Enough! I've Just About Had It (with These Snakes on a Plane)

[Xynic]

Sorry for the jokey title, but I always try to make light of a situation. Disclaimer: this is a pretty contentless post that only contains me angrily ranting.

But seriously, right now I've had JUST ABOUT ENOUGH! Those of you who have read my posts here know I'm generally a strong person who's always trying to stay positive and I'm sure I will apologize for this post later, but seriously, this is some BULLSH*T.

After trying pretty much everything in existence (it would seem), I've been on 5-HTP for the past week, since I am almost positive my tinnitus has a direct connection with my serotonin levels. I thought it was having a positive effect, but today in the morning I woke up mutiple times, each time annoyed at the noise in my head, to finally wake tp 8:20 to a spike in my left ear (super high-pitched, like a TV) that came on JUST as I was in that state between waking and sleeping. I guess my brain was frantically working away while I was asleep, concentrating on the tinnitus.

Oh, sure, I got up and it relatively quickly went back to baseline, but COME ON.

REALLY?!

That's just the morning after a weird mini-spike in my right ear freaked me out during the day before.

Plus just now in a meeting, I was like "hmm, I wonder how my left ear is doing" - and boom, the piercing louder sound came on for a really short while before I managed to suppress it quickly.

There I was, thinking I was improving, then all of a sudden this comes along and messes up my whole day. Now I'm afraid to stay on the 5-HTP AND afraid to kick it because either (or none) could be responsible. This is me right now. Just GREAT. Damn my brain.

I didn't sign up for this. I'm strong-willed, I like helping others here, as I said I'm always trying to see the positive and improve but sometimes it just really gets to me. Really, after all this work and all this time? I still can't stop concentrating on my ears? To the point that I frigging WAKE UP to a spike?? Now I'll be afraid of going to bed again, and it took me quite a bit not to be!

I'm calling the tinnitus clinic and signing up for TRT. Quite apparently, I can't follow through on my own goddamn advice and instead of being happy that I seemed to be habituating, boom, here I am in a loop of paranoia again.

I mean, just how much work can it take? Come on, brain, throw me a bone here!

Aaaargh!

 

[Xynic]

Sorry about the rant. I guess the most frustrating thing is that it won't stay stable and changes every other week or so, plus spikes. I'm sure it's because I'm paying way too much attention to it still, but it seems random, and it's very tiring.

 

[suera]

Rant away. Totally understand.

 

[Forever hopeful]

Rants are ok. Have at it. This sucks and it is ok to acknowledge that every once in a while.

 

[glynis]

Aww tinnitus has a way of popping up anytime and mornings a real problem for most .
Hope you got through your meeting ok and managed concentrate .
Rant away anytime as we are with you too and understand.....lots of love glynis

 

[Ed209]

It's completely depressing and I know where you are coming from. There's nothing worse than waking up and having that ringing noise drive you mad. At the moment I'm in a phase of trying to let go and let the T do whatever it wants. My plan is to totally ignore it, no matter how much I want to react to it. I can't see any other way.

I'm pretty sure if I ignore it long enough I'll start to forget it's there, but it's easier said than done when you can hear it over everything. When mine decides to go crazy I can hear it over everything, but I still don't understand my wild fluctuations, sometimes it's just a background hiss which is always there. Other times, at random, it will go into either a high pitch squeal that randomly changes pitch or a loud cicada type sound. Like I said before on some days I get nothing but the hiss, which I can live with.

I'll never understand why the annoying sound only appears at certain times/days. Am I healing, going crazy or what?

 

[billie48]

Mr T is known to be moody and unpredictable. Setbacks are very common especially for newer T. Even those of us with T for a longer time can't be exempt from it. So for me personally (I mean it), I use my own analogy to help me not reacting to these huge spikes with extreme emotions. The brain is a smart organ. If it feels that you are so freaked out and all the bad emotions are overwhelming it by us reacting so traumatically to a certain stimulus, then the 'stupid' brain thinks that that object of the stimulus must be a mortal threat. Once it recognizes that, the stimulus signal of the ringing will then be processed via the Amygdala, the stress and 'fight & flight' center of the brain. Everything will be a lot more intense and worse off to you and you react in traumatic way to it. It is the body's way to protect us to be ready for survival against this threat. So we have to play a smart game with the brain and I personally use the following analogy to calm the nerves. I strictly mean this as a personal approach which works for me and no one needs to be upset that such analogy is ridiculous. If it is that to you, then skip the analogy.

