Hearing Loss and Severe Tinnitus — From Loving Life to Suicidal in 2 Months

It is at least two years out if we will ever see it. Maybe it will help, maybe not, nobody knows. I hate every moment of my life now, I can't wait years for something that's probably another bullshit gimmick.

 

@gameover, are you still looking for a new house?

 

@Jupiterman, in theory, yes. But it does not seem feasible. I barely can get out of the bed, how would I move? Nothing good on the market nearby. Even regardless of price. It is virtual impossibility to find something that would not bother me. It would have to have like quiet heat (radiant) and quiet A/C (mini-split), ideally would be masonry (99.5% of houses in this country are shitboxes built of wood). Would have to be on acreage far away from roads. There was such a house in a great location I foolishly passed on 2.5 years ago on the onset of the pandemic. I regret that to this day.

I was thinking about buying like a furnished vacation home somewhere to make the move easier, but it is not feasible, either. I would not be able to function by myself, and can't expect my wife/kid move to the middle of nowhere.

Plus I am unconvinced it will solve much. Maybe it would buy time, and folks say time makes a difference.

The easiest solution seems a bullet to the head but yes, it is perhaps sad to give up on that glimmer of hope. But do I have that hope? Will it better? Or will it actually be worse?

 

My wife (who is much smarter and stronger than me) tells me that life is not about being happy, but about having a meaning. I am sure she is right, but it does not mean it helps me.

I took life as it came, but I pursued happiness, for sure I guess I didn't think much about meaning, and I am much more lost now. I doubt myself if my family was much of a meaning or rather means to comfortable "normal" life. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, I'd like to do a lot for them, but it does not seem to be enough to keep me going. It's a horrible, horrible realization.

I see now that the happiness via material things is an illusion. A stupid illusion. In the end for me happiness is dependent on being healthy. Or at least not being tortured in the head around the clock.

Some people can live in pain with no (or limited) suffering, some will suffer. Sucks to be in either group, but particularly sucks to be in the latter.

Btw, this is an interesting piece on pain vs. suffering with tinnitus... point is there are limits of pain, in this case loudness. All we seem to know by now.

Eh, I keep regurgitating my pseudo intelligent ramblings. Probably a waste of time and bandwidth.

 

I may not be in your exact situation, but I have some idea where you're coming from.

It really is shit. There's definitely multiple different layers to the suffering, and I feel like I slowly habituate to one, and then I peel back a different layer and there's just more shit to get used to, lmao.

Progress is non-linear for sure. That's what everyone says on here, I definitely believe it for sure. But I feel like progress is split into two sections, one is progress for the actual injury, and the other is your mental state. I have days, weeks, where I feel like the ground will swallow me up, and I just wish I could trade my hyperacusis for deafness so I don't have to suffer for years. But I have good days too. Where it doesn't feel too bad being housebound, and I'm grateful that my symptoms aren't that bad yet and that I have a supportive partner that's helping me with everything right now.

And I think that's enough for me now. I think it's important to recognize that your brain is healing too from this, and that you'll have good periods and bad periods. It's hard, it's so damn hard, but I believe when the good days come, struggling through the bad days will have been worth it.

Not one of us on Tinnitus Talk deserves this, I believe it without ever personally meeting anyone on here. But if we can manage to struggle through this, having good periods and bad periods, coming out the other side with progress being made will be worth it.

I don't know you personally, @gameover, but I can tell you for certain that you will make it. I know you don't feel it right now, but you're a strong individual and you have your family in your corner. You will make it to the good days, and you will see progress, even though you may not see it now. I look forward to one day seeing your success story on Tinnitus Talk. Take care.

 

Where is this located? Looks like they have potentially good hunting and rattle snakes, lol. Side note, tin roof looks like a nightmare during thunder storms.

 

It's a house for sale in, almost bang on centre, of the UK. See it here.

It's a slate roof, not a tin one. Slate roofs are most common in the UK.

 

Thank you, but, I am sorry, I think you're wrong here.

I refuse to live with this noise in my head, and I hate living with hyperacusis. I hate living with the hate it fills me with. Like this biker that just went by... he could not just drive his fucking loud bike, he had to blip the throttle two times to make more noise!! I had incredible urge to torture him and worse. And I hate myself for it.

