Suicidal

Yeah, that’s my concern, try a drug just for it to stop working and making things worse, what would be the point of that :/ thanks for the advice though. I do appreciate it

Years of intense raving, I’m talking about raving every weekend, listening to music in my car at extremely high volumes (I had a sound system), working in loud environments. This all for around 8 years, until last year when I noticed the first symptoms of mild hyperacusis, crazy how I thought that was severe. At first it was just mild and as long as I had earplugs I was able to go on with life, I started to get complacent and started exposing myself to loud places again and ended up getting worse and worse. Eventually I did start to isolate, but it was too late, damage was already done and now I’m stuck with severe noxacusis. It fluctuates a lot, some days I have mild noxacusis and some days I have catastrophic noxacusis that make me extremely suicidal and a danger to myself. I am always in pain though, just some days are better than others. How did you get yours?

 

Wow that sounds rough and awful. I’ve seen people heal or at least get way better.

I got my initial right ear damaged with hearing loss from fireworks blowing up near my ear plus years of drumming while blasting headphones.

Hyperacusis and new tinnitus started with COVID-19 vaccine, noise or Viagra.

 

I wonder too. My ENT is from a pretty renowned hospital so I was shocked at how disinterested he was and unwilling to discuss things further. Like I mentioned before, when I tried to bring up other studies I was ignored. My visit notes just said "history of untreated depression/anxiety", which isn't even the whole picture. I couldn't tell if he was just defaulting to the outdated psychosomatic explanations or if it was something else.

Hyperacusis being linked with migraines makes sense, and the first neurologist I saw, unfamiliar with hyperacusis, assumed it was all that. I don't know about you but I have a lot worse photosensitivity and vertigo, both very common when I'd have migraines, since getting hyperacusis. I'll have to look this one up.

 

@LilCC, I took GABA these last two days and had no pain. Though I have a new tinnitus tone in my left ear. Not sure if coincidence or not. But pain wise, nothing other than that other day.

 

I miss going out on the weekends, getting wasted and dancing my problems away. I can’t believe I’ll never be able to have that again, my heart is broken, I’m grieving what I held so dearly.

 

I keep trying to think of it as an early retirement, but it’s still sucks man. My bro was like you’ll be good and we’ll go to another festival. It’s like they don’t get it, but maybe you’ll be good enough to dance at your house playing music at a safe level without pain bro, and that’s still something.

 

With the onset of severe tinnitus and hyperacusis, they extend their torment to higher realms by putting your life on trial... past, present, future at stake — those feelings of immense regret; you should’ve done this or that; the constant hearings, talk, or discourse, a tense exchange that taunts the mind; the highly-charged atmosphere that inflames with fear and testimony; the sense of dread / uneasiness as witnesses march to the stand. You sit there worried, still as cement, wondering what the verdict will be as you seek good graces from the jury. Your life and fate lie in their hands. But as time wanes on, you feel weak. You want the trial to stop or end, and the risk of loss or retribution echoes through the courtroom. Hearing “those words” — those tragic words — is a fate you cannot bear.

 

Dancing at the house could never compare to dancing my ass off with complete strangers, that’s what humanity is about, you go out there and you share beautiful moments with people

 

Hi Jerad,

What were you using the colloidal silver for?

 

More harm for which? Hyperacusis or tinnitus or both?

 

@DebInAustralia, I was using it topically as a gel for an infected leg ulcer. Have you used it before?

 

Yes. I've used it without any problems heaps of times.

 

More harm for noxacusis or extreme hyperacusis. My hyperacusis is fairly bad but I’m giving sound enrichment a go because I have no other option - after 1 year my tolerance has lowered.

 

I know bro, I feel like you and I are a lot of the same. I was always dancing and making new friends. It was truly an escape. But I wouldn’t trade my memories for the world, and I’m glad I got to have that life while I did. How old are you?

 

I’m 28, how about you? And yes those memories are both blissful and haunting. I love this quote I heard in a hardstyle song “If these were the last beats of my heart, I would dance to them.”

