'The Noise Got Too Loud, Sorry' — Christopher Neile, 57, Killed Himself Waiting to Go to Dignitas

If I may rephrase your quote:

"People and especially tinnitus patients really need and must understand that stress and anxiety caused by mild tinnitus can be controlled through various approaches, in order for the patient not to be devastated. However patients with severe symptomatology form a rather challenging group since at present, no current treatment have been proved to be effective to control or alleviate the symptoms. Those patients often report severe distress and disability that affect their quality of life to the point of considering/contemplating suicide."

 

I see. I'm interested @valeri, what would your advice been to Mr Neile had he expressed his wish to die on TT?

 

I think, regardless of the perceived loudness or otherwise of his tinnitus, Mr Neile's tinnitus was too loud for HIM - his note said as much.

It seems black and white to me.

I don't like reading these stories as it reminds me that tinnitus can indeed drive a person to suicide, should it get to levels that that person cannot cope with.

I wasn't depressed until I got my tinnitus, and in the early days, I certainly thought about taking my life.

Seeking help from medical professionals I was told I had post natal depression that was exacerbated by my tinnitus.

This was also the opinion of my husband.

My blood boils thinking of having to sit through the consults with my ENT and psychiatrist and be told that tinnitus wasn't causing me depression, it was post natal depression, despite my protestations otherwise. I even printed out an interview with William Shatner where he described his deep depression in his early days with tinnitus.... but they would not listen.

I knew that wasn't true, I didn't have PND, and if I had of chosen to end my life then, well I'm sure it would have been reported that I had PND and the tinnitus would maybe be the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

I had depression and anxiety due to tinnitus, plain and simple. I know that, but sadly, nobody would listen.

It nearly cost me my marriage as well, with my husband believing the medical professionals. I felt like not even he could understand or would listen to me when I told him how the tinnitus was making me feel.

That has to have been one of the most frustrating and stressful periods of my life.

 

Since I have no idea how severe tinnitus actually is towards the sufferer I can't say much. But I'm curious, people with severe tinnitus how do they get it? Since they are a minority of T sufferers I'm curious to know if they get their T in the same way or if they have experienced something different causing their T to be way louder.

 

That's why you can still have stress-free moments like a normal human being. Consider yourself lucky in this unlucky state. I hope yours to remain in that manageable state.

You, me, they and the researchers as well.

 

Thanks. Is your severe?

 

Mine got pretty bad and complicated.

 

I'm sorry to hear, truly. I really hope you and everyone else with this condition finds peace soon.
But I'm very curious why some people develop the more severe type, even if it's pretty individual also. Some people would probably break down from the milder ones, while others would perhaps be able to control the more severe ones in a better way.

 

There are still no answers unfortunately. The pathophysiology and the prognosis of these auditory disorders are still pretty vague due to the complexity and inaccessibility of the brain and the inner-ear. I suppose scientists need to establish first the diagnostic tools that would give access to the above anatomy, thus provide the required objective data in order to outline the highly heterogenous underlying mechanisms of the disorder. Then we could have some answers.

 

It all depends. No-one can know what another person is feeling. A person can have mild tinnitus and still be distressed by it. This is where counselling with a Hearing Therapist or Audiologist who's trained in the treatment and management of tinnitus can help significantly. In many cases these health professionals have tinnitus. They were either born with it or acquired it at some time in their life. They can help a patient to look at their life differently and more positively. By dispelling and demystifying a lot of the negative thinking that is associated with tinnitus and this takes time because it involves a retraining of the mind.

Since exposure to loud noise is the most common cause of tinnitus. In most cases when a person habituates and after a while it increases, the usual reason is further exposure to loud noise. This can come in various forms. Sometimes it's caused by Headphone use even if the volume is low. Or going to venues where loud music is played: clubs, concerts even the cinema. Working in a noisy environment without using ear protection. When a person habituates after loud noise trauma they need to be careful of overly loud sounds as the auditory system is usually more sensitive than before. It is like having a cut, even though it has healed a scar remains.

Michael

 

I´m curious to know why you think loudness is what determines the severity of tinnitus?

In my case, I was using headphones and got crazy loud bursts of noise while video editing. Totally unprepared.

My T is not loud, though it feels very intimate. It's the piercing frequency and vibrating rhythm that kills me.

It's very much alive. As opposed to a dead steady tone.

 

So what decides the severity of T? The most obvious answer would be the loudness. What other factors determine if T is severe or not?

 

I think I just told you.
But other things I can think of:

-Reactiveness to sounds, drugs, even food(good and bad)
-Distortion
-Does it make you hypersensitive to specific sounds (hyperacusis)
There are different variables other than the perceived loudness to consider regarding its severeness..

Loudness is also very hard to discuss as there is no sound waves present.
I don´t consider mine especially loud, but very intimate, and sometimes faint (rarely)

You see what I mean?