I hate myself for what I have become. I never physically hurt anyone, and never wanted to, still do not want to. I need to end it before it gets worse. If there was an easy pill to swallow, I'd have already taken it. Alternatives are not so easy or peaceful, and I am a coward, so it may take a while before I muster courage to do something.

I truly curse the day I did it to myself. I entered the hell on earth and I had no idea I am doing it. This is the worst thing possible. Any other disease, no matter how painful, would not have that element of regret and self hate.

 

I honestly do not get it, it's a failure of human race to self-preserve itself. A failure of parents to take care of their children. Parents tell you to brush your teeth, don't look into sun, be careful with eyes, etc, etc. But what about ears?

Like WTF my parents did not warn me about this? I guess they did not know. They had no headphones or loud stereos at home. But my father worked in construction, was in the army, and also owned guns and was a hunter. Heck, better! Later in life he was a consultant teaching workplace safety courses for fuck's sake!!! He really did not know? Never met anyone who had tinnitus? Just so hard to believe! But given he was shooting guns and let me shoot guns without protection, he did not know...

I keep reading, even on this forum, of folks who got tinnitus while their parents also had it earlier and sometimes did not find out until then. WTF is wrong with that? If I have an ailment that I know is for the most part avoidable, I am going to tell my kids about it. I just don't get it.

 

Only 1 in 50,000 people (or much less) gets this condition. It’s like telling someone to bring a parachute every time you fly in an airplane because it can crash. I tell my kids about this all the time but I doubt they listen.

 

Not a good analogy I think. Well, what do they do with the warning is one thing, but being warned should better their chances. Seeing an incredibly struggling parent - like yourself or myself - should make it stuck in their heads I would think - it's more than just a verbal warning.

As we know, this is two prong protection: (1) obviously avoiding acoustic traumas by protecting at like concerts or power tools, (2) avoiding prolonged noise exposures (headphones, loud environments, loud cars, loud music, etc).

The first is like avoiding engaging in extreme activities. The second is hygiene/proactive taking care of oneself. I think for most with normal healthy ears (1) is crucial, (2) is recommended, but not as crucial.

 

I am trying to think about some other approaches. Like mental health sanatorium. Those do not exist in this country anymore. Mental health hospitals are like prisons. Prisons are designed to turn casual criminals into hardcore ones. Same with mental health hospitals. While they may prevent you from dying, they will fuck you up, and turn a mild case into a serious one. They will forcibly drug you, abuse you, beat you, rape you. It is insane when you read about people's stories at such institutions. It's horrible, makes you really lose faith in humanity. Even if half of them are true, it's horrid enough. Some staff at those places must be true psychopaths, true hellish beasts.

Who could have thought that a few minutes of stupidity can put a perfectly normal, happy, high achieving individual at the gates of true hell?

Man, I just need to get a grip. The magic help will not arrive. Give up / stop worrying about secondary things. Even give up job if I can't keep it (I should try though to see what happens). And just try surviving day by day. One year, two years, maybe three years. Like @billie48 said. Time might heal.

No drugs, though. Just try regulate sleep and go outside at the minimum. Survival should be my goal. If I salvage anything more, that's just a bonus.

 

Same here bro, my goal is not to have a good prosperous life, just to survive. I just want to be able to be at peace in life, go camping every now and then, drink a cup of coffee in the mornings. Just a simple, peaceful life.

 

I forced myself to watch a movie (some stupid action thriller). It has been a month since I watched something. I get these anxiety/fear attacks during and after watching movie. This is so crazy. As mentioned before, I never had depression, never had anxiety attack in my life, never. Sure, I could be stressed about an exam, an interview, but never a huge deal. I honestly never obsessed about these kinds of issues - even if I failed an interview for a job I really wanted, I was like "oh, well, can't always win". Shrug. I was always optimistic and sure footed about things like that. I always trusted myself I will be alright. And I always was.

Tinnitus and the resulting depression & anxiety destroyed this completely. I fear everything now, I fear my my future. My inability to do things with my head and hands is so debilitating.

