Q: Why Do Some Members Who Said Their Tinnitus Went Away Not Post Success Stories?

I’ve found a lot of threads with members (at least 10) saying their tinnitus went away but they never posted it in the success stories. Why is that?

 

They probably just ran out of things to talk about.

 

Because they are done with tinnitus, they are glad to be out of the snake pit and see no reason to crawl back in, and some are also afraid to jinx it so to speak.

 

That happens on forums for other diseases / conditions as well. People don't want to remember their problems, you know... ugly things. They may also fear that their brains "remember" tinnitus.

 

It's probably because often it's such a long and gradual process, often with partial relapses that there is no point in time when people suddenly think their tinnitus is 'cured'.

 

When the ear screeching stops, tinnitus is like a far away dream and life resumes... and then there's those of us who have tinnitus return... failure and apparently rationalized beliefs that something coincidental to momentarily cured the tinnitus, is nearly as difficult to admit as living with it again.

 

Because once they get better, they no longer have any need for this forum.

 

These are definitely part of it yeah

 

Some people who have posted positive stories and resumed doing things they enjoy i.e. using headphones, going to parties or concerts (of course being more careful about these) get met with negativity. So I don't blame people for not wanting to share their success stories.

 

I think posting a success story is to some extent equivalent to telling, say, a blind person: "I can see - and you can't." It is like rubbing it in and telling a cancer patient "you are dying and I am not." I realize that if a former cancer patient shares their recovery with the other patients, they give the others a ray of hope. However, the other component is undeniably there, and few would want to boast about recovery to other people who might never recover.

 

Enquiring about somebody’s erstwhile severity is not negativity. (That’s a stupid word anyway.)
The most relevant aspect of tinnitus is its severity.

If we are to attempt to apply their message to ourselves and perhaps utilise it, then this is something that we need to know.

We need to know that to get perspective.

i.e. - can their method be of any relevance to ourselves?

 

So if I get better, I will keep it to myself then...

 

This seems to be equivalent to winning the lottery (I am not saying that having tinnitus fade is as unlikely as winning the lottery, I am just saying that in both cases it is random, and some people win and some don't), and telling strangers who haven't won the lottery about your win. There is a reason why the people who organize lotteries have a condition stating that in order to collect the jackpot, one has to consent to being photographed. If not for that clause, many would refuse to allow the lottery to use their name in lottery's promotional materials.

 

I think these are all good answers. My tinnitus changes very frequently. I can go from having just a low tolerable tone in the morning that I barely notice to a severe screeching hiss that makes me feel suicidal by the end of the day. Normally though I'll have maybe one mild week and then several moderate/severe weeks in a row. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I'd feel comfortable saying I've recovered. I'm still relatively new to this and I've already had a couple of times where I thought the nightmare was over only for it to return just as severely for seemingly no reason. Even if my tinnitus were to be virtually gone for weeks/months/years, I think I still would be constantly afraid it was going to come back and hesitant to label it as "gone forever" just in case.

I realize this can't be true of everyone because not everyone's T varies so much. So in general I'd agree with the above comments, they're probably just off enjoying their tinnitus-free lives and aren't in need of the forum anymore. I personally like reading success stories in general because it gives me hope but I also can totally see the other side where it's very hard/frustrating seeing other people recover when you haven't. Depends on my mood!

 

I had a headache for two years called new daily persistent headache, and I still go back to those forums sometimes and say I had it for two years and it went away. Actually one of the biggest barriers to doing it more often is everybody asks me, what did you do what did you do what did you do. And a lot of things I did, other people have tried as well. So I know it’s mostly luck that meant mine went away and i can’t pass that on however much I might want to.

 

@Agrajag364 -- Could you post a link to the headache forum(s) you liked best? -- Thanks...