Tinnitus with Multiple Sounds... What Can Lower My Noise?

Hello,

I am from Amsterdam, Holland, and I am new on this forum. I am rather desperate and would like to tell you my story. Maybe someone has experienced the same problems and can give me some advice.

It started in the july or august 2015. In quite rooms I sometimes heard sounds like church bells ringing in the distance or the sounds of a sirene of the fire brigade. It did'nt bother me much because the sounds where rather faint and far away.

I was undergoing a lot of stress in this period (also due to menopause) and I slept very bad (I woke up after 4 hours and could not sleep any more).I have been taking Mirtazapine since 20 years because of a severe sleeping disorder and this medicine helped me to sleep, (in combination with Melatonine). But from the end of 2015 the mirtazepine had no effect on me any more, fortunately the melatonine still worked ...

The problems really began when the 30th of december I woke up with a very loud hissing sound in my left ear. The days before I heard a strange rumbling sound in my bedroom and I thougt it was a kind of machine outside (it was not a machine, it was in my head). A few days later the hissing started.

I went to see my docter and he sent me to the ENT. The Ent looked in my ears and they looked fine. The audiogram showed that I have a very slight damage of the higher volume in my left ear. The Ent thougt I had some kind of virus in my ear and gave me prednisol and ordered an MRI to see if there was any damage caused by the virus.

De hissing sound got milder (maybe by the prednisol) but from then my left ear started to hiss when I heard a sound. I can't watch television now because of the hissing and I also have a sound like something is ticking in my ear (like the ticking from a watch) following the sounds. I also get terrible sounds in my head, mechanical sounds, electric sounds, sparks and my right ear started to make sounds like a helicopter when exposed to sounds.

I called my ENT because I got very scared and he didn't want to listen to my new problems. He only told me that the MRI was ok and that my problems are just psychological. He advised me to see a psychologist.

And here I am. I can't sleep any more because my brain is making sounds when its quiet. Last night I went to sleep after 2 hours trying to get some sleep and after 2 hours I woke up by a loud alarm in my head. I could'n sleep any more and got really really upset. During day time I hear now sounds in my ear (hissing, clicking, whistles, helicopters) and at night I have the mechanical sounds and alarms in my head. My left ear hurts and when I lay down I get seasick. Not really dizzy, but the feeling as if I am on a boat.

Its getting worse every day and I don't now what will be the next thing to do. I am getting really crazy and do not know what to do. I can't image a
psychologist can solve all these problems and I don't know if it can get worse than it is now and I don't think I can stand this very longer. Monday I am going to see my docter because I need some medicine to keep me calm. Maybe someone can give me some advise about the best medicine in this case.

I hope to hear from you.

Serse

 

Welcome to the forum, @Serse. Here members have empathy for you as we have gone through the initial trauma of tinnitus. T is scary at first because we don't understand it and the unpredictable nature of a new T adds more to the anxiety.

Don’t panic and don’t despair. Things can improve over the initial traumatic suffering. But new T is known to be unpredictable and can morph into different symptoms, such as changing ear, changing tone, having more tones, having new pitch, morse code like etc. It has been said that the ears may take 6 months to settle down.

So it is best to take the recovery process or habituation as a total package, mixed in with inevitable setbacks and morphing symptoms. That way you won't be so freaked out by what T will do each day. It is best to keep a positive and calm frame of mind, knowing that if you cut off anxiety and stress, T will be robbed of its fuel to burn you with its suffering.

To calm u may want to get a benzo type of drug from the doctor for temporary use and you can phase it out slowly later when your T is not so intrusive. You can also try natural alternatives such as chamomile tea, hops, valerian tablets, St. John Wort, etc. For the time being you may want to mask your T if you haven't yet. Here are some masking suggestions:

TT’s own excellent masking sounds:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

If you need more masking sounds, here is free ‘aire freshener’:
http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

You can mix your own rain sounds with this rain generator:
http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/rainNoiseGenerator.php

T is quite common and millions suffer from it. Even celebrities have them. David Letterman is known to have 2-tone T and William Shatner had it bad too. Here I include the link to my success story where you will see a video clip of the two of them talking about their T.
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...w-i-recovered-from-tinnitus-hyperacusis.3148/


You will get better and see better days. Just believe it. Take good care & God bless your recovery.