Suicidal

Me too... I have an amazing partner. I can't stress that enough. Note for those who may be confused: their pronouns are they/them, as are mine. They're probably the most patient person I've ever known, never once complaining about my recently acquired disabilities (besides wishing I could be cured so I can enjoy life again). And honestly if not for them I would choose to die right now. They always stress to me not to do more than I am capable of providing, they're willing to go great lengths to take care of me, they're a completely selfless person etc... I know I must live for them, and they're probably the sole reason I haven't caught the bus. But sometimes, despite this all, I don't know how to hang on anymore. I think this should be tantamount to the fact i am suffering some serious shit. I don't want to put a single soul into immense suffering but I do not know how to hang on anymore.

I am lucky to have found this person a long time before getting severe hyperacusis and other problems though.

 

I have kids as well, 4 of them. My baby is 2 and I adore them.

I have had a lot of tough situations in my life but nothing compares to tinnitus.

I broke 12 bones in a car accident once including hip and pelvis, internal bleeding, had to learn to walk again. Months of rehabilitation and not once was I anxious or distressed. I have had to put my second child through 2 open heart surgeries and I was not anxious or depressed. I spent 7 weeks in hospital with my 3rd child, part of that I was in intensive care hooked up to machines, and I was not ever anxious or depressed. I went back to intensive care with my 4th child, immediately after birth and again when he was 3 weeks old with eclampsia and I was not anxious or depressed even though I was extremely extremely unwell. I was incredibly unwell with autoimmune liver disease in 2019, and they were even talking possible transplant at one point and I took it all in my stride. Never anxious or depressed.

Tinnitus makes me want to throw myself off a building. It is the worst kind of torture and it's only my kids stopping me.

 

I can relate hard to this... I've beaten cancer and many other illnesses in the past... I've even pushed through severe intrusive tinnitus just fine. I've lived with a dysfunctional family and have gone through a multitude of severe traumas that have inflicted debilitating PTSD I still suffer from. None of it, in my experience, compares to the increasingly worsening (for no reason!) hyperacusis that has made me sacrifice almost my entire life. and the autoimmune problems I have now which are mathematically related to my hyperacusis.

Maybe I'd feel more comfortable if I knew my hyperacusis was the result of, say, a noise trauma, an auto accident, etc. I'd just call it a day and live on with it. But with this it's just absolutely confounding. My condition which is causing my hyperacusis was caused by Prednisone withdrawal, and I think Prednisone suggestions for acoustic trauma are literally insane from my experience.

 

I'm curious about what medication the people in this thread are on?

 

I have a shotgun which would probably work out if this doesn't improve.

I had tantalizing recoveries but it would fluctuate and end up being worse but it all came crashing down with bad doctors and me not knowing the root cause of worsening.

I improve just to end up worse than before at random and I've never gotten to previous better levels.

It's like secondary hydrops or some shit caused by rebound inflammation. I took Prednisone and the moment I'm taken off from a week because no taper is fine for a week... BS... I get slammed with unholy droning seashell 500 Hz tinnitus bilaterally.

I wanted to join the military. I wanted to get my PhD and finish grad studies. I wanted to marry my girlfriend. I wanted to hear music and enjoy nothingness as my favourite thing.

Fucking doctor playing roulette destroyed me. This was just static before... and I was naive as to how lucky I was. I never should have sought treatment.
Do no harm. Tinnitus doesn't kill you? They did harm and it kills you insidiously.

 

I hate those kinds of people who treat you like that. They have the nerve to call themselves "doctors". That cocky arrogant bitch and all the likes of her shall have their license suspended. Pricks!

 

I keep on running it over and over in my head what it will do to my family if I call it quits. Especially my mom. But I just want an end to this misery. I’m disgusted by this life and whatever it is that allows human beings to suffer so much.

 

We are in the same shit. Literally every word in this post could have been written by me except the HBOT stuff.

 

Probably this has happened to a lot of people. At least he hasn't sent you to get an MRI scan to rule out acoustic neuroma.

 

Yeah well, considering what happened to me an MRI makes a shit ton of sense but everyone's playing wait and see until it gets even worse.

There are MRI techniques now that can diagnose hydrops (very very new) as well as to detect lesions due to autoimmune attacks.

When I had my last worsening, I had exercised after listening to 70dB music, however it wasn't insanely loud and my ears though ringing as they always do when working out and feeling a bit fluttery, calmed down within an hour and... frankly everything was fine.

Until I went to sleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night to "chimes" all over my headspace, literally everywhere and I saw a flurry of sparkles of light that went along with them... by morning I had LOUD chimes emanating from my jaw. It felt like when they went off that I'd hear a random "CHIME!" go through my skull, on both sides of my head.
That slowly went away... and I continued with HBOT as it seemed to help with the "static" tinnitus.

On my last session, I was at 2.3ATM and we held there. As I breathed in I could hear the tinnitus tones which were raging from the drive diminish to zero. Silence. I could still hear the chimes but they were quieter.

Then out of nowhere, I heard "shit you not" a thousand sound effects come to life. An actual FLURRY of sound throughout my head, sounds I didn't know existed. They persisted after I GTFO of the chamber.

They persisted over white noise, road noise, everything. That's what my sound distortion began as.

