Yep, Tinnitus It Is

Hello fellow sufferers,

On the 7th of January I suddenly experienced a loss of hearing in my left ear -- for no apparent reason, as I am only 24 years old and completely healthy. I felt dizzy and my ears started ringing -- the type of high-pitched sound that is used to chase away youngsters hanging out in shopping malls. Unbearable. The ringing became better and disappeared by the end of last week... only to return even worse on Monday this week, in both ears this time. Yesterday was the worst day. It drove me crazy.

Today I went to an audiologist, who did some tests. She concluded that my hearing is perfect and that my ears are clean, but that I do have tinnitus, which, according to her, is "not a bad diagnosis at all". She ensured me that it will disappear within a month. I am skeptical, as I had already understood that it was probably tinnitus and had found on the internet that there is no cure for it. I got Blestar 24 and Benevron BF pills which are supposed to cure it. I pray and hope the audiologist is right, but fear for the worst.

The tinnitus is generally okay when I am in crowded environments or on the streets and also does not really affect me while working in my office, but being alone in my apartment is just terrible and going to sleep is even worse. I don't understand how I never realized the worth of silence. I feel like I could potentially learn to cope with this, but am still in the phase where I am still shocked and anxious I am an expat, which makes it more difficult to go through the medical process as I don't speak the language here.

Your thoughts, advise and, most of all, support would be highly appreciated.

 

Welcome to the forum. If your tinnitus can be drowned out by outside street noises and not bothering you at work, then you do have a milder form of T. Take that as a blessing. The thing to do about sleep time is to try to mask it with nature sounds or favorite music. When my T was new, I used to mask all day just to prevent panic attacks from hearing my ultra high pitch loud dog whistle T. Try these if you haven't yet.

1) Mask at bed time if having trouble sleeping, by using a sound pillow or sound machine with pillow speakers. There are good sound machine & pillow therapy systems like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Oasis-...d-Oasis-Therapy-System-Speakers/dp/B00MH5HKTA

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipod with nature sounds or music using itune. If you have a smart phone, you can download free APPs for soothing or T-masking sounds. Use wisdom in the use of headphones or earbuds as extended use or excessive volume may hurt your ears. Try set the volume slightly below that of your tinnitus.

3) With PC & speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds to see which one masks best:

TT's excellent audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: https://mynoise.net

or download free sound generator ‘aire freshener’: http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or click play to mix these sounds with this simple sound generator: http://asoftmurmur.com/

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

As for other coping or helpful strategies, try read the success stories. I wrote mine too and share some helpful strategies to battle with my ultra high pitch T & severe H. Here is the link for it. Take care. God bless.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...w-i-recovered-from-tinnitus-hyperacusis.3148/

 

Check out the thread below where I summarize everything (24 tips spread over three posts) I learned about managing tinnitus after reading the posts on this forum for the past 11 months
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...itus-recently-this-info-will-be-useful.25741/

 

There is no telling if tinnitus will go or stay. You need to try to relax and be as calm as possible. Stress can trigger it to get louder. Just know that all of us here have it and we can live a decent life. This forum supports all its members and you are never alone

 

Thank you very much for your advise and for your kind words!

Today has been a very good day. It is still there, but when I was in a restaurant where classical music was played not loudly at all, I could not hear it (big mistake to "look for it" though). I also noticed, however, that loud noise triggers it to become louder -- difficult to avoid in a big city in a developing country, where a honking car, a street musician and a person whistling to another person are never far away. I also accidentally made the alarm of my house go off...

The best advise that I read on this forum, truly incredibly helpful, was to avoid "testing the T" and to test my response to it instead, as it is not the sound itself that makes it difficult to bear, but my perception of the sound as a threat. I will keep taking my meds and I will refrain from drinking alcohol and using earpods for a month, but the best advise has been to avoid concentrating on the T too much. To continue my life and live happily.

Again, thanks y'all!

 

Barely hearing it anymore, only in completely silent rooms and when trying to go to sleep. Need to thank God for that. But I know I have it and it might become worse anytime, triggered by anything. I will avoid earphones, noise (even from traffic, for instance) and music in general for the coming weeks, as I notice that this makes it worse for a few minutes. I have been lucky for now, but don't know if it will last.

 

Been so stupid today. Took the metro and it was horrible, the noise was terrible. Now I'm back home and panicking. I don't "know" if my tinnitus is back or not, if it's worse than yesterday or not...

 

Tinnitus feasts on our negative emotions which it depends as fuels to perpetuate its tyranny on us. So the best thing for you is to keep calm and remain positive that all will be well. If there are setbacks, accept them and not freak out. Treat it like a noisy day out. Panicking will only aggravate T. So do the smart thing as humanly possible as you can to keep positive and calm, and let your body heal.

 

Many thanks, billie48. I had read this immediately, but not responded to it. That was definitely a wake-up call.

A month after, I feel fine. The T is still there, but I only notice it if I look for it, which means I'm incredibly lucky. Even when going to sleep I don't really notice it anymore, and loud noises outside do not produce "spikes" the way they did in the early days. I have also taken the metro without problems. At this point, my T is not even a minor source of annoyance anymore. However, I know that I have it and that it might become much worse if I am not being cautious enough. It feels like this is going to happen someday. But for now, it's fine.

 

Good to hear things are better might be a good idea to invest in some musicians earplugs and carry them around as you never know when you might need them.

 

So my tinnitus had been gone for years. And now I'm back.

I had already forgotten that I used to struggle with this. In September this year, I took the J&J vaccine. The day after, my tinnitus was back. I cannot "prove" that this is what caused it, but there is no real other explanation and tinnitus is recognized as an "official" J&J side effect in the EU. I feel horrible.

I've had good days and bad days, but this has been going on for 1.5 month now and depressingly I just read that this is already longer than the previous time. It seemed like it was getting better to almost nothing, but after playing music in my car (not even very loudly) it got back and it stayed that way. It doesn't seem as if there is anything that really affects it, except for sudden sounds (ambulances passing by, alarms going off etc.). Stress does seem to be making it a lot worse (the "miss silence?" popup from this website was a heavy trigger too, btw).

I believe that last time I also got rid of it due to acceptance: the idea that this ringing is something that belongs to me and nothing to worry about. I guess I just need to accept it again and then it will start getting better. But it's hard, especially because this time it feels like I could have prevented this situation by not taking the vaccine. Anyway, nothing I can do about it anymore. Appreciate all support.

 

Protect your ears!

 

My tinnitus has gotten a lot better finally, thank God.

On bad days I still tend to have bad spikes, but the next day it is back to a 0.5/10. Even when going to sleep it barely bothers me anymore. Still being cautious with music, which tends to make it worse, and trying to avoid loud high-pitched sounds as well as I can. So far, so good. Still counting my blessings and hoping it doesn't get worse. To me, no longer having stress about it when it was still quite bad was key.

Hope this is of consolation to people who have recently come to struggle with COVID-19-vaccine-caused tinnitus. I don't think I will be taking any booster shot though.