Still No Sleep Even on 2 Sleeping Tablets :(

@Steve Thanks! I have another question for the audio guy. I was told that the reason that Neuromonics is helpful to some people is because there is no bass in the music. Since Neuromonics made both my T and H worse, I am wondering if this information about no bass is just nonsense, just like the research studies Neuromonics, Inc. provides are baseless. Pun intended .

 

I know it really seems like it's just a function of volume right now, but if your experience is anything like mine, you will figure out over time that it's not. People learn to sleep next to train tracks, airports, coal mines, etc. I don't really buy the "alarm clock" comparison for myself, based on my observation that when I set an alarm for myself, I wake right up (sometimes even waking up slightly before the alarm goes off), but when my wife sets an alarm for a time that's hours earlier than I get up, not only do I not become fully awake, sometimes I sleep through it entirely.

As long as any part of you feels threatened by the noise, then the mind sees it as a threat and you won't sleep well because we have millions of years of evolution working to ensure that we're alert when danger is nearby. Once you stop feeling so threatened, then your mind will stop monitoring the noise, and you will sleep through it.

I know, I can tell, and I'm really sorry. You are very early in this process. It will get better. Some/many people get tinnitus and have it go away completely over the following months. Even if it doesn't go away, the first few months are generally when people struggle the most.

 

@SusanGee The noise just bellows for me too. I completely understand what you are going through. My husband makes me warm milk (because of the melatonin) or ginger root tea (because it is an anti-inflammatory) before bed. I have not found a way to break through it yet, so I appreciate your post very much!

 

@SusanGee Mine is literally like an alarm clock or better yet a car alarm in my head, because it pulses. The noise can be overwhelming. It is definitely the noise that keeps me from sleeping, and not my mind being threatened by danger. I used to sleep through trains, police sirens, you name it. But the T is so loud that it is like my whole head is full of noise. I understand what you are going through with this. Like other people on this thread, you will find an answer that works for you. I have not been able to break through it yet, myself. Still searching. My best to you.

 

Hi susan,
Sorry you are in this way but we all have at some point felt the same way.
keep us posted of how you are getting on we are all with you.
pm if you need me.
Shaun

 

You can sleep again. It can be done with even catastrophic T levels. If I can do it, you can as well. My T is to the point where I can hardly get through a day. My T is unmaskable, fans, white noise etc do nothing but make it louder. What I'm saying is that it is for sure 100 percent anxiety and once you overcome this you will sleep just fine. I don't use maskers, nothing, I lay in bed with my entire head and ears blazing with a mix of terrible noises that I can't even explain and i just drift off. On the other hand during the day, I haven't figured out how to function like a normal human being, with sleep you don't have to really function, it should eventually be the easy part of your day, you just have to lay there and not be anxious. Easier said than done, but it can be done.

In the beginning I went weeks straight with not 5 minutes of sleep even with piles of pills. I am not exaggerating by the way. I didn't know it was humanly possible to even do this. You can get your system into such a state that a pill or two is not going to knock you out, not a lot will. You need to calm down and know that you will sleep again. Part of not sleeping can be the fact that you think you will never sleep properly again. Like I say, take it from me, you can and will sleep again. It is absolutely 100 percent possible to sleep like a baby with no sleeping pills, no masking and your T painfully blasting through the roof!

 

If your body is in so called 'fight or flight' state, sleep is very hard if not impossible because of cortisol hormone in your blood. The key is to calm your central nervous system. I once wrote about this more. Hope it helps: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new-and-stressed-with-tinnitus-read-this-first.3978/

@Steve that's an excellent soundscape you have made. One question - how could I play that on loop without any pause in between via PC and iOS?

 

@Telis Thank you for your informative and encouraging post. Your T is just like mine, everything makes it worse and it is so loud it is debilitating during the day. I have practiced Vipassana meditation and practiced Yoga for 30 years, so I don't think I am experiencing anxiety. I don't feel anxious about it. The pulsing noise makes it impossible to sleep unless my husband reads to me. Then once I do go to sleep the noise wakes me up in the middle of the night because it is like an alarm clock going off in my head. How do you do it? I would love to get some good sleep even with my T painfully blasting through the roof. Even my brother who is very anxious and has loud T can sleep. I need to break through this and I appreciate @SusanGee for raising the question.

