WTF, It's a Symptom. Find Out the Cause, Coz That's Your Job

Also, even if doctors aren't responsible for curing T, they too need to be made aware of just how bad it can be and show more sensitivity. I have read far too many posts about how doctors tell you to "live with it" because there is no cure (yet!). When you first get T that is NOT what you want to hear.

 

Yeah it is a lil ridiculous they really do show no empathy at all.. I had a young women maybe in her 20s that did my hearing test and she was so smiley the whole time which is okay then she just hands me a paper afterwards that says tinnitus and it explained what it was.. Like wtf i know what it is and then she just keeps smiling and says " just mask it with a fan" then she sent me bac to my ent who did nothing didnt even ask if i had any questions bout T.. Then je goes on talking about drums cauuse thats how i got T and how to just use earplugs and ill be fine. Ugh

 

And they can at least say things like " as of now there isnt any cure but they are working on treatments as we speak to lower the volume" that would give people alot more hope. Its if they want them to live with it and just have people spend there money on hearing aids and which is fine for now but never say LIVE with it

 

I get and agree with most of what you're saying. However, the type of tinnitus that you seem to be describing is tinnitus accompanied with hearing loss, which I don't have. Like my audiogram shows, my hearing is just about as perfect as a human being's hearing can get. Believe me, if "noise" was the reason for my tinnitus, then I can think of a LOT of people who'd be better candidates for tinnitus than me. Let's put it this way, I don't even own an iPod or any type of portable MP3 player. Like I said, I don't listen to loud music. And I've only been to two concerts in my entire life, and the last one was almost 6 years ago.

So with all of this said, I don't think I do anything to my ears that would be considered "abnormal" by today's society. Sure, perhaps "daily life" is still too much noise for what our ears are designed for, but like I said, I can think of a lot of people who abuse their ears with concerts, iPods, fire-crackers, etc and they don't have tinnitus. I'm a relatively quiet person, and I have it for some reason.

I really learned how helpless my doctors were when my ENT told me that he's had tinnitus for over 40 years and he said his is really loud. It really made me think that if an ENT, someone who is supposed to be specialized in the ear, can't even help himself, then he definitely can't help me.

 

I'm sorry. I think it is hard for everyone who has T, but it is particularly difficult for people who have not harmed their ears by loud noise/music. It's like getting the punishment without doing the crime.

Soon there will be either a cure that will stop the noise completely or a treatment that will significantly lower the noise. Even if my T could be lowered by just fifty per cent, I doubt I would even hear it.

 

how can you say your hearing is perfect when only 8 or 16 frequencies are tested out of 20000?

 

@Citigirl: thanks, I also hope that there will be treatments or even a cure soon. For both of our sake's. But like you were saying earlier, I also wish doctors would show more sympathy towards patients suffering from this. The only doctor I have had that showed sympathy was the audiologist I saw who specializes in tinnitus. She understands completely how devastating it is. And yes, it is hard to cope with it not knowing what it is that I did. Honestly, it makes me a little paranoid, because it was literally like going from normal to suffering in a matter of a second as far as I can tell. It makes me wonder what else could go wrong in the next moment.

@Valentin: fair enough. But my hearing is as perfect as every hearing test I've been given can determine thus far. So far, I've had two hearing tests, and both of them show that my hearing is "perfect" as far as the tests can determine. All I can really go by is what the hearing tests state. As the audiogram goes, 0-25 dB is considered normal with the closer to 0, the better. My hearing is 0s and 5s across the board. That is very good and not even close to being outside the "normal" range of hearing.

 

I relate to this so much...I also don't own an iPod or listen to loud music, etc. and my hearing test was fine. But I think my T is from dental work and cervical problems. The funny-odd thing is that today my T is relatively loud and normally I'd be stressing about it, but I happen to be stressing about something else right now so it's forced the T to take a back seat. And I'm like "Hmmm...this is interesting. The T is loud and it's not really bothering me that much today, mostly because my mind is taken up with this other problem." So that at least gives me hope about habituation and refocusing the brain.

