One Year with Tinnitus: Pretty Sure I'm Habituated, Sometimes I Can Completely Ignore It

So it's been about a year since my tinnitus got bad, and I figured I should share my experience here in case it might help someone that is suffering as I was one year ago.

I've had tinnitus for a few years now, which I assume was caused at first by standing too close to the speakers at a heavy metal show. It wasn't too bad back then, I could only hear it in a really quiet room and I could easily sleep through it.

But after getting my earwax removed last year (irrigation and microsuction) it got a lot worse. I could hear it pretty much everywhere but the shower, the anxiety was so bad I couldn't sleep, I was barely eating, and I was sure I wasn't going to be able to live like this for the rest of my life.

This anxiety lasted for a month or so, until I developed some coping strategies like always having a window open for the background noise (I live on a busy street) and playing white noise on my phone to help me sleep. I also stopped using headphones for the most part, using them only at very low volumes for Zoom calls as I was working from home. At this point I could function but I was still really depressed about the whole thing, and reading many posts on this forum only made it worse.

At the end of the year I had a really bad spike which made it all even worse, but fortunately it subsided after around a month.

During this year the sound has faded a bit I believe, though I can still hear it in most situations, but I'm pretty sure I'm habituated now as it doesn't bother me much anymore, even when I can hear it. And sometimes I can even completely ignore it.

I know many people here have it a lot worse than I do, and I'm sorry about that, but for people like me, my advice is to get off this forum (or only read the success stories), and just try to believe that time will make things better, even if it's hard to believe that right now. And protect your ears, of course, because it can surely get worse if you don't.

 

Good advice. I agree about the protecting your ears, even near kids, as mine set me back lol.

 

Thanks for the encouraging post.

 

Wow, my story is pretty similar to this! Loud ass metal and hardcore shows. I have only been dealing with my loud tinnitus for 2 months although I’ve had very mild tinnitus for years. I hope I can be habituated in the coming months as well.

Glad to hear you're doing better!

Do you think you will ever go to a show again?

 

I still have a ticket to see Iron Maiden next year (got postponed twice due to COVID-19) and I'm planning on going. I'm going to get some good earplugs and stand in the back. If the tinnitus gets worse, it will be my last concert, but honestly I think I'm going to be fine.

 

Right on! I am going to a 3 day metal fest in September. I have some custom earplugs for it and thankfully it is outside. I also plan on staying very far away from the speakers.

 

Love to read the success stories.

Are your kids young? My youngest is 11 and he has a little best friend who screams constantly. And his little friend has a little brother and when I have them all with me I have to put my earplugs in. I’ve never met two little boys who were so loud. I think their parents are going to go deaf.

 

My entire family is supposed to go see Aerosmith at Fenway Park for their 50th anniversary concert. The concert is of course outside but I guess you can never tell how far away from the speaker are you going to be. We are on the field so I can’t exactly escape to the grandstands.

I have custom-made musician’s earplugs, but I’m trying to figure out an additional mode of protection to compliment the earplugs and still hear the music. Any suggestions?

 

Yeah I hear you lol. My son is going to be 5.

 

Cool! That sounds fun! You could wear some earmuffs over the earplugs. I was talking with my audiologist today about the concert I am going to and she said my custom earplugs are rated to reduce noise by 20 decibels should be just fine. She has tinnitus as well and she uses the same earplugs and goes to concerts with no issue. She did say I could wear them with earmuffs if I felt it was too loud.

Thankfully my concerts will be in a giant field so I can stand far away from the stage. For your circumstance that may be difficult since you have assigned seating. I have some Walker earmuffs I use for shooting in conjunction with earplugs. They allow you to hear talking, but block out loud noises above 89 dB. They are rated at 23 NRR and have HD speakers in them so you should hear the music well with them and with your musicians ear plugs you will have the protection you want without losing too much of the music. One caveat is they do require batteries. Here’s a link to those earmuffs.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MR1JV4E/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_3GBQHW7ZHD7CVX9N6GR7

Or you could go with traditional earmuffs that don’t have the speakers. The music would be muffled, but your ears would definitely be protected.