 

What was the longest period you used it for? I used it topically for around 8 days for an open wound/ulcer that was infected.

 

I’m pretty convinced that having the combination of ultra severe or catastrophic tinnitus / hyperacusis is in the top 10 worst things you can get health-wise.

Reasons...

1.) No one believes you. It’s a common phenomena that sufferers report. Doctors don’t, even close family members don’t. In my circle, I only have 1 person in my family that gets it — or tries to. So it’s one of the worst things imaginable, yet no one will even offer sympathy. Cherry on top. Very isolating shit. Why do they not believe us? Not sure. Guess they can’t understand because it’s so rare and they haven’t experienced it. But it’s like a given when contracting these problems for no one to believe you. They think it’s anxiety or you’re exaggerating. You hear this from everyone... for each person will tell the tale as if its their own making, their own experience, their own unique/unusual experience, but we come to find that’s just not true; the stories might as well be clones. We realize that it’s just “the experience” of having these ailments. And as our cries for help go unheard, our connections to reality grow more and more tenuous.

2.) Can’t be around loved ones and do anything. These conditions take it all from you — leisurely activities, time with friends and family, hobbies, mental happiness; they turn the past on you and put your life on trial when you blame yourself. Name other diseases or ailments that do all that. Even people in wheelchairs can be around others and do hobbies, and enjoy life. But catastrophic tinnitus and hyperacusis, where it’s like electricity shocking you physically and a barrage of high frequency sounds, and sound sensitivities near zero, leave you fighting the anguish minute-by-minute with little room for enjoyment. Disease and disorder-wise, not much literally robs you of practically everything. But like I said... top 10. I know there’s other bad things out there, but catastrophic tinnitus and hyperacusis have this perverse nature about them where they strip you of everything.

3.) No bearing on mortality. They will not kill you — ever — no matter how bad they get. Only you can make that decision. They won’t do it for you. Which makes them even more inhumane. And if you do make that decision, you might pay for it in the afterlife, so you’re trapped. When they get extreme, the central nervous system should shutdown and kill you, or something to that effect. Many of the ailments that society glorifies as especially heinous will kill you.

4.) No solid treatments. This don’t even need to be explained. SMH. But everything is Russian Roulette and everything can potentially make it worse. One man or woman’s cure may be another’s doom. Shit that doesn’t affect you might hurt another badly. Naltrexone might dramatically help one person and dramatically hurt another, for example. The same can be said about literally every med or supplement. And a worsening can become permanent if you’re not careful. Well, even if you are careful. There are no laws-of-physics with tinnitus and hyperacusis. It’s like existing in a universe with no rules and boundaries — anything’s possible. How do you navigate in such a land?

5.) There can be a million causes.

6.) The unfairness of it all.

7.) They turn you into someone you weren’t. You’re just labeled as a loon now, or a recluse, or a disabled person. Maybe you turn bitter. You’re just a shell, no longer “you.”

8.) No limit to how bad they can get. Can always get worse.

I’m sure I left something out.

 

Everything you said may be true, which is why I’m fighting this crap. I refuse to give in to it.

 

Right on brother, only thing I don’t agree with is the afterlife, but everything else I agree with. For me personally I think after death there is nothing, which makes things even more grim because not only are we getting tortured but also this is the only chance we get at life.

 

28 too bro. Couldn’t have said it any better.

 

Thanks ever so much for this fully comprehensive analysis.

When you concluded with "I'm sure I left something out", I was reminded of how this has wiped out my libido and absolutely cancelled out any trace of sexual interests (which nothing else ever did, not even Migraines).

To me this is the most telling indication of how mentally gutted I have been made by this.

Also, this has recently given me panic attacks that leave me hyperventilating to the point where I am on the imminent verge of collapse.

I am genuinely afraid that the huge stress from this condition will (at my age) kill me from a heart attack.

 

My tinnitus keeps getting worse. I can't take it. I'm constantly filled with suicidal thoughts. It sounds like loud feedback from an amplifier. I can barely mask. I need help.

