Things Can Get Better

Tinnitus appeared in my left ear last Summer out of the blue. I had it for a week where I kept telling myself it would go away. After that I hit the internet and over the next few days without any improvement and reading the horror stories the tinnitus got the better of me. For weeks I was a total mess.

The first weekend of hell was spent trying to drown myself in booze just to get to sleep and to calm me down. After seeing my doctor and an audiologist I was put on diazepam and stopped drinking. If things weren't bad enough I read about the dreaded AN and then went into a nose dive which lasted for weeks.

There wasn't a moment I didn't think about the constant ringing and what it could mean. I was on this web site dozens of times a day, scouring posts desperately looking for something positive (which helped in those early days as long as I didn't read the wrong posts and there are some nice people on this website) . If I wasn't on this website I was searching desperately for encouraging results from AM101 or the other one that came along afterwards or anything else I could find. Sleep was at best 3 or 4 hours a night, no appetite, no leaving the house unless I absolutely had to. I more or less stayed in bed for 2 months.

Every single trip out of the bedroom was filled with dread because I'd have to be in a quiet room again. My bedroom was constantly filled with the sounds of rain or wind or quiet music or something to distract me. Once I had the all clear from the MRI scan I was obviously relieved but I was still in the shit situation of dealing with this never ending ringing in my ear that by then I'd realised would never ever go away.

A few months later and things have gradually changed. In a quiet room I'll hear it but even then it comes in and out of my awareness depending on what I'm doing or thinking about. If I listen for it I'll hear it and it's as loud as ever.

A few months ago it was on my mind 24 hours a day but now my life is probably more than 90% back to normal and I don't spend much time thinking about it. I still have a speaker playing sounds a lot of nights but if I wake up it's usually stopped playing by then and I drop off to sleep without any problems most of the time. As things are now, first thing in the morning it's not even an issue.

It doesn't cross my mind for hours most mornings. At work, when the office is quiet I'll become aware of it at different points during the day but it mostly has no effect on me. Sometimes it's irritating but it's almost never distressing. Most of the time I just carry on and more or less forget about it. If I stop to think about it too much I can find myself drifting into that panic mode again where I tell myself that this sound will be here forever but it never lasts more than a minute.

As a lot of people here will tell you, do your best not to dwell on it. Stay away from the horror stories. Don't bother with magic potions. Let your mind/brain (not sure which) get bored of it. I know some people are tormented by it for years but I just wanted to leave a message that will hopefully give some encouragement to people in the early stages.

No matter how bad you feel early on I can tell you that things can and probably will get better. Much, much better.

 

Thank you this helps. I really appreciate these stories