- Apr 17, 2019
- 396
- Tinnitus Since
- 12.04.2019
- Cause of Tinnitus
- Loud concert
Hey guys
Two days ago and I was feeling almost normal (see my success story), as if I could wait easily for years for a cure, so used I had become to my tinnitus and VS.
I went to carnival on Saturday evening. This is a small village carnival in the open, so noise was fairly moderate and predictable. I wore my plugs and spaced a bit further away or cover my ears with my hands when something somewhat noisy passed by.
The last number of the carnival was somebody blowing up firework (I initially thought it was some random bloke). He actually yelled to cover up your ears when he blew something off (according to my parents, who where at a different location), but that was impossible to hear if you weren't in the front row. So just when I wanted to leave (like 30 seconds or so) I was exposed to one of these fireworks quite closely. I immediately noticed the spike since before I couldn't hear my tinnitus when having plugged my ears with the sound levels going on there (we're talking about 60 dB or less at average). After that it was clearly audible.
My tinnitus is a 4-5/10 when before it was mostly quiet room stage and I was even happy sometimes to just listen to it. I started to like it. Was not a bother at all, I felt normal, and happy. Now it's bad enough to make me write this thread at the middle of the night. I feel godawful, although I'm aware that I ought to get used to this new level and a large part is the stress reaction. My tinnitus is very high pitched and just a moderate increase to it as I received makes it a lot more noticeable through the day. It's not that much louder but it has gotten quite a new "edge" over before (tone is more aggressive). I had also a mild drone before that I perceived only rarely which is now much more prominent during the night. Sleep has become difficult, since my high-pitched tone gets a lot more aggressive when lying down (was never a problem at all). My stress level is very high, I could feel the panic ramping up when trying to sleep and now suddenly being difficult. Sleep has only ever been a problem when VS popped up. I could sleep even at the beginning of my tinnitus. So far my VS has stayed the same, though the dark seems weirdly bright currently, the dark itself feels bright (stress probably makes me notice the self-light of the brain, which is a symptom that was minimal before).
Why did this have to happen? I'm not angry, neither on myself nor on the guy who blew the firework off, but fate is making this unnecessarily difficult... At first I went mostly because this was a whole village thing, just happens every couple years. I was aware that it might be potentially loud, so I was being careful. When I was there, I actually found the risk to be very manageable and I was happy as I hadn't been in a very long time. Made me actually think of the evening I got my tinnitus first, because I was also really happy at that concert. But how should I have anticipated this damn firework?
What should I do? Should I rush to my ENT to get prednisone? That only helped the last time with hyperacusis, if it did at all (my hyperacusis was unaffected because it wasn't a problematic pitch). Should I just wait it out and hope it this spike goes down again? I already took NAC, magnesium and curcumin.
Thanks whoever is reading this. Writing this made me feel a bit better. It helps somewhat that sometimes I think that my new low is just a bit above the high's I have been experiencing before now and then. So the new level is at least still partially familiar. Still difficult with this new stress level and I'm not very happy having to wait potentially weeks or months for this spike to settle.
Does somebody have any advice?
Two days ago and I was feeling almost normal (see my success story), as if I could wait easily for years for a cure, so used I had become to my tinnitus and VS.
I went to carnival on Saturday evening. This is a small village carnival in the open, so noise was fairly moderate and predictable. I wore my plugs and spaced a bit further away or cover my ears with my hands when something somewhat noisy passed by.
The last number of the carnival was somebody blowing up firework (I initially thought it was some random bloke). He actually yelled to cover up your ears when he blew something off (according to my parents, who where at a different location), but that was impossible to hear if you weren't in the front row. So just when I wanted to leave (like 30 seconds or so) I was exposed to one of these fireworks quite closely. I immediately noticed the spike since before I couldn't hear my tinnitus when having plugged my ears with the sound levels going on there (we're talking about 60 dB or less at average). After that it was clearly audible.
My tinnitus is a 4-5/10 when before it was mostly quiet room stage and I was even happy sometimes to just listen to it. I started to like it. Was not a bother at all, I felt normal, and happy. Now it's bad enough to make me write this thread at the middle of the night. I feel godawful, although I'm aware that I ought to get used to this new level and a large part is the stress reaction. My tinnitus is very high pitched and just a moderate increase to it as I received makes it a lot more noticeable through the day. It's not that much louder but it has gotten quite a new "edge" over before (tone is more aggressive). I had also a mild drone before that I perceived only rarely which is now much more prominent during the night. Sleep has become difficult, since my high-pitched tone gets a lot more aggressive when lying down (was never a problem at all). My stress level is very high, I could feel the panic ramping up when trying to sleep and now suddenly being difficult. Sleep has only ever been a problem when VS popped up. I could sleep even at the beginning of my tinnitus. So far my VS has stayed the same, though the dark seems weirdly bright currently, the dark itself feels bright (stress probably makes me notice the self-light of the brain, which is a symptom that was minimal before).
Why did this have to happen? I'm not angry, neither on myself nor on the guy who blew the firework off, but fate is making this unnecessarily difficult... At first I went mostly because this was a whole village thing, just happens every couple years. I was aware that it might be potentially loud, so I was being careful. When I was there, I actually found the risk to be very manageable and I was happy as I hadn't been in a very long time. Made me actually think of the evening I got my tinnitus first, because I was also really happy at that concert. But how should I have anticipated this damn firework?
What should I do? Should I rush to my ENT to get prednisone? That only helped the last time with hyperacusis, if it did at all (my hyperacusis was unaffected because it wasn't a problematic pitch). Should I just wait it out and hope it this spike goes down again? I already took NAC, magnesium and curcumin.
Thanks whoever is reading this. Writing this made me feel a bit better. It helps somewhat that sometimes I think that my new low is just a bit above the high's I have been experiencing before now and then. So the new level is at least still partially familiar. Still difficult with this new stress level and I'm not very happy having to wait potentially weeks or months for this spike to settle.
Does somebody have any advice?