You see my T is ultra high pitch. The baseline is a dog whistle. Sometimes it can have huge spikes that it cuts through most everything, including jet noise in flights, or the roaring, raging rapids in the salmon rivers I fish. It has been on these spikes for a few days now, probably due to my tiredness after fishing or the recent flights I took. But who cares about what Mr. T does. I don't tip toe around it any more. I don't react to these spikes anymore. I did and paid my price. No longer. When it really got ridiculously loud, like now when I am typing where a heavy and continuous rain shower sound can't even dim a bit of my T, I would bring on the following videos of the loud jobs people do without protection (particularly in the 3rd world). I would turn the volume up to real life loudness as much as I can bear (I have ear buds in my office so no one can hear it). Then I tell my brain, "Hey, million of people in the world work in really loud jobs daily, like the miners, drillers, flight attendants, train operators, engine room workers, truck drivers etc. Many are happy to find a job to feed their family with or without protection. If they can face those loud noises for long shifts daily for life for earning a wage, why the heck I can't accept this spike which really is no match to a mine drill nor a jack hammer? Perhaps I just imagine that for the duration of the huge spikes or when T wake me up with its scream, that is when I say I am now like having a driller's job. At least I am not 1000 ft underground risking poisonous gas or mine collapse. Why I need to suffer so much and give up my joy of living?

OK, this is not a perfect analogy of course. But I can't afford a perfect analogy. The minute the brain senses that I resist this reality of screaming T, my anxiety and panic disorder would eat me up. Believe me, you don't want to face relentless anxiety and panic attack symptoms. They are awful to the senses. So for me, it is either accepting my reality and use my analogy and be happy with my current condition, and trying to live as positively as I can, or face much worse suffering of anxiety and panic attacks plus an aggravated T spike (as stress from anxiety and panic attacks is toxic to T). Perhaps my anxiety and panic disorders push me to making a wise decision of accepting T and whatever much easier. I learn from then young Zoe Cartwright (who made a tinnitus film) who turned completely deaf at 15, and then developed $%@*! loud T which is not maskable due to deafness. She said she either accepts her reality and try to make the best out of life, or face utter misery for the rest of her young life. I emulate her example and her positivity. Now I have my life back with T high or low. Couldn't do that at first. So need to be patient and let TIME do its magic healing. If interested in the story of Zoe, read up page 14 & 15 of the Positivity Thread.

 

[Xynic]

Thanks @billie48, that does help. I don't think Zoe Cartwright's story is the right thing for me - her case is far, far more severe than mine. But your analogy does help. I guess it's just hard sometimes, what with all the changes my tinnitus seems to undergo pretty much constantly. I do hope it stabilizies in the future, because how am I supposed to fully habituate if it doesn't, but I also know that for it to stabilize, I need to stop paying attention to it. I totally understand the mechanism! It's just so frustrating when in spite of that understanding, I experience a setback once again. I mean, I KNOW what I need to do. I know what my brain needs to do. I know the trick! But it's so hard to perform it continually. I think this is what I'm actually struggling with - it's easy enough to drown it out in the moment, like when I'm really into the music I'm making or the movie I'm watching, I pause and for some time by brain remains reconfigured properly - the tinnitus is drowned out, irrelevant, impersceptible almost, like something in the corner of your eye. But reconfiguring the brain permantently like that still seems like a long way away. Oh well... everything will be good.

 

[billie48]

Glad that my analogy helps in some ways. The unstable nature of T is probably due to the newness of your T. It takes me 2 years to be more stable, and the 3rd year I felt good enough to write my success story. Dr. Nagler, the strong personality and tough man he presents, has to stop medical practice for at quite a long time when T hit. None of us are super humans. We are not built to face such as sudden traumatic and alien sensation as 7/24 screaming T without some negative emotions at the start. So be ready for the bumps along the way to final habituation. Take these as part of the process. I often told newer sufferers to think like this, 'reading the success stories enough, you will come to realize that most people take at least 6 months or a year or two to get better, even with all the counselling and support. The body just needs that time to get used to the new sensation, to know that it is harmless if annoying. But if we know that mostly we will get better over time with the right attitude, time is on our side. Why worries about the bumps, the setbacks along the way? This is just like a toddler learning to walk. Why worry about the falls here and there if eventually you know he/she will be walking steady steps?'

So give it time and be patient and have a bright hope for the future. The more positive, calm and hopeful you are, the easier for the brain to build a new neural pathway to process the T signal instead of using the Amygdala which makes things worse. Take good care and God bless you.

 

[undecided]

After trying pretty much everything in existence (it would seem), I've been on 5-HTP for the past week, since I am almost positive my tinnitus has a direct connection with my serotonin levels.

5htp will do nothing for your tinnitus. It might do something for your mood, but not the T.
Also, if you feel that your serotonin production/levels have been messed up, further messing with them through 5htp supplementation is perhaps a bad idea.
Maybe you should stay away from such medication for a while so your brain may recover naturally (and when I say for a while, I mean at least six months).

As a side note: waking up to a spike is not uncommon and shouldn't freak you out. I've had to give up my afternoon naps in the weekends because they almost always made my t spike. We all have to make compromises, but yeah, this shit is indeed unfair.

