New to This Tinnitus Thing

Hi all,

Thanks for being here! I feel a lot less crazy and alone!

This is my story - in December, I started picking up a low murmur. Barely noticed it, fell asleep normally. Then last week Thursday for some reason it spiked to a level that wouldn't let me sleep!

Was a wreck on Friday, physically and emotionally. It's now a week later and the ringing has not subsided. Have been to an ENT yesterday. Nothing obvious is wrong with my ears, no infection etc, hearing is perfect. Just waiting for tests of blood work to test my thyroid function.

The sound is all consuming. I know I make it worse by concentrating on it and stressing, but can't help myself. Anxious, obsessive person by nature. Trying really hard to talk myself out of it though. Gets harder as the day goes on and the sound fatigues me.

The main things I'm struggling with is potentially never having a normal night's sleep or silence again. It makes me SO sad. And panicky.

Things I have tried:

• Sleeping pills. Probably not a good idea. And still waking up.
• Tried background noise app last night which seems to help, so will continue doing that.
• Taking OTC tablets to help with anxiety and tablets that claim to aleviate symptoms of tinnitus.

Does anyone think it tinnitus is brought on by stress? At the same time as this all happening, I've had constant jaw pain too, as well as enormously tight jaws too. Especially when I'm stressing a lot! Noticed last year that I clench and had dull ear aches on and off, also pain over jaw area.

Oh, this was all on my left side, as is the tinnitus. That said, right jaw has joined in the action too over the past week, probably because I'm one big stress ball.

Want to go back to my GP to have the jaw pain looked into.

Any advice on how not to feel miserable about this will be appreciated!

 

Yeah your jaw issue needs to be treated; inflammation of TMJ could be the cause of your T. Stress and anxiety also increases your chance of getting T and can exacerbate T. But the jaw issue is great, because it gives you a treatable cause. So there is one reason to stop freaking out.
I had loud tinnitus last night and slept great, so it isn't true that a brain/mind can't sleep until that sound is gone. Your subconscious mind will push that sound to the background once it realizes it isn't a threat. For that to happen your conscious mind needs to make changes in how you think about this. What makes you sad and panicky is that you will never sleep again. You need to stop believing that, or else you won't sleep again. You don't need to get rid of the sound before you can sleep, or feel good. It will take some time to change the way you think about it.
You may need some chemical assistance to do this with medication. If you had anxiety problems before this, then you should definitely treat it, because anxiety makes bad things seem much worse than they are.