A Little Perspective

[Mike82]

A lot of very salient points in this thread. I'd like to thank Dr Ancill for bringing it up.

I remember when I went and saw an audiologist after my tinnitus went through the roof, I was sitting on a chair in her office as she was talking about hearing aids, and I simply burst into tears and started bawling my eyes out.

The really weird thing was, even though I was sobbing uncontrollably, I couldn't stop thinking about how attractive the audiologist was. Like, I was sitting there thinking, "I'm a grown man crying in a startled lady's office, she's talking to me about hearing aids and I'm only 33... and she's pretty much one of the most attractive women I've ever seen".

To me, that's a sense of perspective. I still have intrusive tinnitus. I still need hearing aids. But hey... I got to interact with someone I would otherwise never have met.

Tinnitus sucks, and it's definitely the worst thing I've ever had to deal with (and I've dealt with a lot). But if I let it consume my life, then I'm not really living. That's the way I feel about it anyway.

 

[truesilence]

@MattK Most likely sciatica. I will go to an MRI next week, which will hopefully tell the diagnosis. Nerve pain is truly awful and for some it is chronic.

You MUST go and see a chiropractor or Osteopath!

 

[PaulBe]

I tried yesterday Lyrica for the first time. I think it is a similar drug, also used for depression. It didn't take the pain away, but it made it a little bit 'softer' and also made me sleep better. However, I have felt 'slow' and weird today and a bit woozy at times. I hate the side effects of all drugs.

I tried it. It wasn't doing a lot, but then came the disassociation (while driving) and the suicidal thoughts accompanied by the rage. I thought it was a good time to stop.

 

[meeruf]

This threat was kind of aggressive I think. I think it's very little productive to fight over what kind of condition is worse, and that one should wish that they had a chronic pain disorder instead of T. Or H over T, or T over H. All of them are bad in their unique way. People are different too, some people will handle T better then H, but another person would handle H better then T. Even if they had the exact same T sound and H pain. Some people can handle loud T and go along fine, other poeple can't even handle a tiny pip. Some people use 3 months to get used to a industrial sound, others can use 2 years to get used to a tiny sound.

I also think that it's kind of pathetic to say to people that have habituated to their T, that they can't possible have a very loud T. I know I sometimes have very loud T, because mine goes up and down all day long. I can hear it over traffic noise, trains, showers etc sometimes. I can still kind of forget about it. When I forget about it, its not in my attention.


@snow86: Yeah, there is tinnitus, and there is TINNITUS. So what? It's your reaction that matters. As long as you have no reaction to it, it really doesn't matter what the volume of T is. At least, that is my experience.

 

[Ken219]

These bad ones should be sent back to medical school to be retrained on proper counselling of their T patients and be more informed about other alternative treatment options.

Not retrained in medicine maybe retrained to do something else. I didn't know but my ENT got his papers from a college in the dominican republic. Bad choice for me.

 

[meeruf]

Somebody please name another condition where people are told to go home and live/suffer with it with no help whatsoever???

The common cold, influenza, HIV/AIDS, some types of cancer, asthma, diabetes, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, hepatite, Ebola, genital warts, different chronic pain disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis, cluster headaches, migraine, spasms, most nerve diseases, wearing on joints, some mental diseases etc.

"with no help whatsoever"
That is not true for even for tinnitus. You have sleeping pills for sleeping trouble, you can get pills for anxiety management, you can do yoga for relaxation, you can join a support group, tinnitustalk, use masking sounds, talk with a therapist etc..

 

[linearb]

The common cold, influenza, HIV/AIDS, some types of cancer, asthma, diabetes, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, hepatite, Ebola, genital warts, different chronic pain disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis, cluster headaches, migraine, spasms, most nerve diseases, wearing on joints, some mental diseases etc.

Yeah, this shit is all older than human consciousness. Literally two thousand years ago someone had this to say

Great king, no one who is born is free from aging and death. Even those affluent khattiyas—rich, with great wealth and property, with abundant gold and silver, abundant treasures and commodities, abundant wealth and grain—because they have been born, are not free from aging and death. Even those affluent brahmins…affluent householders—rich…with abundant wealth and grain—because they have been born, are not free from aging and death. Even those monks who are arahants, whose taints are destroyed, who have lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached their own goal, utterly destroyed the fetters of existence, and are completely liberated through final knowledge: even for them this body is subject to breaking up, subject to being laid down.

tl;dr you can be rich or poor or ethical or debased as hell, in the end, you still fall apart horribly and die and that's just how it works, that's what it is! Tinnitus sucks, aging sucks, the process of dying sucks, death itself is something I have no insight into but suspect probably doesn't actually suck.

 

[valeri]

The common cold, influenza, HIV/AIDS, some types of cancer, asthma, diabetes, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, hepatite, Ebola, genital warts, different chronic pain disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis, cluster headaches, migraine, spasms, most nerve diseases, wearing on joints, some mental diseases etc.

"with no help whatsoever"
That is not true for even for tinnitus. You have sleeping pills for sleeping trouble, you can get pills for anxiety management, you can do yoga for relaxation, you can join a support group, tinnitustalk, use masking sounds, talk with a therapist etc..

