Habituation After 4 Months

[Darren Mullins]

So hey. I joined this website a few months back because I was in dire need of some advice. So now hopefully as I write this out it'll help a few people who need it.

I'll start by sharing my story...

I first got Tinnitus around September 2016. It was like a faint high pitch in my right ear and a low whooshing sound in my left ear. That was fine. I didn't really think anything of it. But then in March 2017 all of it became a high pitched ring that I heard all the time. I lost a lot of sleep, I lost my appetite and I was smoking every 15-20 minutes. One night I was in bed crying and I prayed to God to make it stop, and I'm not even religious. That's how desperate I became.

Every night I would go down to my Mom and explain in detail how scared I was and what should I do. The only thing she told me to do was ignore it. My exact response was "You don't suffer with this, it's impossible to ignore."

But little did I know, that 4 months on that was probably the best advice I could have gotten. Because now I don't pay attention to it anymore. I mean sure, sometimes I think "Oh yeah, I have Tinnitus." But it's no longer a threat to me. A few months ago, anywhere I went I'd be like"Can I hear it now? ...What about now?"

Of course you all understand that nightmare.

I even stopped going to places because I was afraid it would make the T worse. I stopped listening to music I stopped going outside. I just gave up on everything really. But now I don't let it control me anymore. I've went back outside. I listen to music on full blast, and if there's a social event happening I'll go to that too. I'm not afraid of it anymore. Maybe it'll never go away, but I'm not too bothered anymore. I'm getting on just fine the way I am.

So here's my advice to anyone who is reading...

A healthy diet can go a long way. You don't have to change it drastically. Just add some spinach, salmon, turnip, carrots, some fruit etc into your daily life. Your body will thank you regardless.
Try not to stress. They say stress makes T worse. So, if you're stressed the T will get worse and then you'll get even more stressed because it got worse. My T has physically reduced in sound because I don't take notice of it anymore. It's a vicious cycle but it can be conquered.

Don't fear the T. It's not dangerous. It won't harm you. Go where you want to go. Go to a concert if you want. Go to a pub. Go anywhere. Just don't let it make your decisions for you.

Do NOT look up horror stories about T. It won't do you any good. You'll only scare yourselves. Look at success stories and treatments only.

This is just me. But I wouldn't recommend buying ANYTHING to help you cure your T. What I mean is, don't waste your money on supplements, "Tinnitus Cure" pills you can buy online, or anything like that.

So yeah, I just wanted to share this. I hope it's of some value to anyone who might be scared, or worried or anything.

Live your life to the fullest. Be happy in the meantime, and when the cure comes... at least you can say Tinnitus didn't ruin your life while you were waiting.

If you have any questions just message me. And remember...

THE PROBLEM ISN'T THE PROBLEM, IT'S HOW YOU REACT TO THE PROBLEM IS THE PROBLEM.

 

[Bill Bauer]

I listen to music on full blast

Do you think a couple of hours of listening to music on full blast are worth a lifetime of screaming tinnitus?

 

[Bill Bauer]

Do NOT look up horror stories about T. It won't do you any good.

If you don't learn from those horror stories, then you are right - won't do you any good. You can learn from the mistakes of others, right?

 

[Darren Mullins]

Full blast on the recommended level. My phone tells me what volume is dangerous so I put music at the volume just before I get the warning.

And I suppose you're right about the horror stories. It's just in my experience whenever I came across something terrifying about tinnitus I always said to myself "What if that happens to me?"

 

[Bill Bauer]

My phone tells me what volume is dangerous so I put music at the volume just before I get the warning.

After reading multiple horror stories on this site, and based on my personal experience, I began to believe that now that our ears had been compromised it takes a lot less to harm them. What a healthy person won't even notice, can cause a permanent increase in tinnitus. Below is one example, but there are countless others:

A while ago I went to a bar with my friends where it was loud and I didn't put in my ear plugs. My tinnitus has been back ever since.
...
There is a chance that if it gets better your ears will still be weakened compared to how they were before. Mine was just about gone until I went to somewhere with a lot of noise and it came back. Most people wouldn't have even noticed it but because my ears were already dealing with this, it didn't take a large amount of volume to do more damage.

 

[jer]

Ermmm. I appreciate your contribution to this forum. I really do! I also want to add a very simple warning. What happened to you also happened to me once (habituation to lower tinnitus after a month or 4). I thought i was cured, or at the very least at such a low level that i still could live the same life. I just did not care that i had tinnitus anymore and became careless, and not showing my ears the proper regard.

I paid for this by getting a very significant bump in my tinnitus. It is MUCH worse now then when it started by doing all the things that you said would be fine. Please be aware that your ears are now VERY vulnerable and you have to be super careful not to give them any more damage. I wish you all the best.

 

[Bill Bauer]

I thought i was cured, or at the very least at such a low level that i still could live the same life. I just did not care that i had tinnitus anymore and became careless, and not showing my ears the proper regard.

Do you think a dental procedure (replacing an old filling) could make me worse? I am hoping my dentist will agree to drill for at most 5 seconds followed by a 10 second break, and he will be using quieter "electric-powered" (instead of air-powered) drill, but I am still concerned... If you compare the noise that your body couldn't take to the noise of a dental drill (5 minutes?), would you say that it is comparable? I am so torn. My other option is to extract the (front) tooth, and just walk around with a gaping hole where the tooth used to be (as a bridge requires the adjacent teeth to be drilled too). This would be horrible, but much better than having to listen to louder T...

 

[Darren Mullins]

I appreciate your response, Jer. But you can't exactly keep your ears safe forever. If you give your ears special treatment they'll become weaker to the everyday sounds we're used to hearing.
I must add... my tinnitus wasn't at a low volume. It was from September to March, after that I was hearing it everywhere. But because I stopped stressing about it, the volume decreased.
The worst part about tinnitus is that we all have it for different reasons. Like, you could have ear damage while I could have a simple deficiency in zinc or calcium or whatever.

 

[Darren Mullins]

Another thing, I was drinking Budweiser the other night and when I woke up I did not hear my tinnitus at all. It took me a few minutes to realise that I couldn't hear it. It was really weird. But it went back to its original volume like a day or two later.
But in March/April alcohol used to be a major spike for me. Not anymore though.
Damn. Why is tinnitus so complicated?