What to Do When Panic Attack Starts Because of Tinnitus?

Hi everyone,

My tinnitus has been mild fom last 7 years except for the occasional spike. I have been having spikes on and off because of noise exposure for last2-3 months.

My tinnitus does spike when I am tired.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and I could hear my T over my white noise and loud tower fan. I tried to mask T by changing white noise from rain fall to pink noise. Nothing worked and I started panicking. I got up and started walking back and forth in the dark room and negative thoughts about the future kicked in...one after another.

It is scary when white noise doesn't mask T.

I turned off white noise since my T was competing with it. I started reciting Mantra...it took my mind off of negative thoughts and I started focusing more and more on mantra. I didn't even realize when I went to sleep. It was really a scary moment !! ... I dont think I have panicked this much in the middle of the night in a very long time.

I am wondering... What do you guys do in similar situations? I felt horrible because I started thinking more and more negative things about future and how future is going to be bad and full of torture.

Mantra took my mind away from this negative pattern and broke the circuit of negative thoughts. I woke up in the morning and I was just fine.

 

I am sorry to hear about your suffering my friend.
I have had T for 20 years and still panic gets me on occasions.. with the same thoughts your are mentioning.

What helps me is to occupy my mind and thoughts with something. Sometimes it takes minutes, often it takes hours before the spike is gone. I´ve had sort of a spike now for 2 months after glue ear this summer, and it really scares me.
But, I feel that once I get my anxiety down, T usually follows if not right away, some days after.

Stay strong mate, I know its hard, and I feel your struggle

 

I'm sorry you are having these problems.

Once you learn, or precisely, consciously realize that panic attacks cannot harm you there will be no reason for you to have them as the cycle is broken.

I found it useful to have beta blockers around, because they will stop you panicking. They stop the nervous system from giving you racing heart, sweating and other physical anxiety symptoms that a panic attack induces. Having had them even when I started to panic, I never took them and realised I never needed them anyway. Might help

 

I think deep breathing like Hatha Yoga is good and some of their techniques or a warm drink and relaxing music and snuggle back down to sleep .
Love glynis

 

@glynis, deep breathing works like magic for general anxiety. for some reason when why T is raging i cant seem to do deep breathing( pranayma).

i took Pranayama classed 15 years ago and it really works like a miracle.

 

I don't know if it's against the rules to put parts of books here, so if it is I'm sorry and will delete them if needed. Below are some of the main points about how to stop or reduce panic attacks which I scanned from my copy of The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook, by Edmund J. Bourne, PhD, published by New Harbinger. The missing coping statements are:
This isn't dangerous
So what
Don't worry - be happy (Use this to inject an element of lightness or humor.)

There's quite a bit more in the book, regarding this subject.

Be well, and don't panic. The reason I have this book, is because I've had anxiety and panic considerably before tinnitus and hyperacus symptoms. These pages from my computer are safe to save as a document, and if you print them they're easy to read.