I just do not understand how is this possible. How someone who was perfectly normal, pretty fearless, sociable (actually, yes, I interacted with people well), pretty optimistic, turn into someone like this? I do not understand. I do not believe it.

The despicable thoughts about suicide. Like really? I would never ever thought I could be considering it. I did not think about death much, either, to be honest. I thought it is a distant thing. I am too young for it. Yes, I lost my father when I was a teen. Grandparents passed away when I was approaching 30, but I wasn't around. My mother is very old now. Of course death will come for everyone, but it is not something one thinks about on daily basis. I always joked "I hope I will die healthy in my sleep" (wouldn't it be a gift?), but did not think much about. Perhaps I should. And consider dangers (like noise) that could bring me closer to it...

I was quite content with where I was. Good career, I basically recently reached the level I always wanted - was not looking for any more advancement in my career. Just wanted to continue my job, move to another house (maybe build one), and just live. Watch my kids become independent, save up more money for retirement. Spend time with my lovely wife. Yes, I had a few flashy cars (my goal was to just keep my little collection as new cars no longer appeal to me - I am not a type that switches cars every year or two, rather I like to keep cars for decades). I wanted to travel a bit. But I basically had all I wanted, now I feel I am losing everything.

How some "damn noise" can obliterate a person in the span of few months?!

 

To @gameover:

I also have absolutely never encountered anything like this, that feels as if your body is encased in this relentless anguish that leaves me so short of breath (and before this, I could easily do a 3 mile hike and drive 100 miles in 1 day).

It is also like being injected with a drug that will deplete your energy and make you shake uncontrollably.

I had no idea that the cumulative PTSD from this could, even with the best will in the World, throttle you into feeling like every inch of your body had bad arthritis.

In my last Physical my Doctor said that my blood pressure was so high that I risked having a stroke. I wanted to reply that it wasn't because of diet, but because of the stress from tinnitus, but I was afraid that he will conclude that I was some kind of a loony that had to be placed under observation.

From the very beginning, over 9 years ago I deep-down-inside knew that, in one way or another, this was eventually going to kill me. How grotesquely ironic life can be.

The worst aspect: It has demolished my libido, and for the first time in my life wiped out all sexual ideation (how can you have horny fantasies when my ideation from this visualizes that hideous creature from the first ALIEN movie having permanently lodged itself in my consciousness?)

 

@gameover, I feel the exact same way. I never thought much about death or suicide pre-tinnitus. I felt like life was pretty good. But now, I'm constantly thinking about what could possibly kill me sooner or what can I do less of today to reduce my chances of living longer... because now I have a fear that even in old age my body wouldn't let me go and chain me to this earth.

 

I did not sleep the entire night. I booked a trip to a Caribbean island we visited years ago. Quiet house in the woods overlooking ocean. Not sure I should go. I probably won't enjoy it and the trip is a risk. I have 24h to cancel. Stupid expensive, too. Everything is stupid expensive after the pandemic heist and the destruction of money.

I slept during the day without sound. Damn motorbikes etc should be enough. Apparently not. I woke up to spiked tinnitus and crazy hyperacusis. I really feel like taking my life in those moments. Those hellish bikes raping my brain. This stupid idiotic brain deserves to die. This was survival mechanism? What a joke. In our current world this is exactly opposite.

I was screaming, too. I have had enough. I do not know how people cope with it for years. These couple of months is wearing me off. I am becoming indifferent to the wake of destruction my suicide will leave. I am becoming indifferent about my past joyous life and the years I was looking towards that I will miss. I just want to kill this thing. And I think I will.

Exactly right. I feel like this is wearing me down every day. I do not feel like I had one day's rest since this started.

And you survived 9 years, that's a long time. I am near being done at 5 months, 4 out of which were bad.

The idea that it can get better in 1-2 years as proposed by some folks here, is really the only reason to hang around. Literally the only reason. But it is still struggle every time a spike hits.

But even then one is likely on a borrowed time, especially for noise induced damage. Another minor acoustic trauma and another permanent worsening. Some people can only take so much.

