Positive Progress: Tinnitus Slowly Fading

Hello my fellow people! I woke up one morning with noticeable hearing loss in my left ear and an unbelievably loud, piercing eeee sound, which I could hear over almost everything.

This sent me into a panic and immediately set up up an ENT appointment. The sound was so intrusive, literally destroying my serenity and quality of life as I knew it. To make matters worse, eating anything that needed to be crunched would only exacerbate the sound.

I consulted with various doctors, ENT, an audiologist and got an MRI... leading me to what appeared to be a dead end as they brushed it off as TMJ and anxiety.

Audiologist confirmed a loss of 4 kHz hearing range and I was told to pretty much get used to it. This pretty much devastated me as I had no idea how I could live with this piercing siren in my head! On a scale of 1-10 I was at a solid 9.

The following weeks I resorted to benzos (Ativan and Valium) to gain some sanity... as I felt I was losing it fast. This was a blessing and a curse. It helped me sleep and made the tinnitus quieter for a while the next day but only fueled it for the next several days. I felt completely hopeless. My life was certainly on a downward spiral and couldn't enjoy anything in the moment because my focus was lost in the noise.

My only way of coping was using a wireless earbud with a tinnitus app or music playing in attempt to distract myself.

Fast forward to the present and a lot of patience and prayer and it appears it's slowly fading. It's still certainly there but it's only at a 4 or 5/10 instead of a 8 or 9.

Here are the things I've done in the last few months to try and adjust my brain to ignore/relieve the tinnitus:

Wear an earbud with soothing sounds all day, everyday.

Stimulate the lost frequency, 4 kHz in my case, with a simple tone generator.

Avoid loud noise and slowly reintroduce louder sounds over time.

Sleep, the more quality sleep, the better I feel and less stressed I am about the situation.

Massaging neck and jaw area.

Lower existing anxiety, in my case, I found meditation and especially progressive muscle relaxation seemed to be one of the pivotal keys to lowering my tinnitus.

I hope anyone reading this can possible benefit from anything I've said, although I'm sure it's been said a thousand times before. If anything, time and patience is invaluable, which is extremely difficult when you're in acoustic agony. By no means am I cured but it's much less bothersome now than it was before and I'm optimistic that one day we will all find solace and freedom from this mental torture.

My heart truly goes out to everyone, especially those fighting it for decades!

 

Hey man, thanks for dropping by and sharing how things have been going for you.

While I think this condition is frightening for almost everyone at the beginning, to see that yours carried along with it a remarkable bout of hearing loss is considerably unfortunate. Hearing about how you were able to recover despite an incredibly rough start is certainly inspiring. Seeing progress as good as that (9/10 down to 4-5/10!) is fantastic, and I hope it only continues to drop for you. Here's hoping you start seeing levels in the 1-2 range in the near future, and perhaps it'll disappear altogether!

Time and patience really seems to be the kicker for most people. As I have never been a patient person myself, I am finding getting through the days to be trial after trial. I will take much of what you've said to heart. Thank you!

I'd also love to see your pug if you've got any pictures to share!

 

Thanks @Drachen for the kind words! Hopefully you find some peace too my friend.

 

@Guywithapug

Oh my goodness! Cuteness overload! Look at that squishy face!

...

Oh yeah, better say say well done on the progress.

Obviously the dog was way more important in this thread.

 

Thanks @Steph1710, he is my support dog through this maybe he will trade ears with me lol.

Some days are certainly better than others still but I'll just keep pressing forward.

 

Update

I have been doing fairly well for the last few days, even getting the tinnitus getting down to nothing more than a slight hiss. Then last night I was getting frustrated with certain issues going on and went to lay down for a while.

What was a slight hiss grew more intrusive and then this morning full blown hissing in my left ear. I'm not sure if this is progress (transforming from an intrusive pure tone 24/7 to a loud hiss which fades over a day or 2 to baseline.) Is this a hissing tinnitus spike?

To be honest I'm not sure whats worse... loud eeeeee or loud hssssss
Ughhhhh!!!!!!! I just look forward to my low level hiss days as sad as it is to say.