 

I also feel like the stress will kill me, but I welcome it, that way I don’t have to be alive anymore. I also started eating like absolutely shit because it is the only pleasure I have left.

 

Yeah overeating and fapping = dopamine lol.

Cheap man’s antidepressant.

 

I’m sorry you’re going through this. I’ve looked at some of your posts and see you haven’t habituated in many years of having it. How did you get tinnitus and is it worsening?

 

We all need help. Too bad research has been screwed for decades thanks to Jastreboff's bullshit.

 

@Jon R., how are your distortions now?

 

Hell only knows how I got this. I never exposed myself to loud noise or music.

Three days after I got this, I then came down with a cold / flu so bad that my wife (who was a Surgical Tech for 32 years) thought that I might have had the H1N1 virus.

Perhaps a viral particle migrated to some portion of the Inner Ear or Aural Nerve.

I can only imagine what COVID-19 has done in this regard to millions (viz. Kent Taylor).

The tinnitus then launched forth with a cacophony of noises.

I had never even heard of tinnitus or knew that such a condition existed.

Naively, I thought that an ENT Doctor would prescribe something and this would just be a temporary nuisance.

When I Googled this and every Site said that there was no known treatment, I felt utterly throttled and kept repeating that great Janis Joplin lyric, "No, No, No, it just can't be."

After 8 weeks, I saw an ENT Doctor, who with such admirable sensitivity said, "If it has gone on this long, Capt'n, then you are essentially F**ked."

I was then handed three brochures that depicted fit upper middle class retired white people (apparently dressed by Nautica) having a great time bicycling, walking along the beach, etc.

I thought, "What in F**ks name does this have to do with that dentist's drill sound in my head?" "Oh look, this is about something called "Tinnitus Management." "

Later I was handed a CD that had some CBT Clown attempting to lull you with advice about achieving calmness.

Now, every three days (almost as if on schedule) I get a spike that throws me into an exhausting, vertigo - inducing panic /rage. Horrifyingly, these spikes are getting worse.

I recently read a just - published memoir from a woman who survived the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp.

She said that you could always tell which prisoners were going insane when they would walk around aimlessly while emitting a high - pitched cackle.

"Whoa, that's what I do every three days", I notified myself.

Previously, I mentioned that a Neurologist said that a lifetime of Migraines may have exhausted my brain so that the capacity for habituation would be distressingly problematic.

This is what is so obsolete and just plain wrong about Jastreboff and Michael Leigh's hectoring insistence that everyone is on the same level regarding the potential for habituation (but I have no more use for them than you would for someone trying to sell you a Black and White TV Set).

 

Wow, thanks for explaining. That sounds rough. I remember now reading you had bad migraines for years. I do believe in CBT but not as a cure, just something to prevent (most) from nonstop panic. I also don't believe everyone can habituate. I am hoping these treatments coming in the future can at least take the edge off for you, me, and many others.

When you spike, is it just louder noises, or do your tinnitus tones go crazy? I find my tones flip out more than my background ringing gets louder. I get both though. Also, the other two days, how are they? Are they at least manageable? The up and down, variable tinnitus does not let you get used to it.

I can't say things will get better... you have had this for many years. What I can say is you have made it this far and you are a strong individual. I just hope something eventually gives away and allows you a path forward without so much anguish.

There is always a ray of hope floating around somewhere. I think @Damocles didn't see much improvement until around 10 years. Tinnitus is a huge YMMV and we should strive to try everything we can, as safely (lol) as we can, before giving in. I put "lol" because every damn thing is a double edged sword.

I can tell you're a smart guy and you've heard it all so this post wasn't meant to preach to you. Just that I hear you and I can somewhat understand what you are feeling.

 

I went to an ENT and got a Dexamethasone IT injection yesterday. It lowered the volume so much. I'm so happy and relieved. I can live again! I feel like I've been cured (even though I still have it in quiet). Only hearing it in quiet is basically the same as not having tinnitus at all, compared to hearing it screaming over the freeway and work meetings.