New and Scared, Is My Life Over?

I'm new here and am terribly depressed.

I went to a band concert (outside) to do some dancing and have a couple drinks, and I'm left with a horrible ringing/hissing in my ears.

It has improved over the last 6 months, but it still bothers me and makes me very depressed. My wife and I did some dancing, the dance floor was right in front of the band, so we stayed off to the side out of the main speaker noise.

I guess it was still too loud for me, and I've had ringing, hissing, ear pain, pressure ever since.

My wife is fine, and she was exposed as much or more than I was. It has faded a lot in 6 months or so, but I'm really scared I will have to live with it.

A friend of mine had this condition a few years ago, and he said he had it real bad, but it finally faded completely away after about 2 years. I'm hoping mine continues to fade. Thanks for listening.

 

you're not alone! if you're able to use "white noise" to take your mind off of it please do so! anything to distract and dont leave yourself in extremely quiet places, i wish you well...i know it is not easy.

 

Welcome to the forum @regreatful. It will likely fade too but you need to protect yourself from loud places as your ears are still unstable. Try masking with some music or nature sounds when it really bothers you. Take that as the new normal for the time being. If you have not tried masking, here are some suggestions. Take care. God bless.

1) Mask at bed time if having trouble sleeping, by using a sound pillow or sound machine with pillow speakers. There are good sound machine & pillow therapy systems like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Oasis-...d-Oasis-Therapy-System-Speakers/dp/B00MH5HKTA

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipod with nature sounds or music using itune. If you have a smart phone, you can download free APPs for soothing or T-masking sounds. Use wisdom in the use of headphones or earbuds as extended use or excessive volume may hurt your ears. Try set the volume slightly below that of your tinnitus.

3) With PC & speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds to see which one masks best:

TT's excellent audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: https://mynoise.net

or download free sound generator ‘aire freshener’: http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or click play to mix these sounds with this simple sound generator: http://asoftmurmur.com/

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

 

This maybe sounds strange and stupid, but does white noise have any "healing" effects, or is it simply masking? Some say it cures hypercusis...but does it do anything to t?

 

I feel the same way as you. I am four months into this ordeal. I've seen some improvement, and yet I feel gutted when I think of the prospect of living with this condition for the rest of my life.

This is unimaginably depressing...

 

Masking helps to alleviate stress. So it might heal you mentally. To the extent that stress has an impact on your T, masking can help with T...

 

I was a wreck when I got T but over time you get back to doing things you enjoy and quit dwelling on it. Thats when you will improve and You wont even notice it for the most part. Keep sounds of nature like frogs and cricketts when you go to bed and stay out of quiet areas as much as possible. Your brain has trouble focusing on more than one thing at a time so let the T take a back seat.. Do protect your ears from loud noises to prevent damage and aggravating your T. I believe my T has backed off and isnt as intrusive for I changed my attitude toward it...

 

Thanks for your positive post. I don't talk about this to my friends or family because they would never understand, and I'm afraid they would think it's no big deal. My wife and I are going through this alone.
yes I am masking with fountains and sound machines. The sound of water or rain seems to help the best.
This is a horrible thing. Why isn't there more education on prevention? If people knew how bad this crap is they would never expose themselves to loud noise!
I hope it continues to fade because I don't know how people can live with it.

 

I agree with you to a certain degree that some forms of T are preventable and people should be warned. This is especially true of the type from loud concerts, the acoustic trauma type. With so many gigs and loud clubs/parties people are exposed to, there has to be some sort of warning much like smoking. People need to be informed of the danger until it is too late. Saying that, many other causes of T can come without warning and without much fault of our own, such as those from TMJ, TTTS, ETD, Meniere's, drug reaction, from barotrauma, ear problem, from anxiety/stress, even deep grief etc. Just too many possible causes to warn people about.

When I first got hit by ultra high pitched T, followed by severe hyperacusis, I didn't know what hit me and so my brain went nut with relentless anxiety and panic attack. Like you I didn't know how people can survive a dentist drill with 10 times the pitch 7/24? But after some time, the body did get more hardened to the ringing sensation and today life goes on with t or without T. It learns to ignore T, something I never thought possible.

 

Don't be scared, you have the support of your wife. Tinnitus is bad, but its not the end at all. Just avoid loud places, reduce some stress and be good to yourself

 

Welcome regreatful! So sorry you needed to join though. You are right about the lack of education and prevention. It is really hard for friends and family to understand what tinnitus is like. You may want to see a therapist if you continue to feel depressed. CBT can help with tinnitus.
I am encouraged by the fact that your T is fading. Do you know if you have hearing loss?

 

Thanks
No hearing loss. The concert wasn't even that loud, and we only went to the stage to dance maybe 6 times through out the evening. It was just the last dance it got pretty loud with all the people hooting and screaming, so we left the dance floor right away.

 

Ofc your life is not over. You just need time and patience to learn to cope with it. Either u are lucky and ur T goes away, or u learn to control it. I know how it feels at start.

 

Be absolutely sure you are protecting your ears with earplugs (inserted properly) whenever you think you'll be around loud sounds since your ear has been compromised. That's a good sigh that it's faded... seems hopeful.

 

I'm so sorry you're having difficulty with your T. Something that I like to do is when I'm stressed about on my tinnitus is read the positivity thread (I'll link it to you here). To me, it's very helpful and makes me feel like my entire life isn't over because of this condition. Secondly, someone asked above if the white noise can actually help with the tinnitus. White noise doesn't (at least, I don't think so), but there's this thing on youtube that's called Tinnitus sound therapy (I'll link my favorite video here). Supposedly, it quiets T. Mine's helped very minimally if at all (it could be just a placebo effect) but it does mask tinnitus. People commented on the videos that it's helped theirs. But some say it makes it worse? Just wanted to put that out there.

Hope this helps at least a little!

 

Lol, dude, your life is not over. Recovery or not, the abnormal just becomes the normal and t will no longer trigger those negative feelings. Accept you now have it and you need to manage it. By managing it I don't mean life changing methods, just limit any loud noise exposure you may have (no doubt you're already doing that anyway). Relax, you probably just have genetic vulnerability to t hency why you have it and not your wife. It's fine,life carries on, for me my ringing in my ear that I hear is just as natural as me hearing my own breathing. Habituation will happen, speak to people close to you about t and carry on your life as normal.

Best wishes.

 

I think everything depends on how loud and piercing your t is. If it is quiet enough, you will get used to it, eventually.

 

Maybe bill, but most people with t do go onto habituate, which may suggest it is mentally driven rather than physically driven? That tiny fraction of sufferers who cannot habituate (I think it is about 1 or 2 percent) do not necessarily have the "loudest" t, in fact studies have shown that those who describe their t as "debilitating" have great variations in their t levels.

 

Hey, I completely understand you. Read my thread on anxiety it can work for you, works well with depression as well. To help combat the negative thoughts!

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...om-anxiety-tinnitus-associated-anxiety.22257/