Aging and suffering sucks. I have no idea how I would react to other illnesses, pain, etc. old age almost inevitably brings. Judging from my reaction to tinnitus + hyperacusis, probably not well, though I am sure it depends, hard to say. The fact tinnitus + hyperacusis is something in your head and raping your attention makes it special, I think. Anyway, if I got tinnitus + hyperacusis later in age, say in my 70s, while maybe I had some other issues, I would conclude ok, this is it, time to go before it gets worse. It is very sad now for me, being in late 40s and being in perfect health otherwise. Feels way too early, too young for it. I realize there are many younger people with it among us.

The irony of this disease is that is known for its mildest form. It pretends to be mild, and usually it is. Yet it can be this brutal relentless thing that tortures you but does not kill - but wants you to kill yourself. It is like a sick psychopath that will not murder you, but will talk you into taking your own life. This is the essence of this evil thing.

Something like cancer is much more honest. May torment you along the way quite well, but usually it takes responsibility for the eventual outcome.

A friend, my age, mentioned it's pretty good we made it so far. Well, he has a point. Maybe I should not lament the years I am going to miss. But I really I felt more in me, and could have done so much, much, more

 

I should again in earnest take a break from the forum. I made two short attempts that did not last longer than a couple of days. There isn't really anything new to learn by now. I do greatly appreciate the support I have received here from fellow sufferers, both those in the midst of a crisis as well as those that have had dealt with it for a long time and find a way to live.

They say one of the key steps to success is to stop paying attention to tinnitus, so avoiding internet is part of it. I am so completely absorbed, in OCD manner (I have clearly been suffering from OCD, never diagnosed), this seems impossible...

I think I will go onto that Caribbean vacation. Not a long one, just 8 days. I fear the flight and potential sound exposures and overall stress of the trip. I would have never been stressed in the past! I would have been overjoyed! I am a seasoned traveller, I have been to almost all U.S. states, many European countries, as well as a couple countries in South America and Asia. I loved to travel and often did it in an adventurous/backpacking style.

But I am setting it as a goal. Maybe I can spend few nice moments with my loving wife there. It will be hard since I do not think I have enjoyed a minute of my life since tinnitus and hyperacusis invaded my head. But I will try. And I realize I am fortunate enough to be able to afford such a trip. But maybe this will be the last nice thing we'll do together. We never know what tomorrow will bring, and this was just as true before tinnitus.

But I really do not know how to survive the coming months. The goal should be surviving those 2-3 years to see if perhaps I am one of the lucky ones where this condition actually improves. Meanwhile I am so miserable. Will I have the strength to persevere? I really do not feel like I will. I am walking a really thin rope. A sudden major spike or worsening might push me over the edge. Or sudden burst of anger. I do not have immediate lethal means at my disposal, and I am trying to keep it this way. It can become too tempting.

And, yes, I don't have it nearly as bad as many folks here. I don't have pain, my tinnitus and hyperacusis fluctuate, but tinnitus is for the most part moderate and so is hyperacusis. Yet, depression is suffocating me. And stubbornly I am still resisting drugs. There are some folks on this forum who were helped by drugs, so perhaps I should try them before checking out if it comes that point.

The weather is getting hotter, I'll need to turn on A/C. This will expel me from my bedroom since the nasty loud compressor is just on the other side of its wall. It was mildly annoying to me before hyperacusis, now it is unbearable. I will need to swap rooms with my kid for the summer.

Enough rambling, you're all tired of this and so I am. I hope something good happens and brings relief to all of us. Best.

P.S. I wrote this in the opening post, and I think this is still the key. I do not want to live with this.

 

Enjoy your trip with your wife to a place of happy memories. Look at your time together as an opportunity to recover and reconnect.

 

@gameover, if you go on that plane ride, I suggest bringing a pair of noise cancellation earbuds or headphones. I found them to be very effective. I don’t know what I would have done without them. On the next flight, I will bring 2 pairs (one for backup).

Take care.

 

Tinnitus volume is a big thing, I'm afraid.

Those people with tinnitus were probably like me for 45 years. I didn't tell anyone as it wasn't a massive deal to me. It wasn't loud or obtrusive.

