Really Scared

Hi, i'm a 41 year old male and ive had mild noise induced tinnitus for a number of years that i habituated to and barely noticed, but recently i have not been kind to my ears with listening to music up loud on headphones and a mouse snap trap going off with me nearby. Now my tinnitus has become severe with high pitch and volume and i'm a nervous wreck having trouble sleeping and eating and even thinking of suicide. it's basically become debilitating and I'm worried sick the noise won't abate and don;t know what to do.

 

If you are too nervous and suicidal, you may want to talk to your doctor(s) about that. They can prescribe something to help with anxiety and depression which you can phase out when your condition improves. You can also try masking. When tinnitus is new or at a new irritating level, and the ringing is causing much anxiety and panic, it is advisable to get masking going so you won’t be so anxious and fearful. Stress and anxiety are toxic to T. So try masking if you haven’t done so. I used to mask all day just to prevent panic attacks from hearing my ultra high pitch loud dog whistle T. Try these if you haven't yet. Take good care & God bless.

1) Mask at bed time so you can sleep better. Find whatever sounds/music that are soothing to you. You can use a sound machine or sound pillow for this, or a computer with speakers.

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipad with nature sounds or music using itune, or use smart phone.

3) If you have computer and speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds:

TT's audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/
or download free sound generator ‘aire freshener’: http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html
or make your own rain sound: http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/rainNoiseGenerator.php
or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

And if you need DIY notched Acoustic Coordinated Reset Neuromodulation (ACRN):
(please be careful and research the pro and con on ACRN before proceeding with caution)
http://www.tinnitus.org.uk/acoustic-cr-neuromodulation
http://www.generalfuzz.net/acrn/

 

thanks for reply billie, i read your post on recovery and it is inspiring.

i can try masking but honestly my T has become so loud and intrusive it is difficult, is headphones ok to use?
one thing i find helps is to stand near fridge when motor is running, but obviously i can;t do this all the time.
i see my doctor in a few weeks but i can see myself crying in the doctor's office because my T has become so bad.

 

Grecks -- you're going through what most of of have gone through (or are going through) with tinnitus and hearing issues. Severe anxiety and depression seem to go hand-in-hand with it for some reason. It's horrible and you think you are losing your mind but let me assure you that you are just in the panic phase of this malady. It's a hard period to get through so don't hesitate to seek out medical help sooner than you have scheduled.

The good news is that, in time, things often get better for people and/or their ability to handle tinnitus. There is a chance you could habituate and in a year from now you may not even be bothered by it. So there is hope. The only problem is that it does take time to get to a better place with it. So, again, if you are feeling deeply anxious and depressed then you really should seek out proper medical care as soon as possible so that you can get some assistance and relief.

Hang in there.

 

guys my tinnitus is really bad like i have loud roaring buzzing and screeching almost constant and lying down is unbearable, i tried hanging myself but i dont seem to have the guts. i'm thinking of going to the hospital and ask to be put in a coma

 

@Grecks

Listen I too had a tinnitus event in 2003 yes I went through all the anxiety, depression but guess what like you i habitated to it . But fast forward to Oct 2015. I woke up with vertigo with complete hearing loss and ringing and hissing so loud in my left ear I could hear the T over the shower water, so it was loud ! This was much worse than the first tinnitus event. Well I did end up on anxiety Meds but only took about 5 pills over 2 months and then got on depression meds. Here I am 3 months in and I'm over it , I have not fully regained hearing in left its about 80% but guess what it was not due to stroke, Cancer, Tumor,nor anything worse and vertigo is gone so I feel blessed and can live my life with ringing and 80% hearing left ear . It's really not the end of the world, I'm not a strong person butI know one thing after going through this I am stronger because of it. I too had bad thoughts when this happened to me in Oct but prayer, the support of my family and friends made me relaize I have much to live for and i will be damned if this T is going to get the best of me. Give it some time don't do anything drastic and if you need to go get some meds to help you relax and take care of your ears please , ️Feel free to reach out to me anytime only those in this group will ever relate to what you are going through. hugs

 

As crazy as it sounds the T changes pitch and sometimes it stops for seconds and when it does it immediately gets my attention it's like if it wasn't there I would think something was wrong bcause I'm used to the sound now.