 

It should loop seamlessly. But I can send you a version via wetransfer if you want, uncompressed. Just PM me.

 

Hey @SusanGee: Sounds like a panic attack (the shaking, etc.) is what sent you to the hospital. If so, god, I feel for you. Panic attacks are the most miserable thing on earth. Sometimes, tinnitus triggers our automatic nervous/limbic systems (the primitive fight and flight reaction already mentioned on this thread) -- which in turn triggers panic. Anxiety and panic also can play a role in sleep problems. It sure did for me in the beginning, when my tinnitus caused rolling panic attacks, one after another. Nights were the worse. Panic would wake me out of a sound sleep, or at least during the limited times I was even able to fall asleep.

Many of the suggestions on this thread -- masking noise at night, meditation, calming breathing exercises - are excellent and I hope you check them out. They have helped me. But in the beginning, my panic attacks required anxiety medication (coupled with sleeping medication) for me to be able to sleep at all. Short-acting benzodiazapines, like Xanax (alprazolam) are usually the most effective. They carry serious risks, should be taken under the supervision of a mental health doctor (a psychiatrist) if possible. Your goal should be to take the lowest dose possible and quit them as soon as holistic methods, like breathing exercises, start working.

But if you have panic, your house is on fire. You should not be afraid or ashamed to take short-term meds, in my opinion. Today, I no longer take anxiety medication at all (except for a few rare as-needed cases) and have seriously cut back the sleep meds.

Much written on benzos, pros and cons, here. Just do a search in Tinnitus Talk.
I so hope you are feeling better after getting some medical attention.

 

@Steve I got the soundscape to play on my iPhone, I am also not able to play it on loop. My T is a much higher pitch than your soundscape, so it rings through. Suggestions?

 

try this -

Violet Noise - Ambient Sound - One Hour - HD -...

I have an MP3 of the audio from this, I can share it with you if you want, PM me your email address in that case.

 

It only takes a little bit of anxiety throughout the day and your body will not let you sleep at night. I am agreed its the anxiety that keeps you up and not the ringing. I've gone to sleep with blaring T with meds. I had the same thing with the panic attacks. If you are at the panic attack stage then there is no way to get any sleep at all. Your body just wont let you. You can also only do this for so many nights before it starts to affect you.
I know its not the popular choice, but if you cant get fixed up on your own clonazepam will help to lower the volume, change your reaction to it and make you so drowsy that you will sleep. For me it took the anxiety away for the entire day, which let me sleep at night. I didn't even need a pill at night, but if I had taken one it would have put me out. I'm still trying to get off of it after three months and its not the best long term solution, but if it gets bad enough then I say go for it.
Its either that, or you really must get all of your feelings and emotions under control right now for the entire day to allow your body to be able to rest. Negative thoughts are your enemy right now and you truly must believe you will get better in order to start the healing process. Most people can get back on our way to recovery but it takes time, patience and lots of relaxation techniques.

 

@linearb Thanks for the violet noise. I don't think I need the MP3 audio. It played just fine for me. Much appreciated.

 

I just reread your post and it says you are hypersensitive to noise as well. When I had that issue, the T was incredibly loud. My story was similar to yours back in december. both T and H make it pretty unbearable. You really do immediately need to calm down or it will just get even louder. When I had the same thing happen I didnt understand what was happening to me. The meds I mentioned really helped when I got that bad. If you get a chance go to the clonazepam thread and its almost at the end where I tell my story.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/clonazepam-klonopin-rivotril.423/page-11
#301.

 

Thank you for this. I'll have a read. I've been given diazapam; is that the same thing please? Just wondered with it ending in "Pam" if it is just another brand name maybe?

 

Diazepam and clonazepam are related, but different drugs.

Be careful with these. They are benzos. They helped me short term, and really messed me up long term.

 

im new to all this so sorry for asking lots of questions but 1/ what is a benzo? 2/ do you mean both are benzos or just diazapam? 3/ how did they mess you up?

 

Hello @SusanGee. I am so terribly sorry you're experiencing this. It is unbelievably difficult, I remember.

