Stoke-on-Trent Support Group Tinnitus Week 2018

Stoke on Trent tinnitus support group.

#TinnitusWeek
www.tinnitusweek.com

 

It's great seeing people getting together and raising awareness, but at the same time this is kinda bittersweet and depressing, because this is a reminder that tinnitus is usually old folks' thing. Not saying that anybody has it easy and suffering is not a contest, but it's so much more cruel to get this when you are in your 20s than if you are in your 50s.

Remembers me of the time when I called a local Tinnitus association and a person answering there was an old lady and she just told me to put a radio in the background to cover up the tinnitus and carry on with your life. Yeah sure, it's easy for your generation, because at that age, your life mainly consists of listening to radio, drinking coffee and maybe reading newspaper, but for our generation it's much different, our activities are much different and due to tinnitus, literally the best time of our life might be ruined.

 

I think you might have a rather narrow view of "old folks" Tempest - some of them do manage a bit more than drinking coffee and reading the newspaper you know. That said I completely take the point that getting tinnitus in your twenties (as an increasingly large number of people are) can have a different impact than getting it much later in life.

I am really glad that I didn't get tinnitus until my early forties. My life since then has changed so much - with many ordinary activities such as going to the cinema now out of the question due to the level of noise exposure - that I am glad that I lived my twenties and thirties without this affliction.

 

It's the same here, there's a group in only a few largest cities... the average age is over 60

 

Yeah, maybe I was too harsh, but my point basically was that the world has changed so much and our passtimes. Our generation works much differently, we use headphones for music (much more) or headsets for video games and we use social media to socializes (rather than meeting in person) and if you cannot do some of those things anymore relaxed in silence, you miss out from so much. And add the extra stress that our generation faces and on the top of that, you have to keep yourself busy even at home to distract yourself from tinnitus, it's just hell.

 

A friend of mine got tinnitus from a gaming headset.

 

I had to tell my 3 big kids no more headset, low volume on earplugs or don't use them either, no loud places, and don't overly stress. I hope they listen to me, well they do because I'm crazy telling not to do it. There has to be awareness because some of it I believe is preventable. I have never heard of T before and it lasting.