Hi all,
Just thought I'd post my disease progress for you, and a bit for me.
Mostly I'd say I'm coping well. It helps that I sleep no problem, with only two or three nights of being up, or waking up, for any period of time. This is helpful, because it means one less thing to be anxious of.
So, yeah, coping well. Definitely some days [hours, minutes] are worse then others, but overall I think it's improving somewhat. I've been extremely diligent in keeping track of my symptoms (thank you Nomie app for facilitating this!), and as I look back, it looks like both my pitch and volume are gradually, if non-linearly, decreasing. According to my own subjective ratings, volume has ranged anywhere from 2-5 out of 10, and pitch anywhere from 4-7 out of 10. Hard to know how accurate this all is; but it's probably not bad.
The days where volume was rated a five constituted what I interpret to be 'spikes'. During these times - twice - my tinnitus was two to three times as loud as baseline. And when I trigger, I can expect it to take 4-7 days to get back completely to baseline.
Mostly though I'm beginning to notice a bit less triggering by loud noises. When this first started, every last noise led to a change in my tinnitus. The fridge turning on, the tv or radio speaking to me, the sir conditioning whispering through the house. Then, after about a month, this level of sensitivity began to diminish, and I would only get triggered by louder noises - dishes clanking, someone screaming. Of course those sounds still bother me, but perhaps not quite to the same amount. And tonight - tonight I went to a birthday party, and managed through 90% of the night without plugs. This with children squealing and dogs barking and everyone talking at a good 75 dB clip. I did, at one point, out in plugs, when the kids were chasing me around and putting me in "jail"; but this was only for about 15 minutes. Three weeks ago, my head would have been screaming now. But now, four hours later, I still feel mostly untriggered.
Will things continue to improve? Who knows. But I think mostly I'm lucky - the tinnitus is mild enough to allow me to go on with my life; if it improved further, even better.
I'll try to post more entries like this, as I know I found it useful reading through other's timelines and symptoms, learning about who, if anyone, got better; or worse.
Matt
Just thought I'd post my disease progress for you, and a bit for me.
Mostly I'd say I'm coping well. It helps that I sleep no problem, with only two or three nights of being up, or waking up, for any period of time. This is helpful, because it means one less thing to be anxious of.
So, yeah, coping well. Definitely some days [hours, minutes] are worse then others, but overall I think it's improving somewhat. I've been extremely diligent in keeping track of my symptoms (thank you Nomie app for facilitating this!), and as I look back, it looks like both my pitch and volume are gradually, if non-linearly, decreasing. According to my own subjective ratings, volume has ranged anywhere from 2-5 out of 10, and pitch anywhere from 4-7 out of 10. Hard to know how accurate this all is; but it's probably not bad.
The days where volume was rated a five constituted what I interpret to be 'spikes'. During these times - twice - my tinnitus was two to three times as loud as baseline. And when I trigger, I can expect it to take 4-7 days to get back completely to baseline.
Mostly though I'm beginning to notice a bit less triggering by loud noises. When this first started, every last noise led to a change in my tinnitus. The fridge turning on, the tv or radio speaking to me, the sir conditioning whispering through the house. Then, after about a month, this level of sensitivity began to diminish, and I would only get triggered by louder noises - dishes clanking, someone screaming. Of course those sounds still bother me, but perhaps not quite to the same amount. And tonight - tonight I went to a birthday party, and managed through 90% of the night without plugs. This with children squealing and dogs barking and everyone talking at a good 75 dB clip. I did, at one point, out in plugs, when the kids were chasing me around and putting me in "jail"; but this was only for about 15 minutes. Three weeks ago, my head would have been screaming now. But now, four hours later, I still feel mostly untriggered.
Will things continue to improve? Who knows. But I think mostly I'm lucky - the tinnitus is mild enough to allow me to go on with my life; if it improved further, even better.
I'll try to post more entries like this, as I know I found it useful reading through other's timelines and symptoms, learning about who, if anyone, got better; or worse.
Matt
Member
