months with T. Like you, I thought I could find something that would cure me. I finally thought that if there was something to actually cure me, I would've heard about it by now. I then set about trying to learn to habituate--there is a thread here. There is a lot of good advice in it from the wonderful members here. Once I stopped looking for the 'cure', I started taking my life back and doing all the things I used to do. Based on what I learned here, from my initial dark post to today--I'm getting better.

Check out the 'positivity thread'--it will fill you with hope.

 

I think its more how you look/think about T.....

It is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy....like your reaction after losing a job or a relationship. If you can move on,
you survive/thrive. If you wallow and pine for past "better days", then you get stuck in that same mire.

Human nature has adapted to everything. We all have it IN us to adapt and live with T if needs be. Most do. Just the way we are made.

I strongly feel that, if you make a strong decision to move on with your life and thrive, regardless of T, you then are in control, and your brain at that point at worst, stops caring, but possibly might even literally tune it out or tamp it down.

T to me is sorta like a tumor. Tumors grow and build up more blood vessels, propagating itself. T is the same in a sense.
If you feed it, and give it space, it will grow in importance in your mind, and grab more neurons and "thoughtspace".
Perhaps even grow more connections to neurons that create the noise.

While supplements and such don't hurt, it really comes down to how you react to T, regardless of how you treat it.
Chronic pain is very similar. Those that identify too much with the pain feel it more, and it bothers them more, in that same vicious cycle.

Tinnitus, after all is said, is just a slightly askew increase in a natural noise we generally tune out. If we give it too much creedence, it indeed can worry and overwhelm. But it only does so to the extent we allow it. If you can treat it as just a simple aberation, something that might even one day work itself out of our system, that you can move on. Or you can choose to focus. All up to you.

 

Excellent post, Scott. Very good insights for newer T sufferers to read. Some powerful message in this post.

Kathi's post is quite touching too. She is seeing the light as a relatively new member, by taking her life back and doing all the things she used to do. That is what I had to do. Such an important step in the battle with T. Winner!