Tinnitus sufferer since August

Hello everyone! I've been reading this forum voraciously for the past two days. Although I wish this tinnitus on no one, ever, I am comforted that so many of you are feeling what I'm feeling. I have always had "crickets" in my ears, for as long as I coukd remember- it didn't bother me, I used to joke about it. Then one morning in August as I was having my coffee and watching YouTube I suddenly realized my crickets were more like a hissing or whistling and louder. I couldn't stop focusing on it and had a mini panic attack. I have always had anxiety and so I was able to get myself together. I tried to go about my day, but even at the beach with the kids I could still hear it. That night I had a severe panic attack, I woke my husband who called my mom and I just broke down. I took some benedryl to try to sleep. The next day I saw my general practitioner who gave me an ENT referral and a prescription for some Xanax. The Xanax took the edge off, but the tinnitus was still present and the anxiety was always in the background. The ENT checked my ears and said they looked fine. He sent me to the audiologist who found moderate hearing loss in both ears in the higher frequencies, the "ski slope". The audiologist recommended hearing aids. I got the aids in October thinking that if my hearing was fixed my T would go away. That unfortunately wasnt the case. I was a mess. I asked my doctor for an anti anxiety med. She prescribed klonopin, which did help me. I am having weekly appts with the audiologist to adjust hearing aids, started using the masking program on the phonaks. That was even more annoying than the T itself. I was having more and more trouble coping with work and kids and my life so went back to my doctor who prescribed doxepin, a tricyclic antidepressant. That helped. We exchanged the phonaks for the widex aids with the zen program. The zen is somewhat helping on those nights when the hiss or whistle is unbearable. But so far the tinnitus is still there, fluctuating, but still there. Yesterday was horrid. Today was better. Now I'm nervous about being on the klonopin and the doxepin. Im so glad I found this forum and have learned so much more about T than any doctor ever could have informed me! Thank you all for listening

 

Welcome! Everyday that is a little better than the last is a good thing. That means there is hope that it can settle down. Mine has been a high pitched sound and its pretty much the same since I first noticed it. It does seem to turn up and can be especially annoying like tonight. I have days when I'm busy and I can almost forget its there. It's rough dealing with it for sure. Sounds like your being proactive about handling your anxiety and trying the hearing aids. Give yourself credit for doing that. This is a great place for info, I'm pretty new here and I can say I'm blown away by the knowledge and support that is here. Hang in there.

 

Hi areilly, interesting story. Out of curiosity, how did you find this site

 

I just searched for tinnitus support forums and there it was