What Do Your Friends Think of Tinnitus?

This has been brought up before but im actually quite angry and a lil sad cause my friend knows i have T from noise and I just mentioned to him that he should start taking care of his ears before its too late, and he got defensive and said his ears are great and that he listens to music so loud everyday, and blows shit up that he "wont" get T cause his ears are use to noise. When in reality its totally opposite! What makes people think it CANT happen to them? Do they think we were born like this? Multiple friends have said the same thing that there ears are good and it would of happened to them already if it was gonna. Is it bad i worry for others cause i dont want them to get this shit? I hate to be the one who says i told you soo...and maybe they will be the lucky ones who dont get this. Afterall i know one person in my family (not immediate) who has it and that was from a car accident/brain injury.

 

Hey, you warned em!! You did your part. If they choose not to listen there is nothing you can do. I do the same, try and warn, but as we all know, you don't know how bad it is until you have it. I wish someone told me about ototoxic drugs . I have always been careful with my ears in noisy spots being scared of deafness (never even knew about tinnitus) now it's medications!! Damn!!Can't win sometimes!!

I've warned people after I got my T about the effects of some meds, I get that same type of arrogant attitude. Sometimes people just won't listen, and then it's too late!! A few actually get defensive, and tell me that it can't be true....Like I'm making it this shit up or something. Ignorance is like T...no cure!!

 

Your wasteing your breath Grace trust me dont bother,I gave a good friend of mine a lecture on T and H and how it impacts your life,he acted and responded very sympathetically and understandingly and said he would protect his hearing from now on,I even gave him hearing protection only to find out later he had"lost them"when he went home.All my advice fell on deaf ears unfortunately as hes since been to about 10 music festivals and 2 concerts and goes clubbing twice every weekend with no hearing protection and this is only in two months!¡And by the way the 10 music festivals isnt an exaggeration,hes festival crazy this guy and some day he will pay the price unfortunately,shame when you think about it,I had no warning about this and hes been told and warned of the risks but chose not to listen,and with this kind of track record in two months hes heading for a disaster.

 

Maybe they're one of the lucky 90% that will not get tinnitus. It's strange to think about it, but we're a minority and most people still don't get tinnitus, loud noises or not.

 

Yup, same with my friend he goes clubbin every weekend.. I dont bring my T up alot around friends unless were somewhere loud and i leave they know, but the one just dont get it. Some understand though tona point. My bro calls me a baby too lol then again hes only 14 so what does he know but still its so frusterating cause people forget you have T. Ugh! But yeah i got this from noise so anyone else could also.

 

True, but those ipods dont help these days.. Concerts are enough to do it. But add that to ipods, car sterios, and everything else i feel like everyone is in danger! And know one gets get :-/ no wonder T is underfunded.

 

True my friends eventually found out when we were somewhere loud Id leave immediately or id leave after 20 minutes or so,it became obvious,in the last two years the only thing I actually stayed the whole night for was my mates two house parties,everything else I would stay a little while and then leave includeing my cousins wedding and my two best mates 21st birthday parties,its humiliateing,I would walk in acting like everything is fine hear the loud music playing and begin to panic,after about 20 minutes or so Id leave when no one was looking so they wouldnt notice id left or Id always use the same excuse that I had work in the morning and could only stay a few minutes,basically done this for two years straight,I had no social life whatsoever.

 

Ugh yeah it gets annoying. I usually stay at places for a while with earplugs and just take breaks.. I gotta wedding this weekend again and im just sick of worryin bout it. Not runnin away but i got plugs so ill be fine hopefully. Everytime i look on my calender another friends gettin married or somethings goin on. Life does involve sound therefore this shit just needs to be fixed so people can enjoy more.. I hope autifony works.

 

Yeah I find the same, getting tinnitus seems highly unlikely to them because they have gone clubbing/blasted out music on headphones and their ears seem fine afterwards, no problems.......no need to worry....then BAM permanent tinnitus and its too late!

I think the people who "get it" are the people who experience temporary tinnitus for a few days after clubbing/concerts etc, they are lucky enough to be given warning signs to start protecting their hearing before its a permanent problem, they are given a taste of tinnitus, that can scare them into being more careful.

 

Yeah thats the thing all my friends get fleeting T, and my dad says his ears has rang after jamming on guitar, goin to concerts his whole life sometimes longer then other times yet his always goes away! I mean mine went away mostly after my noise exposure after two days and now im left with hissin but mildy so maybe more people have that then they think... Mine just scares me cause i dont want it ever to go back to what it was for the first 2 days.. It was like a 9/10 on a scale.

 

I think everyone with tinnitus thinks like that, the fear of it worsening...but as long as you are careful around loud noise, avoid ototoxic meds then there's a good chance your T will stay at its current level, sure there might be times when T might spike, but it's usually only temporary.

 

Yeah true, just hope they find something for all of us so we dont have to worry about it anymore.

 

My friends have been really great. Lots of support. Maybe a little baffled but supportive.

 

My girlfriend has watched me loose everything to this condition...she comes home tonight after clubbing with her friends and says to me she has "concert ears" soooo annoying. I didn't even have a response, I was so thrown back!!

She has seen first hand what this can do to a person and she still doesn't protect her ears !! I give up trying to warn people!!

 

I think people who don't have it think, "that'll never happen to me", like how we see bad things happening to people on the news and we think, "that's so sad" but in the back of our heads we're thinking, "I don't need to worry about that, it would never happen to me". Unfortunately with T a lot of people can easily get it, especially in this day and age where we have iPods and go to concerts or clubs, and even bars can have really loud music.

The good thing about us having T is that we know how bad it can be, and we have been taught a lesson: we cannot abuse our ears. Perhaps for some of us our ears will return to normal and we will not do stupid things like go to concerts without earplugs again - or even go to concerts at all. I think I have sworn off them for good, as well as clubs.

I haven't really mentioned my T to my friends - I mentioned that I had a ringing in my ears, but didn't make a big deal about it. I kinda don't see the point in it; and I am worried that if I mentioned it to them one of them will realise that they have T, and I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, let alone a good friend. Besides, we're not the clubbing type of people, and rarely go to concerts. I have talked about it with my best friend, and while he was really sympathetic, he hasn't asked about it for a while. I guess people tend to forget about it when they don't have it.

I have spoken about it with my family. My mum is understanding, but my brother and dad don't particularly care. My brother went out one night to a club and the next morning his ears were ringing and a bit deaf. I told him he should wear earplugs and he basically scoffed at the suggestion, says I'm overreacting. I'm his big sister, which means he won't listen to anything I say. I've done all I can to warn him. I will keep trying, but knowing my brother it's likely he won't listen. He probably won't have a problem with it.

 

Same with my younger brother.. He plays drums like me and loud and never protects his ears.. I know he will end up with T by my age if he doesnt.. My dad also its gonna get him one of these days im scared but theres nothin i can really do. They crank those amps so loud.

 

That's the thing: I don't think anyone understands T until they have it. I think before, if someone had mentioned T, I would have thought, "Their ears must have had something wrong with them in the first place" and not thought that it could get very loud. I wouldn't have thought it could bother me - I would have thought it's "just a ringing in your ears" and nothing major. But now I understand just how bad it is. Hopefully my ears will return to normal and I will heed the warning they had given me.