 

Deb, I would guess that if your tinnitus is loud and not bothering you, then you're probably well on your way to being adapted to it. I hope it continues that way. Do you think it was drilling at the dentist's office that may have contributed or something else?

 

I know that too well. I am doing time for the crime of taking a pill my "doctor" gave me and it was ototoxic. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that loud music is only one small affront our auditory system takes. Toxins we consume, metro noise, some idiot that blows their horn right in your face....you just don't know where it will be coming from. You don't have to be some kind of head-banger to get this disease.

 

When I first got tinnitus, I thought that if I could just describe the sound and the feeling correctly to a specialist, they would say: Oh, that's .... And treat it. It took a while before I understood that nobody cares about your specific symptoms. "It's tinnitus, you could try a bit of this or perhaps a bit of that. That didn't help? Sorry, there's no more we can do." All tinnitus isn't the same, and there might be more that could be done if they would just take the time to sit down and listen and make an assessment. But you would need a tinnitus specialist for that, which most ENT's aren't.

 

I hope so too!! As far as the dental work, I'm not sure if it was the drilling or the fact that he really manhandled my left jaw while putting in 2 crowns in the lower back of my mouth...my jaw really ached and the T got really loud after that. That was back in October/November. I keep hoping maybe the nerves will repair themselves!

 

I agree with attheedgeofscience with regard to evolution of the ear and noise exposure in the "modern" world...though there are some caveats.

Gunpowder. I read a lot of history and apart from it's longer use in China and Asia, the Europeans were using "Ferociously loud beasts of cannons" way back, with the battle of Crecy in 1346 often being used as a marker. Accounts of their use in the "100 Years War" (the French and English mostly going at each other) are marked in their descriptions of absolutely deafening explosions - often of the cannons themselves.

So despite the prevalence of an unimaginable pastoral quiet, noise was on it's way.

Her's another caveat.
When I took my daughter to visit Zimbabwe (where I am originally from) in 1996 when she was around 12 years old, we were driving back from a remote game reserve on a gravel road through an area of successive villages that had not appeared to have changed much since I was a kid. It was evening and children were leading herds of goats down the road and women were wending through paths in the grass with firewood, bags of maize, water, etc. on their heads.
I stopped on a small hill overlooking this vast flat valley and told my daughter to get up on the roof of the Land Rover. Being a good daughter she did so, with a slight puzzled look. When up there she looked around and after a while said: "What?"

"Listen!" I said.

She sat on the roof and just listened...Then she said: "Oh wow dad!"

"Yeah, incredible isn't it...Take this dear daughter and never forget it, as you may never experience this again in your life."

We sat there, with the sun going down at our backs, and the magic of purely human and natural sounds drifting like soft tinkles and feathers in the warm air from miles and miles around us. Not one combustion engine, or jet plane, or modern noise. It was INCREDIBLE! Just incredibly, deeply, affective.
And indeed, at 29 my daughter still remembers...with tears in her eyes.

We have gained much, but lost much.

Best, Zimichael

 

I know EXACTLY what you mean. I also thought that if I could describe my tinnitus well enough, that my ENT would be like, "Oh, yeah, I know what the cause for that is and I can treat it". But like you, unfortunately, my ENT was no help at all, and I was just told it could be possibly from my grinding my teeth, and I was given some free samples of Lipo-Flavonoids, otherwise known was, "Snake-oil-in-a-pill".

I'm now seeing an audiologist who specializes in tinnitus, and she's been more helpful to me than my ENT and she understands completely how devastating tinnitus could be. In fact, she got into this field because she developed tinnitus in her teens, and like us, she was essentially left hanging as well.

 

@MattK , funnily enough I too am now seeing an audiologist who is really good. Specialized in hearing loss and tinnitus, and he's explained more about my ear than my ENT. Just the fact that we can sit down for more than an hour and talk things through means a lot.

 

I think that just having someone who understands about T and what you are going through can do wonders. If only there were more.