All of the conditions you listed can be helped one way or another, there's pills, creams, injections, puffers, dietary changes...

Unless there is a sleeping pill or yoga posture that will REDUCE or ELIMINATE tinnitus volume we can't even consider those as valid forms of treatment!!!!

Even the holly TRT is nothing more than "live/put up with t shit" sort of approach!

Also comparing a week or so lasting cold or influenza to 24/7 severe tinnitus is really ridiculous, unless of course you get a permanent cold and feel like crap for the rest of your life!

 

[MattK]

All of the conditions you listed can be helped one way or another, there's pills, creams, injections, puffers, dietary changes...

Unless there is a sleeping pill or yoga posture that will REDUCE or ELIMINATE tinnitus volume we can't even consider those as valid forms of treatment!!!!

Even the holly TRT is nothing more than "live/put up with t shit" sort of approach!

Also comparing a week or so lasting cold or influenza to 24/7 severe tinnitus is really ridiculous, unless of course you get a permanent cold and feel like crap for the rest of your life!

One of my college professors got a virus that damaged his optic nerves and is now blind. Doctors can't help him and he had to learn to live with it.

 

[meeruf]

All of the conditions you listed can be helped one way or another, there's pills, creams, injections, puffers, dietary changes...

Unless there is a sleeping pill or yoga posture that will REDUCE or ELIMINATE tinnitus volume we can't even consider those as valid forms of treatment!!!!

Even the holly TRT is nothing more than "live/put up with t shit" sort of approach!

Also comparing a week or so lasting cold or influenza to 24/7 severe tinnitus is really ridiculous, unless of course you get a permanent cold and feel like crap for the rest of your life!

Maybe they can, but they still have no magic pill you can eat to get rid of whatever it is. Some people with HIV have good respons on some medicine, but others can get really bad side effects, and cannot use them. For some reason you are compering yourself to only those who have a good respons, then concluding that you are worse off then everyone else.

I understand that you are bitter and feel pretty hopeless. I was there once too. But as I have progressed in my tinnitus habitutation I have found that it is very little productive to blame everything and everyone for your suffering, or even compare yourself with others. I know it's very easy to do. I wonder how many hours I spent thinking stuff like 'if I just did not fucking dive that day, everything would be PERFECT now', or 'MY doctor is fucking stupid, he don't know ANYTHING', or 'if I just did not have that type how sound, but that sound, I would be fine.'

What I also found, is that acceptence is everything. It does not matter if it is a commond cold, tinnitus, a broken leg or terminal cancer. As long as you can accept your situation, you can start to feel happiness again. Yeah, you will still have the pain, or the tinnitus. But as long as you have no reaction to it, or at least can accept that you have a reaction to it, you have come a long way. It's not even a terminal condition. You'll be fine.

 

[linearb]

Unless there is a sleeping pill or yoga posture that will REDUCE or ELIMINATE tinnitus volume we can't even consider those as valid forms of treatment!!!!

By this logic, HIV drugs are not a valid form of treatment because they just prevent the disease from progressing, but they don't reduce or eliminate the fact that you're HIV+.

Yoga and mindfulness practices, over an extended period (years) of daily practice, have radically redefined the way I interact with the world, and one effect of this has been that in general my tinnitus is just an annoyance, and not a climbing-the-walls fixation that makes me contemplate suicide all the time. That is, these things have made my life better, so for me they are a "treatment" even if they are nothing like a cure.

Your mileage may vary, of course. I have no idea what will or won't work for other people.

 

[wishingluck]

However, I am also a doctor and treat people with far worse medical conditions and actual physical disabilities who remain cheerful and optimistic

It's not hard to believe at all. I have seen cheerful people on wheelchairs too.

But so far I have not seen a cheerful tinnitus sufferer yet. I am not talking about the ones who have 'a bit of tinnitus', I am talking about people who have serious problems because their tinnitus severity is high.

It depends on how bad is the tinnitus. Is it bearable? Then you can bear it. Everybody says 'tinnitus' as if there's only one level of it. No, there's many levels. A low rumble can be slightly annoying. A loud hiss that's there all the time will make your life unbearable.

I have been physically disabled for a few months and had a successful operation at the knee. Believe me if I tell you that walking on a crutch and not be sure if I'd run again around the block or whatever, was a walk in the park in comparison. Just to be able to sleep peacefully, seemed a great gift.

I am starting to think that even a terminal disease , if not better, is not really worse. I have contemplated all these scenarios. Here's the difference: if one has a terminal disease, the relatives would know he would die.

But what about the guy who stabbed himself to death because of tinnitus, because he didn't sleep for 2 months?

PS. I advise anybody AGAINST reading these stories. I have read it almost by chance. It terrifies me.

I think that's worst than even a terminal disease.

If you say 'it's only tinnitus' then you are either 1. trying to fool yourself and trying to fool others (unintentionally of course) , or 2. your tinnitus is bearable.

If 2. is the case, good for you, but many others are having it much worse.

Yeah I have heard this 'well tinnitus doesn't kill you' thing before. Yes it doesn't kill you physically. It's like saying that just because one isn't bleeding or dying, that they are fine.