What to Do About Sleep Issues and Anxiety with Pulsatile Tinnitus?

Hello everyone,

I've been lurking around on Tinnitus Talk for a few months, and have found some helpful info and insight.

Quick background: I have chronic neck and head problems with resultant headache on the left side. I've been like this for years and it waxes and wanes. Back in August I had the worst ever episode and woke up feeling like everything was compressed in the neck and shoulder and when I rolled over, I had a big head rush of pulsing to the head, like blood vessels suddenly opened up. I went back to sleep and thought nothing more about it. A few days later I noticed a high pitched ring /hiss in my left ear in time with my pulse. It was very light and I didn't notice most of the time, and slept with no problem. Then at the end of October I had another bad episode, and the noise was louder. At which point I made the mistake of looking up the condition on Dr. Google and promptly freaked myself out.

I'm in the process of getting this sorted out. Seen my PCP, and got the referrals to Audiology and ENT. I just saw the audiologist and will be having an ABR (auditory brainstem response) test. I lucked out with her. She seems very knowledgeable and told me I should be seen by an otologist.

In the meantime, no sleep for me. I wake up with a pounding heart every few hours. My doctor prescribed Trazodone and it didn't really help at all, and gave me some nasty nightmares, so I weaned myself off of it. I take Melatonin which does get me sleepy, and I can fall asleep but only for an hour, then bam! Awake. Right now I take half a Methocarbamol, which helps me get back to sleep for a couple of hours. I'm on Warfarin so there are lots of meds that it interacts with, like the SSRIs, so I want to figure out another way to deal with this. I thought about seeing my doctor for a short term script for Ativan, but I had to practically beg her for the Methocarbomol script, so I doubt she would go for it. Also, I do fine during the day with the tinnitus and at night I listen to audio books, rain sounds,etc, so my brain has something else to focus on.

Sorry for such a long post. Hope to get some good ideas from you folks.

Thanks.

 

This meditation method is tailor made for dealing with muscle tensions, which makes it ideal to improve sleeping patterns:

Meditation Practice to Deal with Tinnitus Suffering

 

Here is something to try for sleep.

Seroquel or its generic name that I can't spell should drop you like a horse. Take it when you get into your bed. If you take it before bedtime to help make you tired, you may wake up on the floor or on your couch. Side effect is you may wake up after 3 hours with a strong craving for food. As soon as you finish eating potato chips dipped in coffee grounds you will go right back to sleep. Start with 25mg. I take 75mg.

 

Thanks Vincent R and Jacksprat for the replies. It's interesting to find out how others deal with sleep problems and what the options are. I've been doing some guided meditations for anxiety and it seems to help a bit. I got lucky last night and slept for 3 hours before being jolted awake. That's a new record for me. I know I can't count on the same tonight, but I can hope.

I had bilateral pulmonary embolisms a few years ago, and this pulsatile tinnitus is harder to deal with. Recovering from the clots took several months, but I could see progress and I could sleep which helped with healing.

 

I'm in for an unpleasant night myself, as my tinnitus is roaring. (Maybe because I was exposed to a burglar alarm earlier today, but as I wore double hearing protection, chances are my tinnitus will go back to baseline.) I'll be doing the meditation exercise I recommended you until I start to power nap, and then go to bed.

Tinnitus can be quite the painful experience. It turns life into a struggle where most or all of your energies are spent just to keep afloat.

There's nothing wrong with guided meditations, but relatively speaking, they are less potent than approaches that require you to be present throughout your body.