On My Way to Silence — 97% There

I got hit with tinnitus in February 2019 and since I so desperately needed every new success story that was posted in this forum during that time, I wanted to share mine. After 10 months of tinnitus, I am almost there. It is 97% gone.

To this day, I am not entirely sure what brought my tinnitus on and rather than having one single cause, I believe in my case it was triggered by a mix of things. I did listen to music through headphones a lot, but at the time I was also suffering from intense emotional stress and my doctor found that both my ears had been completely blocked with earwax. The earwax was most likely the main culprit as my tinnitus improved massively after I had it removed - although the annoying ringing didn't go away completely.

For the first few weeks after the onset, my tinnitus was so loud, piercing and relentless that I thought my life was over, that I couldn't endure the rest of my days like this. At one point I screamed at my husband to take me to A&E and beg them to give me something, anything that would make that unbearable dentist drill in my ears and head stop. My doctor at the time gave me drops to soften the earwax and after the blockage eventually was removed (I achieved that with drops and a little bulb syringe alone - I was VERY keen to avoid microsuction after all the horrible stories I had read) - the tinnitus in my left ear stopped, in my right ear it reduced by a good 80%. I was endlessly grateful for the tinnitus having reduced so much, but nonetheless, I wanted it gone for good. All of it.

Over the next few weeks and months I tried a variety of things I had read in various forums to help me get rid of the remaining tinnitus, such as magnesium supplements, drinking lots of lemon water and green tea, improving my diet and cutting out caffeine (although I quickly noticed that caffeine had no effect on my tinnitus whatsoever), Yoga and Mindfulness and being careful around loud noise. I never took any kind of medication for my tinnitus but gradually, with some improvements to my lifestyle and taking good care of my ears, I did find that my remaining tinnitus improved ever so slowly and ever so slightly to the blissful point where I am now . I can only hear it ever so quietly in completely silent rooms - and even then only if I focus on it. There is still a bit of tinnitus left, but it has become such a minor thing in my life now that I can go for days without noticing it at all. I am confident that this last bit of remaining tinnitus will eventually disappear too, and if not I can honestly say that I am not bothered by it anymore.

Looking back on the last 10 months of my life, what seems to have been the major turning point for me (the point where my tinnitus went from a bearable but still annoying nuisance to something that I hardly notice), was a major move to a different country and a new job that came with it. During and after the move I was so busy with other things that my tinnitus changed from something that I would monitor and obsess about all day everyday to something I had simply no time to think about. A new life, which was too hectic to constantly monitor and worry about tinnitus, had forced itself upon me. Without really noticing it, the ringing in my ears was not a priority for me anymore. It faded away very, very slowly.

Over these last few weeks I have learned to be more confident in my ears again and while I still have good set of earplugs with me at all times, I have visited the dentist for some drilling, flown on an airplane, been to the pub, travelled on the tube, and gone to work in a noisy city centre- all without earplugs. My tinnitus continues to improve and while I will never ever use headphones again or go near a concert, I believe the mixture of distraction and gradually regaining confidence in my ears has helped me get better. I should add that I have never suffered from hyperacusis and that my tinnitus has never been reactive to noise. I understand that people who have to deal with these things might not be able to relate to my post very much, but I am simply trying to share what helped me get better and most importantly, that I did get better.

My life is pretty much back to normal now and having been through some pretty dark times with my tinnitus, I do hope that one day not too far away there will be a cure for this cruel, truly terrible condition. In the meantime don't give up, read as many success stories as you can and try to find some distraction from the ugly beast that is tinnitus.

 

Thank you for sharing your story! It gave me some hope that it will start to fade away of me at some point! Hopefully that 3% you have left goes away by the end of this year so you can start hearing complete silence in the new year!

 

Happy it’s gone away so much for you.

 

Stay positive and try to find some distraction (although I know how hard it is) - that is the best medicine. Hopefully you'll be well on your way to silence soon too.

 

So happy for you!! I also got T in February 2019. Not sure of the main cause.. ear infections, TMJ and major emotional stress. I’m doing a lot better than in the beginning. I do have days that are very low buzz in my left ear. And then a Spike hits after 3 or 4 days of low buzz.. and the spike is in both ears and head ‍♀️. I guess my question for you is.... Did you have Spikes a long the way? How often if you did? Once again I’m so happy for you!!

 

Hi Virginia girl,

I did get spikes along the way, but much more so in the beginning. When they were really bad I took a cheap magnesium supplement I had bought in a supermarket and that sometimes took the edge off it (might have been a purely psychological effect however of me thinking that I am doing something against the spike that helped calm me down and thus calmed the T). I haven't had a Spike for a while now - the little bit of T I have left is at a pretty constant level.

Also, my improvement hasn't been a strictly gradual process, there were days in between when my T seemed to be much louder again, but sleeping always set it back to the level it had been previously. During the first few months of my Tinnitus journey, my T was changing a lot - from a dentist drill in my ears it turned into morse code tinnitus and then an electrical head buzz that made it impossible to focus on anything. As it started to get better, I had a lot of fleeting Tinnitus (ie a different tone or a louder tone for a few seconds only in one of my ears) and I developed a slightly annoying clicking sound in my left ear that came and went. This has now thankfully gone too and I like to think of all of this as my ears trying to readjust their frequencies to the "normal" world, after they had been blocked with earwax for probably quite some time. Although I was careful around noise, I took care not to overdo it with earplugs for that reason - I could feel that my ears were working on something and I didn't want to deny them everyday sound stimuli.

Are your Spikes triggered by something or do they come completely out of the blue? If the latter is the case - maybe it can help you to think of them as a sign that your ears are working on improving. Our ears are incredible little miracles and if for whatever reason they suffer some damage, it takes them a long time to heal and to reset their systems.

I hope you get better too - just give your ears and yourself time and try not to monitor the state of your tinnitus all the time. I used to be completely obsessed with monitoring my T and would check its loudness and pitch every few minutes of every day - only after I had no time for this anymore did I make real progress in my recovery.

 

Hey TEAnnitus
Thank you for your response.. Well the sad thing is I’m 10 months in and have no clue what is trigger my Spikes. Noise don’t seem to be and issue, caffeine isn’t a problem either. So I’m still searching for an answer. The weird thing is if I take a nap I will wake up with a spike and then two days later I wake up in the morning the spike is gone... so confusing. I’m hoping this horrible stuff goes away. It’s really heartbreaking trying to be your true self with it. I try not to monitor it.. but dang it’s really hard with a spike. So do you just ignore the spike and not think about it at all? It’s so overwhelming. But on the bright side I am doing better except for spikes lol. Thank you!!!!! I hope you continue to heal

 

Napping used to give me really bad spikes too (I believe this is a very common thing among tinnitus sufferers), so I stopped taking naps during the day. These spikes used to send me into a right panic, but in my case they always settled over night and the next day I would be back to my normal tinnitus level. You seem to be experiencing a similar pattern, just that it takes two nights in your case for your spikes to settle. Maybe that is a good sign?

It really is so hard not to get completely lost as a person and as a personality in this tinnitus thing - sometimes it was all I could talk about for days and I told my husband that we should scrap our plans to start a family because I couldn't see myself raising kids with this terrible dentist drill always on in my ears. I was ready to change my whole life and everything I am and I love because of tinnitus and it is a miracle my husband stayed so patient and reassuring with me.

I am very glad to hear you are doing better too, hopefully I'll get to read your success story in a few months or so. And now go and get on with the people and the things you love - that is the best cure.