@Hotspur2931
Hi Lizzy,
I am not Terry of course, thus I sure am not answering for Terry. I am giving you my thoughts because of my experience in applying what Terry discovered with his method to my situation. Therefore, here is how I found what worked and works for me:
· I read every single post in his thread. Your post has similar issues to others who have posted on how to manage almost constantly hearing the sound. I had similar issues to your post when I first used Terry's method. I decided to just note the sound/feeling about every 5 minutes if I was hearing it pretty much continuously at some times of the day. Here are my "notes" from my reading of the entire thread:
Here is the "bottom line" on how to implement it from researching the Back to Silence thread:
The "Back to Silence" method calls for not measuring the sound(s), not to monitor the tinnitus sound(s) or focus on it, do not describe the sound(s) or compare the sound(s).
Another way to think about it is to follow the four "don'ts" of the Back to Silence method:
1 - Don't measure it
2 - Don't monitor it
3 - Don't describe it
4 - Don't compare it
Do the following:
1- STOP talking about tinnitus, measuring it, comparing it, describing it, and thinking about it.
2- When you hear the sound(s), tell yourself, "I hear it, I feel .........." (insert your true emotion)
3- make a note of this incidence (just put a hash mark for instance and add them up daily) and each emotional response in a word or two on paper, review your paper weekly to see the change in your responses.
If you are in a position (like say driving a car, in meditation, in bed getting to sleep or up in the night etc.) where you can't note down your occurrence then do it verbally and add a hash mark and note later in writing if you can recall it.
Once you have gotten to 5 to 10 times a day by noting the tinnitus occurrences you can stop writing them down if desired. Just do the "I hear it, I feel _______ (insert your true emotion) to yourself with no need to keep a count.
· I did not write down the noting of my hearing the tinnitus most of the time by far. In fact hardly ever. Indeed not following exactly what Terry's instructions are to write it down and indeed that is what I did. I only verbally in my mind and not voiced aloud did I do the noting of the hearing/feeling. Maybe I would have better/faster results if I had and the truth is I have not. Since I got good results, I have never really seen the need to write it down. I could tell the amount of time between noticing the tinnitus was decreasing without writing the incidents down so I did not go back to writing it down.
· I always used (before I found Terry's method) and still do use a white noise machine at night when sleeping. I have gone to sleep a few times with no problem without the white noise machine like when the power was off (hey I live in Florida with hurricanes that take the power out) or I forgot to bring it when out of town in a hotel.
· I do not exclusively and only use Terry's method. I also use other methods with Terry's method. I have used L-Theanine, particularly right after I started having tinnitus from a loud sound incident. I also have used it when I had a couple of big spikes due to loud sound incidents. I used it mostly to get to sleep (200 mg and I weigh 160 pounds) 20 minutes before bedtime. Worked like a charm to get to sleep. If I woke up in the night and began to obsess about mostly work issues, I would take 200mg more then. That also worked like a charm. When I was in those two spiking times, which were so big that I had to work to re-habituate all over, I used 100 or 200 mg after work to reduce my anxiety until I had worked myself back into habituation. I have not used it in maybe a year now since my last habituation. In addition, at the very beginning of my tinnitus in 2011 my MD prescribed a low dose of Trazodone at bedtime. Trazodone is an anti-depressant, which also has a sedating effect when taken as well as anti-anxiety properties. I was on that for several months while I worked a hypnosis program by Kevin Hogan. Here is the info on Kevin's program:
Tinnitus Turning the Volume Down by Kevin Hogan PsyD. = I got a lot out of his book and Kevin's program personally in 2011 when I first got tinnitus so I may be a bit biased. Then I achieved habituation out of it, which means I only heard the sounds maybe 3 to 5 times per day at most and I was not uncomfortable when I did hear them. The biggest downside to this program is the cost of the program is $197 but it was worth it to me since it worked.
· I am a member of the American Tinnitus Association. They have a podcast with a psychologist who has tinnitus and specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for those with tinnitus. You can hear the podcast here:
https://www.ata.org/podcasts/episode-10-habituation-tinnitus-using-cognitive-behavioral-therapy
In this podcast, he tells you what he thinks you need to know about CBT. He also has a lot of free resources for those with tinnitus on his website here:
https://www.cbtfortinnitus.com/cbt-for-tinnitus-resources
He says many people can complete CBT for tinnitus in as little as 2 to 10 sessions with someone who is trained in CBT for tinnitus but unfortunately most therapists are not adequately trained in CBT and don't know anything about tinnitus.
On his resource page, he has a 90-minute webinar, a mindfulness meditation audio, recommendations for self-help books (he is working on one of his own) and other key self-help information to give it a go for yourself. He does offer coaching on dealing with tinnitus as well should you need/want that. I suggest you give it a listen and look. Hope this helps. I use CBT methods since I have long-time experience with it as a retired psychotherapist.
I might add I do use earplugs in noisy environments or when I have to do things that cause loud noises.
OK, that is it. I figure each person is different. As they say in AA "Take what you need and leave the rest." is a great motto. Maybe you can take some of this as what you need and just leave the rest.
Hope it helps!
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