Tinnitus is making me crazy
Everything indicates that the continuous tinnitus I've had for the past 20 years cannot be cured. Up until very recently, I was able to live relatively well with it. White noise was only required when things got too quiet and before going to sleep. In the last month or so, my tinnitus got much worse. It is hard to quantify this, but it went from a nuisance, something I'm reminded of every once in a while, to an overwhelming presence.
I now listen to white noise for hours several times a day, sometimes even while watching TV. I try to avoid this, but the feeling of despair is sometimes inescapable. I will make a doctor's appointment tomorrow, but I gotta be honest, I'm not very hopeful.
A Brazilian celebrity said his tinnitus went way when he stopped eating sugar, so I'm controlling my sugar intake. I sometimes wonder if I could just remove the freaking ear canal altogether, and become half deaf. But then I would be just one ear way from becoming completely deaf. My grandpa was deaf in one ear, and all his brothers were completely deaf. So genetics is against me. Oh, well...
If you cover your ears with your palms and wrap your hands around the back of your head. Then tap on the back of your head with your fingers that has helped me at nights when I couldn't sleep because of it. It's weird but give it a try.
This, +1. I have tinnitus in both ears and when it gets really bad, this makes it go away. It is temporary but hey, any relief is relief, right?
I've tried that before. I can't do that right now. It's hard to describe how loud this thing is today. I know that is not rational but I wanna remove the fucking ear canal at this point. Becoming partially deaf seems like a small price to pay.
:( sorry to hear that (and no pun intended there)
Hey, thanks,
Hey don't even think about it! :)
Some people have had good results with these: https://www.flareaudio.com/pages/calmer-life
I’ve not heard of the sugar connection before, but it is well documented that use of Paracetamol (aka Tylenol, aka acetaminophen) can lead to tinnitus as can high doses of vitamin D. (According to Mayo Clinic, so can NSAIDs like Ibuprofen and aspirin which I didn’t know.) So if your using any of those maybe talk to your doctor about them.
My wife also has tinnitus and found some relief from these audio tracks on YouTube. I don’t know how well they work, but it costs nothing to try.
Edited to add: My wife found the above link from this Reddit thread and said the comments were helpful, so posting it here in case it helps.
Thanks. The thread itself was deleted. Any idea where it was pointing to?
I’m probably not understanding Reddit, but if you scroll down 1 screen there’s a long discussion. I assume that’s what my spouse read, but I’m not positive.
A couple of things, ranging from potentially helpful to almost certainly useless:
I've always found using white noise generators to exacerbate my awareness of tinnitus, if not making the perception itself more intense. It might be worth trying to go without them for now.
Are you able to meditate through it? If it's bugging you so much that you can't, the tinnitus could be a sign of something more worrisome. It might be worth contacting your psychiatrist about.
n-acetylcysteine helps some folks' tinnitus, it definitely pushes mine to the background. Depending on its availability in Brasil and any meds you're taking, it's worth looking into.
Thanks.
With the recent increase in volume I'm using a lot more white noise. I don't think I can reduce it just yet, but I have been trying.
I am not able to meditate through, it is extremely loud right now. I can meditate with noise in the room, but not very well.
I know nothing about this medication, I'll ask my doctors about it. I'll see an ENT next week and my psychiatrist next month.
I don't think the tinnitus is a symptom of something regarding mental health, but I'll talk about it to my psychiatrist. He will probably give me some anxiolytic to help me get through it, but that's about it.
Yeah, it's almost definitely just tinnitus, I just felt like someone should pay lip service to the other possibilities. I hope you can find some relief, it sounds like you're dealing with something truly awful.
Thanks. This is truly a pain but whatever happens I'm certain I'll be able to deal with it. All falling I'll just have to buy a tinnitus masking device, basically a tiny white noise machine that looks like a hearing aid. It is super expensive (for me), and nothing more than a band aid, but I can live with. A doctor prescribed me one of these years ago but I couldn't justify the price. Things are different now.
Have you been exposed to COVID recently? Worsening or nascent tinnitus been reported as a symptom.
Not thar I know of. I took the first short of the vaccine this week but the tinnitus worsened before that.
My wife is an audiologist who specializes in tinnitus treatment. From what I have learned from her, yes, there is no cure for tinnitus, but there are treatments that essentially involve working to train your mind to ignore it.
That's what I had to do. I find the more I think about it, the louder and more likely to intrude it becomes. Forgetting tinnitus exists is exactly like playing the game. Sometimes I can go weeks without noticing it, up until I see the word tinnitus anyway. It never goes away but if you avoid thinking about it or listening to it you can forget to notice it with some practice. White noise makes it easier to forget, gives it something else to get lost in. I always have a fan or music on even sleeping. If the white noise stops the tinnitus will wake me up out of a dead sleep in no time.
Could you please elaborate on those treatments? I'm interested in learning more about them
That's my wife's purview, of course, but I'd suggest looking up a registered audiologist in your area who has taken supplemental training for it. Here is a location finder for providers who have taken some of the same training that my wife has.
Something that you may want to look at is that you could be producing a bunch of earwax, and it became impacted. Would explain why it was aggravated in the past month, and a doctor could flush it out relatively easy. Over the counter hydrogen peroxide drops could help as well, but best to get a medical opinion.
Thanks. The doctor looked into my ear and it's fine according to her. Now I'm gonna do the exams.