Sudden Onset Tinnitus Gone After Treating Mental Illness

hello everyone! i just wanted to share my success story with people here who are suffering and need to hear something motivating. my story will not be applicable to everyone, but maybe someone with a similar experience to me will relate.

i have no idea if tinnitus is related at all to mental illness, but my journey makes me think it may be. my tinnitus started on july 7th, 2020. i woke up with a wooshing/roaring noise in my right ear that eventually developed into an EXTREMELY high-pitched ringing a couple of days later. to my horror, it eventually spread to my left ear but was significantly quieter. it was one of the worst experiences i have ever gone through. i couldn't sleep for more than an hour a night and as someone who struggles immensely with anxiety, it worried me so much that i couldn't keep food down.

over the next few months my tinnitus was really irregular and very unpredictable. it would change in pitch, volume, and even noise it seems almost every day. every few weeks it would change to the roaring/rumbling noise in my right ear and be extremely intrusive. it would last a day or two and then go away. during these times my ear felt full and it felt like i could almost feel the tinnitus.

somewhere in november or december of 2020, my anxiety became so extreme to the point where i couldn't function normally. every passing day was a living nightmare. the tinnitus onset sent me down a deep hole of health anxiety that felt like i could never get out of. any new symptom i felt, i would be on google freaking myself out for hours that what's happening is something ultimately chronic or fatal. i worried about basically every normal bodily function from eyesight, hearing, breathing, etc. you name it, i worried about it every single second of the day for months on end.

a little less than two months ago i had had enough. i was tired of dealing with my health anxiety so much that it sent me into a deep depression. i had dealt with depression for most of my life, but nothing compared to the way i felt then. nothing was helping me... meds, therapy, working on improving my daily life, nothing. i feared just about everything, even just going outside. i couldn't go outside without fear... i couldn't even breathe without fear. as you can guess, i became severely suicidal.

i was hospitalized in a mental hospital for about a week. there, i finally got recommended a new treatment plan and that gave me the hope that i needed. i also discovered there that anxiety can manifest in many different physical ways. the psychiatrist there informed me that she had seen anxiety manifest in almost any way possible, for example, a skin rash. these physical symptoms caused by anxiety are so so real to people (like me) and are always cleared medically with no explanation. i then went through a month of outpatient and my god, has it changed my fucking life. i have been put on new meds and at a much higher dosage as well. i would say i have improved about 50% in just this short time. it's incredible. i dropped out of school realizing it was a massive source of anxiety for me. i wasn't studying something i actually wanted to do and i put myself through hell at a hard, prestigious school.

i meditated every day, got movement in daily like stretching and working out, i forced myself to go outside every day even for just a few moments, warm baths, deep breathing, tea, anything you can think of. not only has my anxiety improved greatly, so has my tinnitus. that's what you're here to hear about, but i felt like the other information was important as i believe my tinnitus was mental health related. now... oh my god. my tinnitus is soooo quiet. i would say it is basically at the level it was before the sudden onset. i had always had a very faint ringing in my ears prior, so i think that is where i am at now and have been for weeks.

i still struggle with noise sensitivity, though. it's something i am working on now and believe is also related to my anxiety. hopefully as my anxiety continues to improve, so will the sensitivity. i genuinely believe the tinnitus was most likely a manifestation caused by severe anxiety. so yeah! that's my success story. i hope it can help people in this hard period in their life. i know it's horrible, but you may be having a similar experience to me and it will pass. even if not, tinnitus tends to improve over time. the ears are very slow at healing, so push through and give it time.

thank you for reading!

p.s. for anyone wondering, the meds i am on are: 40 mg of strattera (for ADHD), 100 mg of zoloft, 100 mg of lamotrigine, and 100 mg of gabapentin for occasional use (panic attacks).

p.p.s. i must also note, i can't even count how many doctors i have been to during this time period. every single one has medically cleared me. two different ENTs provided hearing tests, examinations, and even an MRI with absolutely no explanation for my tinnitus. with my eyesight, nothing is wrong besides i am pretty severely near-sighted but i already knew that. i also have visual snow but there's nothing they can do about that. with my breathing, again, nothing is wrong. i had a COVID-19 test and x-ray and everything is perfect. i am 21 and in exceptional health. it all comes down to anxiety, folks. as hard as it is to except that, i slowly am. it's hard to believe that a mental illness can make you feel so physically terrible all the time but it's very very true and very very real.

 

Hi @tae.aot and congratulations on the success with your tinnitus! I believe that a number of us are highly anxious people who put a lot of pressure on ourselves and that this can manifest itself in various physical ways - including tinnitus.

Out of interest, may I ask if you have taken antidepressants in the past and, if so, which ones? Just curious.

Keep on with the program and doing what you can to find peace and relaxation. Well done!

 

Thank you so much for your reply! I have been on so many different meds in the past. I started taking them when I was 13 lol. From what I can remember I've been on Prozac, Wellbutrin, Lamictal... and that's all I can remember, sorry!

 

Hi there! How is it going for you, how are you doing these days? I am in a similar situation as you but my onset was triggered by Wellbutrin so now I am severely wary of any new drug.