Tinnitus and Hyperacusis for Almost Five Years

Hi everyone,

I'm reading this forum for quite a while now and it's time that I introduce myself.

When I was 25 years old (December 2013) the first thing I realized after I woke was that tone. Somewhere around 11000 Hz.

First thought: that is pretty loud. First reaction: a German swearword that contains the Sibilant "s". And then I understood that there was something wrong. The "s" made Tinnitus extra loud and also sent a sharp pain through my head. OK. So I gave it a day and hoped for the best. But I was quite scared and worried so I decided to go to see an ear doctor.

It took some time until I got an appointment. When I arrived there my situation was still the same as before. The doctor prescribed Decortin (Prednisolon) which I took in decreasing amounts. It started with 250 mg as far as I remember. And after two days of that therapy I woke up and had one of the very best days of my life. No tinnitus and no hyperacusis. It was such a relieve!

But wait. There is more. Can you guess it? Exactly. After the dosage dropped under the 200 mg line alll the issues came back and maybe even a bit stronger as before.

So the rest of the story is not that exciting. I had a very hard time in 2014 and 2015. It took a while until tinnitus and hyperacusis got more manageable. Very slowly I improved.

Today I still live with it. Mentally I'm doing much better but it still can be very painful and I have to rest more often than in my pre tinnitus times. Among a lot of people I don't feel comfortable and I tend to search more silent places. But I'm happy that I made it through the worst and I know it could be much worse today. So I'm thankful for how it is right now. Today I can enjoy lots of activities like the visit of a restaurant etc. which hadn't been the case in 2014 and 2015.

Still, I wait and hope for better therapies. Because I'm out of sight, sound plays a huge role in my life. Tinnitus can be very disturbing while navigating outside. And I've never been able to avoid listening to my tinnitus because especially these high frequencies are important for orientation.

So that is my story. Great to have this forum and all the people who put so much work into it!

 

Do you ever mask your tinnitus?

Welcome glad you are doing better.

 

That is all we can ask of ourselves. Sometimes T is quite unpredictable and that trigger lots of bad emotions and that hurt the way we enjoy our life. So it we can master the mental side of T better, we are already winning more than half of the battle. Thanks for sharing with us your positive story in your first post. Take care. God bless.

 

Thank you

 

No, I never did that. My approach was always to get used to the fact that I can hear it. Because I need these higher frequencies to walk around I always have to actively distinguish between useful sound information and T. At the early beginning I tried to ignore T and that caused me to run against doorframes and stuff. So I have to be aware of the current loudness of my T to adjust the grade of carefulness in daily traffic.

 

hyperacusis in any form is not good.


Do you know about Frequency Therapeutics clinical trial to repair cochlear hair cells?

 

Sure! Lets hope that we'll get better therapies in the future. Every improvement is very welcome. But I guess we'll have to wait some more years until these things work properly. Anyway, I'm quite optimistic that the current situation gets better. Probably not tomorrow but someday for sure.