I also had fairly violent, shaking panic attacks. I went to the ER, they gave me a few anti-anxiety meds, that did not help me sleep even for a moment. Then I went to a psychiatrist, he gave me a stronger medication (another benzo) which calmed me a little, but really didn't help me sleep. I went back to him, he gave me a different class of sleep aid (a hypnotic) I can't remember what the name was - I think the brand is Ambien (?) I'd have to look. Anyway, depending on what state your in, different kinds of sleep aids may work better. Even then it wasn't the most restful sleep, but I promise with time you old sleep habits will return. I'm back at a cozy 10-12 hours on a weekend (ha ha).

The thing that eventually got me off the meds and towards my normal sleep again was yoga. Not the crazy hot kind, but the sort specifically developed to calm your central nervous system. Whoever said that in the comments above was right. Take the meds to help you now, your body absolutely needs rest, and don't feel ashamed or weak about taking them. You need them right now and that is fine. Just also do all other things you can to promote calmness. Even if it's hard to believe or feel right now, tell yourself that things will get better - planting that seed in your subconscious is good. Little by little, things will improve.

 

It looks similar. It should help you until you are able to cope better. The meds I took helped me get over the sensitivity to sound faster as well which was a plus.

 

They can help in the short term, to manage the reaction Only use them when you have to, don't habitually take one and make sure you don't use them for very long if you can avoid it to avoid dependancy.

From experience I recommend to always try and calm yourself down naturally before you resort to taking one (may take a little bit before you can do this though). Use relaxation techniques, breathe, try whatever you can, find what can work for you to calm down. It may actually be easier to get calm when you know you have something to fall back on with the benzo.

 

@SusanGee

I've more than once been scared out of my mind of the possibility that the T-sound will make it impossible to sleep.

Yet, since T onset five months ago my sleepless nights have amount to zero (0) so far, and the amount of pills I've eaten to accomplish this are zero (0) as well.

What you need to do is train your body to relax. I explain how you can do this here:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/meditation-practice-to-deal-with-tinnitus-suffering.8165/

If this method seems to fussy, order a book about Yoga where it's explained how to do basic Yoga breathing, and also a book about Yoga Nidra, where you will be taught guidad relaxation techniques. The idea isn't to do the techniques while you lie in bead and try to fall asleep (even if you can try that to). The idea is to train your stressed out body to calm down. The more you do it, the better your body will be at it.

I could to this, and so can you. When you look back at this period of time later on you will remember you read this on TT, and you will think to yourself how true it was.

 

Hi @SusanGee: A "benzo" is a benzodiazepine -- a type of drug usually used to treat anxiety. There are different types but they all work in similar ways on your brain chemistry. Diazepam and clonazepam are both drugs in this category, as is Xanax. The fact that one was given to you at the hospital suggests you indeed were having a severe anxiety reaction.

People are wise to advise you to take these medications seriously. They are designed for short-term use. They need to be taken under a doctor's supervision and carefully monitored. You should never just quit them cold turkey; they usually require a tapering down protocol. You want to take the lowest effective dose possible. As Steve said, once your panic is calmed down, you should try to take these pills only when you really, really need one and other methods, like calming exercises, haven't worked. And benzos can cause dependency in some people, which means you can have unpleasant withdrawal symptoms even when ending your use with a taper.

But again: If you really need this medication, I would not let other people's experiences scare you. Use precautions and you should be OK. For every person that was messed up by benzos, there is another (like me) for whom they were lifesavers and were able to end their use with little problem. I was very nervous initially about taking these drugs, which made me even more anxious.

 

Thanks for this. I'm not nervous about taking them because I need something to help me now otherwise I don't think I'd be here tmrw ! I've had half a tablet at tea time and it helped to calm me somewhat and noise reduced enough for me to get a little relief. Really hoping I can get a little sleep tonight. Fingers crossed !