 

I hope you find in reading my story that T is not an end game. It has rough patches like the one you are in now, but given time and using some good strategies that I learn from others, I got better. If a panic prone person like me can survive ultra high pitch dog whistle T and severe hyperacusis, have faith that you can too. Please listen to the excellent advise from the other posters here. Give it time. They have lived and walked the talk with severe T. So they speak from experience and the heart. Try to be patient and don't do anything drastic.

Masking doesn't have to be total masking. I couldn't do that myself due to my H which didn't like even normal sounds, not to say loud masking sounds. So I live with partial masking. I still remember before I knew how to use ipod and computer for masking, I was sleeping on a make-shift cot placed right by the shower room and I had the shower going on cold water the whole night, lol. Luckily my shower room is large enough to handle that cot and that in Vancouver we pay a flat fee for water consumption. LOL. Later when I set up the ipod, I used headphones to listen to soothing nature sounds at a tolerable volume. If you can use PC speakers, then you have more masking options like those sites I listed.

But I hope you see the point I am saying. Do anything to minimize the T sound, masking, relaxing exercise, mindfulness meditation, taking calming supplements (like Chamomile Tea, Hops, St John Wort, Valerian Tablet etc.), or even prescribed meds from the doctors for anxiety and depression. But most importantly, give it time like others said.

 

Same as what happened to me pretty much. I had also habituated to a mild tinnitus and then 2 days after a gig it spiked. Those initial days/weeks can be terrifying and depressing but it doesn't stay that way. Emotionally bit by bit you start to adapt and over come it. I'm still on my journey and I'm getting better at dealing with it and so will you.

I've had weeks at a time where I've habituated to the new louder version. That's weeks at a time where I simply haven't given it any thought at all. This gives me hope that I can get to a stage where I can stay there.

When I've been in my habituated state I only seem to need a depressing day and its like I start listening to it again; essentially snapping me out of the trance.

I strongly believe you need to address the anxiety and depression first and foremost. The longer you have T the easier it gets. As impossible as that sounds right now it's the absolute truth.

You need to just let it ring and not EMOTIONALLY respond to it, treat it like its nothing. If anything imagine it's an external noise and forget about it as much as you possibly can. Start to do things to distract your mind, especially things that require deeper thinking like chess or any other kind of puzzle games. Your limbic system will start to learn, through your response, that's it's no big threat after all. At this point you'll start to think about it less and it turn you can phase it out. Get yourself to a point where you only hear it when you listen for it.

As others have pointed out it's mainly the amygdala that deals with memories and emotional responses, which is tied in with the limbic system. Every time you hear your T and panic you will produce adrenaline and go into the fight or flight state, which heightens your senses, that includes the volume of your T. Your amygdala will form a memory of this event for future use, but you don't want it to. This is the classic feedback loop where you are basically reinforcing the problem onto yourself making it worse.

It's exactly how proper OCD works as well. Same loop mechanism with the amygdala.

 

irene and ed thx for encouragement, it means a lot, well i'm still here for now and am going to hospital a&e tonight to ask for some help and sleeping tablets. billie, i'm very much anxiety and panic prone too so i'm going through hell basically. i'm trying pc speakers for masking like you suggest and it seems to be helping so far so fingers crossed.

 

hi
i went thru what u are going thru. it is likely you will take sometime to accept tinnitus... i am nine months in and i still struggle to accept it. but i no longer have anxiety, panic attacks or depression. if i were you i would go see a good pyschiatrist. I did.