Now that it is loud and obtrusive, everyone I meet knows about it.

99% have it the way I used to, 1% have it the way I do now.

My point is, the ears end up affecting such a tiny percentage in such a bad way like this, that it's almost unheard of, and so warning signs aren't stressed enough.

Personally I would take the vacation. You may just have those moments with your wife that you both need - I'm sure this isn't easy on her either.

 

Will do. I flew with a pair of Bose ones for years. I will put them over musician's earplugs.

Yes, if I live till then. Trip scheduled first half of July.

I have a huge setback of tinnitus and hyperacusis today for no good reason. I get this swooshing metallic sound oscillating through my head, like under the scalp. Hyperacusis is very loud, almost the loudest it's been.

Making this trip is now a goal and a dream. My wife asked me to not do "anything stupid while there". I promised her I won't and that we will return home together.

 

Keep up the hope that things will get better.

After 16 months of my tinnitus worsening, I still sometimes have bad days where the depression kicks in and makes everything seem like an effort and can make me feel like a shell of my former self through most of the day, but usually I start feeling better mid to late evening or maybe 30 minutes after late afternoon exercise that I force myself to do. I just had a bad streak of about 10 days like that, where I kept getting hit by depression and anxiety from early morning to mid evening. Sometimes the tinnitus seemed to be screaming but other times it was more baseline or even lower over those days. Finally yesterday and today, I'm feeling good. I don't know why the change, and I don't know how long it will last.

Like you, I don't want to take antidepressants, but if I continue to have too many days like that, I am afraid I will have to turn to them.

In the meantime, I'm taking 5-HTP 100 mg nightly. There are some other options mentioned on Tinnitus Talk that people use as alternatives to prescription antidepressants that might help. In addition to 5-HTP that I'm taking, there's St. John's Wort, SAM-e, Methylene Blue, Lithium Orotate, NAG, and others. I'm not advocating any of them, and some shouldn't be taken together or with certain prescription meds, and it can take weeks for these to take full effect, just as with prescriptions antidepressants. But it's something else to try when you're attempting to avoid prescription antidepressants like you and me.

 

I drink St. John's Wort almost daily, but like most of these remedies, it does zilch.

I am just too tired. Hope is eluding. I want this to end, and end it will. The question is how soon.

I'd like to add, I think I did mention it before, that most of you folks here are incredibly strong. Many dealing with louder multi-tone tinnitus, pain hyperacusis, etc., yet you soldier on. I am a pathetic weakling in comparison to you.

 

Doesn’t St John’s Wort contain serotonin which is ototoxic?

 

It works similar to some prescription antidepressents that increase serotonin, so it could increase tinnitus in some people and has been reported by some people to do that.

 

I am so sorry to hear about what you're going through. I've been following this thread for a long time but didn't want to contribute anything because I was feeling just about as suicidal as you were, and I didn't think I had anything constructive to say until now.

I am still not in a very good place psychologically, but for what it's worth, I can tell you my current survival strategy, and maybe it will be helpful to you.

Having zero will to live, I have been putting off my plans for suicide by finding ways to be helpful to my husband. For instance, he has a demanding full-time job that has kept him from planning his dream vacation, so I took it upon myself to do all the research and planning. I made all the arrangements for him to get his passport photo taken and the paperwork filled out. I made all the flight reservations, hotel reservations, etc. Being in charge of this project has kept me pleasantly distracted, and it has raised my self-esteem. It has also strengthened my poor memory and attention span.

I am fully aware that when I run out of travel details to take care of, the suicidal ideation will take center stage again, so when that happens, my goal is to throw myself into some other project on his behalf. And then another, and another, and another, until -- hopefully -- my ears and brain have recovered to the point where I can start pursuing my own ambitions again without any fear of failure.

I bet you and your wife will have a wonderful time on your vacation. If you feel a resurgence of depression when you come back, I suggest you come up with a project or a chore that will benefit someone you care about, whether it's your wife or kids. It doesn't have to be travel related, and it doesn't even have to involve your family. It could even some type of volunteer work in the community that enables you to perform a task quietly in the comfort of your own home so you don't have to worry about noise. Whatever the project is, it should be something that feels manageable to you, not something overwhelming, and it should give you just enough motivation to hang in there until your health improves.