 

Susan, the way I see it, you have lots of great advice. The medicine will help calm you down. Use that with the techniques for calming yourself down further and you will get better faster. What I found is if I could take one in the morning and one at midday it was enough so that my body wasnt stressed during the day. That may or may not be the way to go, I dont really know, but it helped me. That allowed me to sleep at night. I can tell you that a couple hours of anxiety during the day is all it takes to not allow your body to sleep. Everyone suggests taking it easy on the medicine and that is a good idea, but if you feel a panic attack coming on or you feel anxious, that is the time to take it because otherwise you wont sleep and then that just makes you worst again. If you can stop the anxiety attack with deep breathing or some other method than you are better off, but I wasnt always able to do that. I started with one tablet in the am and one in the pm, but a half is probably not a bad idea either. Since this is the first time, they will have a strong affect. The way I look at it is not taking the pill and allowing a panic attack to happen is worst than taking the pill and calming yourself down. Again if you can do it without the pill great, if not then thats great too.
The important thing to know is that no matter how bad your felt or it was, most people get better eventually. Even if the ringing stays, most people will learn to ignore it over time and it will soften greatly over time to the point where you will not notice it, or with some people it just goes away completely. The important thing is to keep yourself healthy during this time until this happens.

 

Same here. There's no anxiety left, plenty of hatred yes (smashed my head today again), but the noise IS just insanity destroying loud. It's kinda strange that my skull is still in one piece. So it's definitely the noise that is giving me sleepless nights and painful days!

You know, I think it's really cool that your partner is taking good care of you. I wish I had someone like that right now.
In the beginning masking did help but now, since H is raging, it makes all worse. I've lost plenty of high-freq. and I can only stand low and mid-freq. sounds.

@Telis what's your secret? How do you do it?

@SusanGee , I wish I could help you. I wish I could help @svintegrity or myself. But T is whimsical and cruel. We can only hope..

 

I think what it continues to boil down to is the necessity of a differential diagnosis when seeking to treat T. What are we seeking to treat? It is an indicator and not a disease in itself (maybe that's why most ENTs glaze over when you mention the T-word in their offices). What is causing it in the first place? For some it is hearing loss, for others it is TMD issues. Then there are the somatosensory tinnitus sufferers, and there are those very few who are getting an active input from a compressed auditory nerve, like vascular compression syndrome. Tinnitus has many faces--many causes. Each person is perceiving only one part of the elephant felt in the dark. If T were only one single condition, it would be easier to find efficacious treatments. Lumping T together in one category is like saying that all cancers are the same. It does not take away from how disturbing it can be, but it is important to note that what works well for one person, may not be the answer for the next. It is necessary to embrace what you find helpful, and be aware of the rest. It is easy to be led down dark alleys, have missteps, and have to endure setbacks. I so appreciate what everyone on this forum has to offer from immediate experience, as it gives us all a plethora of information with which to selectively apply to our own situations. We realize that others are experiencing the same or similar things, or maybe even something completely different. Ultimately, it means that we are not alone in wanting to find relief, whether it be from lack of sleep, or too much stress. In the end, we all want to enjoy life as fully as we can.

 

NiNyu,
H and T are a horrible combination. When I had both I couldnt cope with it and thats why I started the meds. I can only tell you that once the H goes away the T is bearable. Are you taking any meds right now? At the peak my T was louder than the loudest setting on my TV. When I took the meds, the volume immediately dropped by half that night. At that point I knew that I had to keep taking them to get better. My H was bad for 3 to 4 weeks and now that I think about it, it probably took a bit longer to be completely gone. I stayed on the meds when I had the H the whole time. Once the H was gone I was able to taper down the meds. T is still bothersome, but no longer insanely loud like you mention.

Svintegrity,
You are so right. The more I read, the more I realize that there are different causes of T and what works for some might not work for others.

For me it was a great anxiety fueling the T and H which is why I think the meds helped so much. They got rid of the fuel. If you are left with T and dont have anxiety, then I bet the same meds I took wouldnt be as effective.

 

@NiNyu I think you and I are in the same boat with the noise, not anxiety, causing us sleepless nights. It was the same for me in the beginning, masking helped, but now my H is insanely painful. Yes T is whimsical and cruel. Don't give up hope! And keep that skull of your in tact.

 

My secret is that I have suffered so much over these last 14 months that I literly have to pass out and escape through sleep. I have reached total and complete exhaustion. Trying to listen to and comprehend things during the day with this shit blasting away along with the pain from every sound wipes me out completely, bed time has become the easy part of my day. There is way less suffering involved in laying in bed and I take peace in knowing that I will at least get away from the pain for a bit through sleep. Maybe it depends on how bad your days are, not sure. I am debilitated, I have gone from a highly productive individual to a person that can barely process a thought. I count down the hours until I can sleep, days seem to be long and punishing. All I want to do is sleep, I can't handle reality at this point.