New and Very Scared

Hi I have had tinnitus for about 3 weeks now and I am so anxious and scared I have no appetite and I haven't slept in so long. Never knew how much I loved the silence till all I could hear was this unbearable noise. Help.

 

Welcome to TT. Don't panic and don’t despair. We understand what you are going through. We have been there where you are now. So members here have empathy for your sufferings.

Do you know what caused your tinnitus (T)? Since your T is so new, you may want to get your doctor to prescribe a course of prednisone if your T is caused by acoustic trauma or loud noise exposure . Members here often recommend this for new T sufferer or when there is infection.

As for the suffering, the endless ringing, the fear, anxiety, high stress, depression and sleeplessness etc., they are all very normal reaction and quite common when T is new or when it kicks into another level. We all had experienced the T trauma to varying degree. I went through hell with my ultra high pitch dog whistle T and severe hyperacusis a few years back. I was in a mess for a while. But now I am living a normal life, enjoying and living it abundantly despite the T still being there. I wrote my success story like many other members. Do read up as many success stories as you can to learn how to get better.

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

Give it time. Time is the common element of success for most people. Time will heal and your perception of T can change. Trying to be positive can definitely help. The first step towards positivity is to read up on the success stories and the Positivity Thread. They give you hope and you can learn some insights how to get better. Being positive will help reduce stress which is bad for T. So keep being positive, seek some helpful strategies such as CBT, TRT, mindfulness meditation, exercise, hobby, etc. etc. Try take supplements such as NAC, Magnesium, B12, D3 etc. and see if you need some diet change to cut down on intake of salt, sugar, MSG, caffeine, alcohol etc.

By the way, since you are so troubled by the ringing, perhaps try to mask your T so you won't get so stressed out. If you haven't tried it yet, here are some suggestions. Take good care. Keep positive. 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.

 

2-6 weeks following T onset were the worst for me...

There is still a high chance that you will recover.

 

Thank you so much for this it helped to calm me down. I have no idea what caused my tinnitus I don't listen to loud music or shows I don't go to concerts. I went to the doctor and all they did was to tell me to meditate that there is no cure and that I'm just going to have to live with it so that freaked me out way more than it helped. After finding this site I feel so much better like in not alone and it does get better with time .

 

Yes that's not very helpful, but unfortunately way too common.
BTW, nobody can assert that there is no cure for you, since nobody has a diagnosis in hand. You need to go down the road to root cause your T because, well, some causes are fixable. So don't give up so early.
Good luck.

 

Just in case you haven't seen the following thread:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/spontaneous-recovery-stats-over-70-recover-3-studies.21441/

 

Thanks for the responses it helps so much I am a very anxious person with a history of depression I don't want this to win or make me have bad thoughts when I fought so hard to get those thoughts out of my mind. So every single thing helps.

 

If your tinnitus is bilateral, then yes, it likely will not go away unfortunately. Go for a hearing test. Despite no loud noise exposure, you could still have hearing loss. I'm 27. I work as a nurse. I don't do anything that exposes my ears to loud noise and yet I'm told that I have minor hearing loss.
The best thing you can do about this crappy thing that you cannot change is try to habituate. The less you're thinking about tinnitus the less likely you are to notice it. I'm going on to my 5th month of constant ringing. I wish it wasn't there but I can't make it go away so I'm best off trying to get used to it. I know it's frustrating to know that there isn't much help out there for tinnitus.

 

What are you basing this on?

 

Glad that you get more calm by reading posts on this site. If you need more support, you can also post on the Support forum on the main page. The cause of tinnitus is some times elusive to pin down as not all T comes from loud noise exposure. There are many causes which can trigger or aggravate tinnitus including but not limited to drug reaction or side-effects from ototoxic drugs, ear wax build-up, ear or Eustachian tube infection or ETD, ear drum injury, fluid build-up feeling pressured, TMJ, TTTS, congested sinus or blocked nose in a cold, high blood pressure or blood circulation problem, loud noise exposure, acoustic trauma/shock, head trauma & injury, neck injury or muscle problems, hearing loss, Meniere's, barotrauma from sudden change of air pressure such as flights, slapping of the ears, grief for the loss of loved ones, untreated sleep apnea, elevated stress, anxiety & panic disorder, etc. If you can trace down to one possible cause above, then it may help to direct the treatment in that area. Good luck.

 

What I've been told about my own bilateral tinnitus.
Hers is new so there is a possibility that it will go away if it's linked to a viral infection or something of that sort but I've always been told that while bilateral tinnitus is less worrisome, it's also the harder one to get rid of.

 

The doctors are not being taught about the prognosis for T. This is probably because there have been few studies about long term outcomes, and the handful of existing studies are old, and have a relatively small sample size (and a short follow up period of at most a year). The studies that I found seem to imply that there Is hope, and that it is not correct to say to someone who has had T for only a few months that T will definitely never resolve itself spontaneously. See
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/spontaneous-recovery-stats-over-70-recover-3-studies.21441/

 

@Bill Bauer
I never said it was impossible but rather unlikely.
The study also doesn't mention if these people suffered unilateral or bilateral tinnitus. They all also have acoustic trauma whereas many of us don't. I know tinnitus is ridiculously under studied and it's great to always keep having hope that tinnitus will go away but for me it's important to tell myself that it is very unlikely that it will - based on the many people also suffering from bilateral tinnitus due to hearing loss- so I habituate.

 

The last study I posted in that thread, involved senior citizens suffering from T. I believe in that study patients did not get T as a result of an acoustic trauma...

Like you, I feel that it is important not to deceive oneself. Having said that, it seems to me that you might be overly pessimistic.

 

If you can't sleep maybe talk to the doctor and temporarily take sleep aids? Or the herbal ones at most drugstores? The first little while is bad especially if you're stressed over it.