Audiology Workup/Treatments/Hearing Aids — Experiences?

[Rae57]

Hello all...

I am pretty close to being 6 months in with tinnitus. I obtained this annoying sound in both ears back in March after seeing a chiropractor who adjusted my neck. Also I was a medical transcriptionist who wore headphones to do transcription approximately 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for close to 30 years, so I'm not sure which actually caused this, neck cracking or noise-induced, or possibly a combination of both.

These past 6 months have been quite a challenge for me. At first, the tinnitus was pretty extreme. Just like so many of you, my anxiety level was extremely high, crying constantly, couldn't sleep, then it finally after a month or so calmed down to a more bearable level. I, like a lot of you, went to my family doc and ENT with no help from either and now I am currently seeing an upper cervical chiropractor for the last 2 to 3 months as my neck and back were completely out. There has been improvement of back issues, plus just started doing massage therapy this past week, but I have not seen a whole lot of improvement with the tinnitus going away or at least staying at a low level baseline as of yet. It does fluctuate up and down in intensity a lot. Being outside is extremely helpful because I don't hear it at all when I'm outside, and it's such a relief to be free of it then, if at least for a little while.

My question is, as I haven't been able to find too much on the forum regarding audiometry, is if anyone has benefited from audiology treatment in the form of hearing aids, etc., because that's the next step that I'm considering taking, but would like to hear other views of people that have had success or not had success with audiology treatments. I should mention also that I did have a hearing test back in March, when all of this started up and I did have some hearing loss in the higher frequencies only.

 

[Elmer B Fuddled]

To answer your hearing aids I have recently started wearing aids due to hearing loss and tinnitus from ear infection. The first 4 or 5 days I did not hear or recognise the tinnitus. Then one morning I woke to the tinnitus spiked and putting in the aids gave no relief. It lasted 2 days then went silent again. But now last night the tinnitus was screaming so I got up put my aids in it only helps if there is noise going on like the radio or music to take the brain off of concentration on the tinnitus. Has it helped the aids? I can honestly say I am not positive if they have actually helped. Because as we all know and understand tinnitus can and will do whatever the hell it wants. For hearing loss yes the aids work, I was diagnosed with a considerable loss of hearing. And them aids are not cheap.

 

[Rae57]

Thank you for your response. I guess the conclusion is, what works great for one isn't necessarily going to work great for another because it's not the same for everyone and you have to find your own path of what works. Like you said, the aids are expensive and if it ends up not working out the way a person intends for it to, that's a crap load of money spent for nothing, but then I might be kicking myself if I don't give it a try and it would end up being the one thing that would really help. It really stinks though on trying to habituate to all of this when each day is different with all of the fluctuations. I'm just trying to find the best thing that I can to at least get some relief and live my life as normally as possible. I do believe the chiropractor has helped a little and I'm anxious to see if massage therapy in the long run will reap any benefits. On top of all of this, I've got TMJ with popping in my left ear when swallowing or yawning and I have a deviated septum with blockage in the right sinus that needs surgery to get corrected, so I have a lot going on besides this awful T that has now entered my life. I keep hoping and praying for that miracle cure for T really soon for all of us!