People Whose Tinnitus Has Gotten Worse — Is There a Reason For It?

@linearb What similar visual issues did you have? Did they cause vestibular problems? Benzo withdrawal twice? What Benzos? What were the circumstances for the second time? What kind of other drug exposure? So many questions, but you have a lot of experience to offer.

 

I started to see static in my vision, halos around objects, moving black dots on blue skies. Basically it's like there's extra activity in my visual system, just like T is extra activity in my auditory system.

I have not had much dizziness with any of this, though I also wouldn't say my balance is great. It's good enough to walk down the street and drive a motorcycle though so I guess I'm doing ok?

I was on Klonopin mostly. I'd withdrawn completely well prior to my noise trauma in 2009. The worse tinnitus caused me severe panic and anxiety, and I started using a different benzo which was, at the time, unscheduled in the US and relatively easy to obtain (legally) from overseas without a prescription. After a while I realized I'd gotten myself pretty severely dependent on benzos again, decided that was going to be a bigger problem than the T was if I kept it up, and crossed over on to Valium to get myself off of it again. I spent most of 2010 and 2011 tapering back off.

 

@linearb Sounds like you did a good job of tapering off Benzos. Thanks for sharing about it. If you can ride a motorcycle, you are doing well with balance.

 

Sorry if I offended anybody with my comment about catastrophic thinking. It's just that in my limited experience, catastrophic thinking can be as damaging if not more damaging than whatever the ailment is. When I was in the T rut a year ago, my thoughts and fears were infinitely more terrifying than the T. My fear would have killed me long before the T ever did.

 

@Alex Senkowski It is kind of you to post the above apology. Because tinnitus arises from many different etiologies, it really depends on what is causing it, as far as damage is concerned. @Kaelon has written a very good description of a differential diagnosis on this thread. In my case, my tinnitus was not going to get better, no matter how much positive thinking I did. Simple fact. I needed surgery, or I was only going to continue to get worse. In fact, I tried just about every non-invasive treatment recommended, each one only made it worse. We should not think of tinnitus as just one ailment, just as there is not just one type of cancer. I do agree that positive thinking is important in healing, but the underlying condition needs to be properly treated.