I took 1mg Clonazepam which lowered the distortions and sound effects by 90% in volume only, went to the ER, they basically said we can't help you and won't wake an ENT for this and sent me home. Had distortions and the sound effects ever since... however over the first month they did improve a lot, but are most definitely always still there. I'm down to 5 sound effects and blaring 500 Hz tinnitus at night... but that hasn't moved and basically been getting worse now over time not better as of mid November.

The sound effects ARE the distortion I've found out, I can hear them over white noise, music, etc... sounds in fact trigger them.

If any of this sounds like a seizure (which HBOT can cause), that's why I've been pressing for an MRI and neurologist.

I do think benzos have something to do with it... to cope with tinnitus I was using them pretty often at highish doses, but had been free of drugs and able to sleep with earplugs in (imagine that) for about a week... I'd wake up to two staticy tones, and earplug removal yielded at least a minute of silence... basically I was getting better and I knew it. I did HBOT after the chimes because I was supposed to keep doing it and also thought maybe the chimes would go away as well and that it was a new form of tinnitus I didn't know about.

This happened at the end of that week... so although I certainly wasn't "anxious" or an insomniac from benzo withdrawl (which was basically zero, like no additional symptoms whatsoever on tapering off, and I had been using them pretty regularly for 5 weeks)... I wonder if my auditory nerves in fact were in withdrawal / downregulated and had two literal seizures. To me that makes little sense, an autoimmune attack makes more sense... HBOT also allows more endothelial cell perforation.

The last round of steroids I had because my doctor thought "another course can't hurt" and I was left with worse hearing coming out of it, more distortions, and now loud seashell droning sounds at 500 Hz. That's when I "finally" made the connection that steroids were 100% making this worse (something similar had happened on the first course on finishing).

At the end of the day, I think I truly know what hell is, and I found out during that HBOT session.

If it had stayed that way & Clonazepam didn't work, I was going to blow my brains out the next day.

 

FML.

 

This is hell. I just want it to stop. Is anyone here on antidepressants for the panic attacks, or anything else? I have severe anxiety and OCD on top of the tinnitus. I've tried so many drugs.

 

I'm going to kill myself. When I'm gone, it will be the only time anyone will show that they care for me, but by that time it will be too late. Good.

 

I'm in the same boat as you. I was getting used to the high pitched static I was having and could sleep fine and concentrate, etc. But I still kept trying to figure out the exact cause and some tests my doctor ordered made things astronomically worse.

 

Currently on Mirtazapine, Nortriptyline, Pramipexole. It helps hold me together. Xanax as needed.

 

If you don't mind me asking, what's the motivation to take Mirtazapine and Nortriptyline together, as opposed to just increasing the dose on one? I guess Mirtazapine is a tetracyclic antidepressant, while Nortriptyline is tricyclic. Is there any synergistic effect? I hope they are helping.

 

Nortriptyline has been used for the treatment of neuropathy so I assume that is why @GBB is taking both.

To me it makes sense to take both Mirtazapine and Nortriptyline, it would be more confusing if it was Amitriptyline instead.

 

There needs to be motivation for enduring hell every day. I wish I would have died in my sleep 2 years ago instead.

 

I started Mirtazapine because I couldn’t sleep and had no appetite. I layered in Nortriptyline after some time because it was purported to also help tinnitus/hyperacusis albeit mildly. It’s not a bottom-up neurochemical approach.

 

A door slammed today and my tinnitus is mega spiked. Really hoped by 6 months I’d have more durability than this. It’s so tough - I can’t even sleep because the volume is so loud, even with sleep meds.

 

You need to get referred to a psychologist. When you get the appointment, let me know.

 

I thought you were improving.

 

The only change that I can say 100% never wavers, is that my eeee of the first two months is now lower tones like wawawa or tss tss tss. The volume of that can still be nauseating though and many days it’s hard to function.

 

So you have wawawa and a ts ts ts - how loud?

Today I knocked over a glass into the sink! Is this BANG BANG day?

 

Do you mind changing your avatar more in focus, it's making me dizzy.

 

I hate this place. I can't survive due to the motorbikes. Each time I need to force myself out to go do the groceries, I am beaten. Earplugs + Peltor muffs are my crutches but even those don't feel enough sometimes.

@Matchbox, how are you doing?
I'm reading your posts man...
So you think everything for you comes down to the steroids?

@__nico__, very lucky to have a significant one that understands. Very hard to pull off a relationship under this shit. I've realised that dating is in vain, let alone dangerous as it pushes you into risky stuff. Being alone is depressive but it's more comfortable with hyperacusis.

This is a sad life. There's literally nothing to hold on to.

 

It's not too dissimilar from the David Case Tinnitus Mix if you have heard that. There is some buzzing, some wawawa, some tss tss tss like a tiny cymbal. It's loud enough to hear anywhere in my house and over the TV. Occasionally I'll have a better day where it is harder to hear in my living room with fridge/TV etc... but of those are rare. When it spikes nothing can mask it, it's like being on a hallucinogenic roller coaster.

 

I feel for you man. Fuck this noise.

 

I feel extremely suicidal today. Not really about tinnitus or hyperacusis. I am kind of misusing this forum to complain about other severe health problems I have that are equally as hopeless, physically and mentally. There aren't really many places to vent about suicidality without being shamed but holy shit, I lose more and more reasons to live daily.

 

GBB. How are you going man? I am about ready to mmpack it all in.