 

ive noticed my tinnitus goes through several phases which is quite scary.. i have a more or less constant hiss and screech in both ears i would describe as loud, and then i have this kind of shrill that comes on that i would describe as off the charts and causes my body to tremble, i think this maybe related to the mouse snap trap noise i was unfortunately exposed to and cause some major damage

 

@Ed209 Were you given any pills specifically for the hearing loss ? How did you recover your hearing ? I experienced exactly this 6 weeks ago, although mild hearing loss. Do I still have hope with no treatment?

 

I have to say I've had a pretty hard life with some serious problems - i'm considered ugly by society and have been rejected all my life, I have a curvature of the spine that causes chronic pain and severe depression, but severe tinnitus takes the cake!

 

I haven't got any hearing loss. I took NAC, vitamin B complex, zinc and magnesium for about 4 months. I had my ears checked by an audiologist around 2 days after the onset of T. My right ear was borderline at -25db at 8khz. I had another done at my ENT appointment and it was the same but he said my hearing was perfect and told me my right ear would probably drop below 20 again. These tests were done within the first week. Ive since had 2 tests and my right ear recovered, its at 15db now. Every other frequency up to 8khz is fine, I go from -5db to around 10db and 15db at 8khz.

Seems to be a brain / auditory nerve problem in my case. Maybe higher frequency loss but no one has tested me for that yet.

 

I had exactly the same thing happen to me. In fact I'll go through and quote one of my early posts to see how I described it:

"What I don't understand is why I didn't notice until Sunday night/Monday morning and not immediately following the loud gig. As of now it's been around a week since it spiked. New symptoms include louder background hiss and a completely new intermittent high pitch squeal that changes frequency. The high pitch squeal (eeeeee) comes and goes randomly and there can be literally hours in between episodes.

The first time this kicked in it was bad enough to give me a really bad headache because I just wanted it to stop. My questions to you all with experience is, is it likely to calm down in volume over the next few weeks if I keep loading up on vitamins etc, and is the intermittent high frequency noise likely to go away. Any personal experiences or advice of what to expect or what's likely would be greatly appreciated. GPs just severely lack knowledge on the subject."

So there you have it. That random noise for me either went away or I've just stopped noticing it, but it's nothing like it was back then. I distinctly remember it just turning on in my head out of no where and it was horrible, it would come and go randomly. The problem with subjective T is you never really know the truth of what's happening other than how you feel. I feel a lot better then I did then but I'm still on the journey to being truly over it.

 

my tinnitus is has become very severe and i just can't cope, im drinking heavily and constantly thinking of suicide, i dont know what to do.

 

I'm too new to tinnitus to have much useful practical information. But I can empathise 100%. I developed tinnitus in 2015 and recently, because of some hearing damage, it has got much worse. On top of that my wiufe has left me! I think the tinnitus and OCD became too much for her. Anyhow, I'm thinking of you and hoping that you stay positive. I have never in my life felt worse than I do now. But I am hoping (guessing) that things will get better and life will have a purpose again. I think we just need to ride out the storm in whatever way we can. Look after yourself mate.

 

I realise my T severity has gone from from slight to catastrophic, and I have developed hyperacusis as well. Just typing on the keyboard kind of hurts my ears

sucks that your wife left you barnacle, i'm too ugly for a wife haha.

 

i can tell that my T is catastrophic, fluctuates and sometime feels like a freight train in my head, i think my life is over because it's unbearable and incapacitating, would the hospital put me in a coma?

 

I really feel for you @Grecks. You should speak to your Dr about low you're feeling because you may get some relief from anti depressants/anxiety medication at this stage. I'd say getting out of the low mood you're in is the priority.

 

the thing is i'm basically mental because i'm a societal reject, i initially got T because one time i lost it in public and turn slip knot up on full blast on my ear phones walking all the way home. i have some obnoxious loud neighbours that call my ugly and say they hate me all the time and it did my head in and i turned the volume up on music headphones to block them out, that made the ringing in my ears louder, but then the mouse trap that went off near my ears has done something catastrophic. i'm not really able to cope in society any longer so i don't know what they will do if i can't kill myself