Just like you, I hang my hat on the rumor that it takes one to two years to feel significantly better after an acoustic injury. The trick is to stick around long enough to find out whether it's true.

 

I'm also very suicidal over it :/ when it goes away 100% and then comes back 100 times worse, it hurts so much more. ENTs have found no fluid or anything. It all comes down to whether or not an MRI finds something and I'm waiting 3-4 weeks for that, so my entire life literally comes down to the results.

I have every kind of tinnitus combined and in such a high volume I can hear it with multiple fans on max volume, on the highway, listening to music, everywhere. It got a lot worse after I started acupuncture, after the 3rd treatment last Monday it was game over. The 2nd one seemed like it was doing something but at the same time, when my ears would spike say after lying down after work, the spike wouldn't go down like it used to.

I hope your tinnitus improves more. I felt suicidal when mine initially started and it was absolutely nowhere near where it is now, eventually I even habituated to it. When it came back last August, it was clearly so much worse but ever since those acupuncture sessions it's been game over.

I think because your tinnitus was actually caused by something, there's hope in being able to reduce it. Acupuncture I think can help noise-induced tinnitus, although generally steroids like Prednisone are the key to reversing hearing loss from loud noise but this is generally within the first week. It could still help you maybe. Gabapentin apparently also helps some people with noise-induced tinnitus. In any case I really do think there's hope for you, I can't say I feel the same way myself. I can totally relate to yours and how loud it is, and it infuriates me that I have never been exposed to any loud noise. Mine just developed out of the blue, it's not in my genetics or anything.

I thought at first COVID-19 vaccine caused it but that honestly is so rare and I don't have a single friend or family member who's had this side effect. They may have felt crappy for a day or two but otherwise nothing, statistically it's extremely rare, but naturally you'll find thousands of people online talking about it even so. It started 10 days after my 2nd shot in May 2021 but again, I can't say it's for sure that especially given a) it didn't start immediately and b) it was corrected after my sinus surgery. I just so happened to start having sinus issues in early 2021, sounding stuffy and it got worse by middle May. I found out in December after chronic headaches and such developing that my sinuses were F*CKED!

 

Thanks for your suggestions. You see, I have been this high energy person juggling many things at the same time. Full time, engaging work, house projects, car maintenance, car projects, finances, bills, some household chores (lawn mowing), weekend trips, vacations. We had this kinda division of responsibilities (my wife also works full time, takes care of household stuff like cooking, cleaning, ferrying kids around, shopping).

Whatever I am able to do now is a pitiful fraction of what I was doing. So accomplishing something hardly gives me satisfaction because I realize how far I am falling behind. But I guess something is better than nothing. I have more and more nothing days, when nothing is accomplished. And it is terrible.

Sorry to hear all that. I'd bet on COVID-19 vaccines in your case, but who knows for sure. 10 days after shot is possible. My tinnitus started 4 or 5 days after acoustic trauma and was progressing very slowly initially, to become really bad about 2 months after the trauma. The progression of the damage can be slow, it turns out.

 

I'd hate for it to have been the COVID-19 shot, 0.038% of 2.5 million people developed tinnitus in a study and it didn't specify if it was temporary or not. Lots of people developed it from COVID-19 itself. But given it did go away after my sinus surgery, I'm thinking probably not. I never had any spikes after boosters or anything like that.

I can at least say you're very fortunate to have all that. I'm 29, work a job I hate and am completely alone. I have insane potential in so many areas but I'm too obsessed with fixing my ears to do anything about it. The fact that you have all that and still feel so down about your ears really speaks volumes as to how crippling this can be. I've argued with some people I know about it and they just don't understand and think seeing a therapist would help. Yeah, no. If they can't fix my ears, I won't get better.

I had a positive result with Niacin yesterday, the one the causes flush. I took 100 mg and it made the noise go down a lot. Today I took 250 mg and not only did I not flush, I got no tinnitus reduction. Maybe you can see how Niacin does for you.