 

[Xynic]

5htp will do nothing for your tinnitus. It might do something for your mood, but not the T.
Also, if you feel that your serotonin production/levels have been messed up, further messing with them through 5htp supplementation is perhaps a bad idea.
Maybe you should stay away from such medication for a while so your brain may recover naturally (and when I say for a while, I mean at least six months).

As a side note: waking up to a spike is not uncommon and shouldn't freak you out. I've had to give up my afternoon naps in the weekends because they almost always made my t spike. We all have to make compromises, but yeah, this shit is indeed unfair.

I hear you, but the depression just got too bad. I was seriously unable to enjoy anything and was hardly getting anything done at work at all, dark thoughts all the time, it was tough man, I was virtually a shadow of my former self. I feel more like myself now again. I guess I'll taper off the 5-HTP now, though, since I've had the same fear - that it might mess up my serotonin levels further. It's helped me a lot, but ultimately I can't just keep taking it all my life, nor do I want to.

Glad that my analogy helps in some ways. The unstable nature of T is probably due to the newness of your T. It takes me 2 years to be more stable, and the 3rd year I felt good enough to write my success story. Dr. Nagler, the strong personality and tough man he presents, has to stop medical practice for at quite a long time when T hit. None of us are super humans. We are not built to face such as sudden traumatic and alien sensation as 7/24 screaming T without some negative emotions at the start. So be ready for the bumps along the way to final habituation. Take these as part of the process. I often told newer sufferers to think like this, 'reading the success stories enough, you will come to realize that most people take at least 6 months or a year or two to get better, even with all the counselling and support. The body just needs that time to get used to the new sensation, to know that it is harmless if annoying. But if we know that mostly we will get better over time with the right attitude, time is on our side. Why worries about the bumps, the setbacks along the way? This is just like a toddler learning to walk. Why worry about the falls here and there if eventually you know he/she will be walking steady steps?'

So give it time and be patient and have a bright hope for the future. The more positive, calm and hopeful you are, the easier for the brain to build a new neural pathway to process the T signal instead of using the Amygdala which makes things worse. Take good care and God bless you.

This just makes so much sense, man. I guess I need to be more patient, and furthermore happy that at this moment, it doesn't really keep me from living my life and doing anything I want to do anymore - it just makes me anxious and moody. That's really not a huge issue if you think about it. My increase is only about 4 months old, that's nothing in terms of habituation I guess and I've already done some notable improvement. I guess I'm just being impatient. Thanks a lot man, you've given me some perspective here, your replies have been some of the most helpful and sensible things I've read or heard on the subject.

You know, probably the craziest thing is I know and remember many of those things from the first time I got tinnitus a long, long time ago (one to which I had been fully and completely habituated for years) - but it was hard to accept that a second habituation would also take this long. At least I have the bright outlook now that it's going to be just the same. Tinnitus played absolutely no role in my life when I was habituated, and I'll get there again.

 

[JasonP]

Sorry for the jokey title, but I always try to make light of a situation. Disclaimer: this is a pretty contentless post that only contains me angrily ranting.

But seriously, right now I've had JUST ABOUT ENOUGH! Those of you who have read my posts here know I'm generally a strong person who's always trying to stay positive and I'm sure I will apologize for this post later, but seriously, this is some BULLSH*T.

After trying pretty much everything in existence (it would seem), I've been on 5-HTP for the past week, since I am almost positive my tinnitus has a direct connection with my serotonin levels. I thought it was having a positive effect, but today in the morning I woke up mutiple times, each time annoyed at the noise in my head, to finally wake tp 8:20 to a spike in my left ear (super high-pitched, like a TV) that came on JUST as I was in that state between waking and sleeping. I guess my brain was frantically working away while I was asleep, concentrating on the tinnitus.

Oh, sure, I got up and it relatively quickly went back to baseline, but COME ON.

REALLY?!

That's just the morning after a weird mini-spike in my right ear freaked me out during the day before.

Plus just now in a meeting, I was like "hmm, I wonder how my left ear is doing" - and boom, the piercing louder sound came on for a really short while before I managed to suppress it quickly.

There I was, thinking I was improving, then all of a sudden this comes along and messes up my whole day. Now I'm afraid to stay on the 5-HTP AND afraid to kick it because either (or none) could be responsible. This is me right now. Just GREAT. Damn my brain.

I didn't sign up for this. I'm strong-willed, I like helping others here, as I said I'm always trying to see the positive and improve but sometimes it just really gets to me. Really, after all this work and all this time? I still can't stop concentrating on my ears? To the point that I frigging WAKE UP to a spike?? Now I'll be afraid of going to bed again, and it took me quite a bit not to be!

I'm calling the tinnitus clinic and signing up for TRT. Quite apparently, I can't follow through on my own goddamn advice and instead of being happy that I seemed to be habituating, boom, here I am in a loop of paranoia again.

I mean, just how much work can it take? Come on, brain, throw me a bone here!

Aaaargh!

That is horrible. Can I ask the dosage you were taking each day?