Is anyone else sleep deprived? I think this is my biggest problem with my tinnitus bedtime is torture for me I can mask the regular t but the ear twitches are incredibly hard to mask and anxiety takes the best of me . I really don't want to depend on sleeping pills since they make me feel sick. How can we survive with sleep deprivation? I feel like a depressed zombie existing and not enjoying life.
Sleep was a horrible struggle for me when I got off benzos. Not sleeping makes tinnitus and anxiety much worse because it messes up your body and your neurotransmitter production. The good news is that it can get better. I sleep now. I still have the T but a lot of the time I don't even use a fan to sleep. The things that helped me were mediation, self compassion, and doing cognitive work to understand and dissect the ways in which my anxiety was feeding my insomnia.
Hi, For me, focusing on other things besides Tinnitus really helped me get to sleep. I would just focus really hard on a specific topic (anything, school, work, sports, etc.). I would think about it until I could not stay awake any more. More important than this, however, is telling myself to not listen to my T. Once you can master that, you will go to sleep as if you never had ringing in your ears.
I take Benedyrl when I have gone a couple of nights of not having enough sleep. It seems to help. I have also taken Melatonin which also helps.
I wish I can go back to old times when I only had the regular t and the sound used to soothe me to sleep. I don't know If it's possible to habituate to a sound that is not there. I can't take Benadryl or NyQuil nothing that says pm because it gives me the opposite effect makes my heart race like it's going to pop out of my chest. Is melatonin like Benadryl? I'm scared to take it and have my body respond like that.
Chelles I can't take medicines very well either becasue they have the opposite effect too. I am on clonopin and it does help tremendously but I have been on ot for many years. Since you and I have a similar thumping low sound I can relate to not being able to sleep or deal with it. Last night I bought the white noise app by tmsoft and ran my iPhone through an auxiliary cable on a stereo that has nice speakers so that it wouldn't sound tinny. Then I fooled around with the brown noise sound which is low and I put the volume right around the sound of my beating droning humming and it drowned it out. It took a while to find the right tone and volume but it was very good. But I also rely on my clonopin to relax my and my ear so that's important too. And since the weather isn't great to get outside for a short walk, I have been trying to walk around my building at work to to get rid of some of the pent up anxiety I have over this bizarre condition. Sorry you are suffering. I feel your pain. Awful.
I went a few years with the twitching, rolling from side to side etc.... until I realized that when my ear was covered the twitching stopped. Maybe yours isn't like that but still to this day, when it's twitching at night I just put cotton in my ear and it stops. ?? Weird.
I've tried everything, I can sleep well about 4 out 7 nights. Things that help me the most are long walks in the evening, minimum of one hour, doesn't have to be power walking. Pillow speakers with the sound of raindrops falling on a tarp plus a second speaker in the room with low jets engine sound, this coverts the spectrum nicely with interesting sounds. Even with the sounds I hear the t a bit but it doesn't ramp up the anxiety. I have a mild sleep aid that I use on the bad nights but I must make the decision to take it early enough in the evening or the morning will be rough.
I use meditation practice to help the body relaxe before bedtime. I've written about it here: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/meditation-practice-to-deal-with-tinnitus-suffering.8165/
