Very Afraid

Perhaps I should have started on introduce yourself as this is my first post, but support looks more helpful to me at the moment.

I have only been suffering from tinnitus since the beginning of this month, a few weeks after finishing chemotherapy and I feel that I am going mad. I have read all the forums, googled endlessly and the way I am feeling now seems the same as very many people at the beginning - fear, anxiety, panic and only one way out.

I have just had a spectacular meltdown in front of my husband, which makes me feel so guilty. I (I seem to be using "I" an awful lot, sorry) had been having a reasonably quiet day, keeping the panic down quite well, when the volume went up all of a sudden and I flipped.

Things have calmed down now and setting up the account and typing this has given me a focus. Success stories are a comfort to read but everybody stresses that it takes time. Looking ahead I feel I will go mad before habituation possibly happens. How do you get through the first weeks, months, years when you have this constant fear inside ?

Sorry that this is such a self obsessed miserable post

Jan

 

A warm welcome to the forum janmary.

Tinnitus comes with so many unwanted emotions when tinnitus invades our lives and getting help from your doctor and talking therapy will really help you.
Some people need medication to treat anxiety and stress and depression at the start to help them move forward learning to cope with the sound itself .
Try stay calm as stress feeds tinnitus so the more relaxed you can be the better you will cope....
keep posting for support...lots of love glynis

 

Welcome to the forum. Sometimes what makes a situation scary is when we do not really know what is going on or how it will develop. And that can cause us to be helpless. Here you will find support and gain some knowledge, which help to displace some of our fears and anxiety.

 

Thanks for the welcome glynis

The problem is that everything seems to be so bleak at the moment. I had never thought about medication and I am afraid of taking any drugs - they have done enough harm, but if they could help the process of coming to terms with this, perhaps that's the way to go. As for talking therapy, I have only just been referred to the audiology department, where they have a tinnitus counsellor, so that won't happen any time soon.

Jan

 

Hi Janmary,

Welcome to the forum. You are not alone here. You will find lots of support here. People here know exactly what you are going through and can relate. I too am new to Tinnitus and experiencing all the things you are. And given what you have been through, I think a little "self obsession "is quite alright.

This is what has helped me cope the past few weeks:

Masking. Get a noise machine, keep the TV on, listen to the radio -whatever you need to mask the ringing, especially at night.

Sleep meds. They have saved me and I do not feel bad one bit for having to take them. You need your sleep to cope.

A liitle anti-anxiety medication when needed. When I can hear my ringing I tend to be very, very anxious. I understand that this will decrease in time. If I cannot manage the anxiety, I take .25 or .5 of Ativan.

Reading the success stories here. Also reading the doctors corner. Both have been so helpful and helped me believe that if this does not resolve on its own, it will still get better and I will habituate.

Staying busy and trying to maintain my normal routine as much as possible. Try to spend time within the people you love and do the things you enjoy. That made me feel normal.

See and ENT and audiologist for support around the tinnitus. I think you will find more audiologists than ENTs can help with coping strategies.


I wish you all the best.


Danielle

 

I second, or third, or fourth what has been said. I understand the reluctance about drugs, but finding something to help sleep might be a good first step. Your primary care physician should be able to help so you shouldn't need a referral. Also, depending on insurance, location, etc you probably don't need a referral for talk therapy. For tinnitus, you probably want to look for a therapist trained in cognitive behavioral therapy.

Good luck!

 

The first part is definitely tough, but obviously you are a strong person making it through chemo. For me in the very beginning I had to resort to meds to help me. I still take them when I am having a hard time but hopefully that doesn't last. Be sure to have constant sound on such as white noise, especially for sleeping. I agree about the talking to a therapist as that has helped me some too. Lastly maybe you can check out another audiologist place that hopefully has a trt doc there with maybe a shorter wait time.

Best wishes

 

@janmary Please don't be so hard on yourself. You've been through a lot. The good news is, your tinnitus is very new and you've already had what you've described as a "reasonably quiet day." That's a positive sign and a reason for hope.

I have had my moments of flipping out, as most of us on this forum have, because tinnitus is so unpredictable. Tinnitus feeds on anxiety, and it also feeds on stress and lack of sleep. Take the advice about using meds to sleep and/or to reduce anxiety. It's not a weakness to depend on medication for a little while. You deserve a break, after all you've been through.

 

I agree with posters above. Meds are necessary sometimes to smooth out the sharp edges of extreme emotions or sleeplessness. It is the last resort for me a few years back when nothing I learned nor will power alone could stop the panic attacks and sleeplessness. Meds saved me back then. I just faded them out slowly when condition improved well enough to drop them off.

Masking is another thing to help reduce the anxiety. Knowing that something can partially or completely block the T sound is a big relief during a time when the T sound was treated as a deadly threat, a phobia. This gives you some control and it helps tremendously to know that you can do something about it. The stress level and anxiety will go down in time with masking, with meds helping, and with you believing that the future is not that bleak. This in turn will help reduce the intrusiveness of T.

Also, don't believe in all the distorted thoughts that are going through your mind right now. Don’t panic. At the early stage of T a new sufferer will usually be very scared and worry about the future. T is undesirable but livable, even long termed. But at the new stage, a sufferer usually falls trap into thinking life with T is not acceptable nor livable, therefore giving rise to so much anxiety and stress. This is quite normal reaction for new sufferers. But that will change gradually over time and you will be less stressed about T. You are now functioning with the limbic nervous system which functions in fight or flight mode, and everything about T feels so much worse than it is. Over time when you are more positive and relax, you normal parasympathetic nervous system will return and things will be easier to handle. Patience and being positive will help you cope with T much better.

 

I can't thank you all enough for your kind replies.

Woke up this morning in a panic. A little later went on the laptop, read your posts and what a difference they made to how I felt. I have just come back from the GP and she has given me antidepressants and a few diazepam for the really bad times. Maybe I will never take them, fingers crossed... Hopefully, in a few weeks I'll notice the difference. The reassurance that you have given me will help me through those weeks.

Jan

 

Hi Janmary,
You can ring MIND and you don't need a doctor referral and have ten fifty minute counselling sessions who deal with anxiety and depression ......lots of love glynis

 

Hi Jan,
I waited 40 .... FORTY ... years for habituation. I did it. But it didn't 'come' to me and so many people think - it did not happen that way for me. Try this...
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/back-to-silence.7172/