 

Whilst perception of loudness is a very subjective assessment, it is possible to have loudness matching done by an audiologist with some expertise in tinnitus management. I'm not sure how precise this measurement is. I know that a standardised tinnitus volume grading can also be applied from one to five, the latter being most severe. It is a grading system used by the US military amongst others.

 

I totally agree. My life was great, I have a good marriage, no money problems, healthy and retired. Then, BAM, Tinnitus. Turned me into a crying wreak literally over night.
Thankfully my T is much better now, but I can see why someone would think such dark thoughts.

 

I got it through a disease that destroyed parts of my middle ear and my inner ear (Otosclerosis). Most likely, the disease is still making progress (since we have no working treatment for it), so my prognosis isn't good.

 

@GregCA out of interest have you looked into middle ear implants.criteria depends on your pta mainly

 

I experienced both T & H at the debilitating/catastrophic levels in 2014 for only four months. In my 30+ years of living with T, it was the worst experience in my life. I finally, after experiencing T at that level, fully understood why some people take their lives just to escape from it. If either condition is sustained long enough it is nothing less than continuous torture and will eventually wear even very strong people down. If my T & H had remained at that level, I'm not sure what I might have eventually done.
It was so bad at times that I could not even remain seated! I had to either go for a walk or I paced back and forth in my home. That ought to tell you something being that I have lived with moderate to loud T for more than 30 years.

Every day, that I log on, I think of those people that have either severe T or H or both. It's for them, not myself, that I hope there will be effective treatments that will reduce the severity of both those conditions in the near future. That's because I know from personal experience that they are living a hellish and tortured existence...

 

My life was amazing prior to my ear problems, it was all very special, I lived a life that many don't get to see. Now, I have severe ear issues, and my life has changed, I can definitely relate to leaving it all behind. I know if I did, I would be judged unfairly, and labeled as somebody with "other issues" but I accept that now, it's fine.

There is no shortage of ignorance in this world, people believe what they want for their own comfort, facts are of little concern to these folks, they are ruled by fear, and logic is of no relevance to these people. Perception is reality, so go ahead and keep rewriting the script to suit your needs, whatever gets you through the day.

 

I haven't, but I'm unsure how it would help me (I just looked them up). Will it work better than my hearing aid?

I read that it's mostly for people who don't want to wear hearing aids. I personally don't care about my wearing aids (stigma or other: I'd wear a DirectTV dish next to my ear if it helped me hear better).

My middle ear works fine (I have a tight air gap now after my stapedotomy), but I'm still left with cochlear damage, and therefore, sensorineural losses in the high frequencies (it plunges down from "normal" 1 kHz to 55 dB @ 8 kHz and keeps getting worse at higher frequencies (I did PTA for higher frequencies - I'm not simply extrapolating).

 

My advice would have been for him to wait for one or two years following the onset of his T. It would be a shame to commit suicide if one's T was about to begin fading. After 2 years, the chances of that happening would be lower. If he had already suffered more than two years, then I would advise him of painless and reliable suicide methods that I recently learned about.

 

If all one can think of all day long is T (as soon as one forgets about T, within 10 seconds one gets a thought - "what is that noise, and how can I get away from it?") it is severe. So one way to measure the severity would be to count the number of times one notices T during a 10 minute interval.

 

I have to say that this has to be one of the worst / unsupportive messages I've read on this forum. How on earth do you know exactly what this man was going through ? You've ASSUMED something about him with no proof whatsoever. That's simply not fair.

 

oh wow

 

Ok @Fabrikat let me ask you this.

I am at the end of my tether with buzzing tinnitus & Hyperacusis. This has brought on massive anxiety problems that I have never had before. I am taking Benzos to try and help combat my utter fear of sound. I cannot relax, I have been off work for 6 months and could lose my job soon if I don't return but I cannot get out of the house for fear of making both the T and the H worse. I have an appointment soon with ENT who will again say that I just have to learn to live with it. My ears RAGE with noise. I take Anti- Deps to help me sleep and deal with all these symptoms too. My wife is struggling to cope with me. The psychologist I have been to see (after I started expressing ideas about jumping off a cliff) has told me to "challenge my thoughts" and keep a "mood diary". I am NOT in a good place but darn't say anything to any doctor for fear of getting locked away.

What advice can you give me so that I don't head off to my nearest train station and jump under the next high speed train ?

 

I'm nearing the two year mark. Huzzah!

 

About the only people that ARE doing something right.

 

I'm at four. Tinnitus sometimes a little softer, H better than it was though still there. Overall better, but coming down from a pretty severe baseline.

 

Exactly!

For people who are like me, suicide is much more appealing when one is married (i.e., has a ball and chain to worry about in addition to all of the other life's problems).

 

There is still hope.