Hi Ken,
First thing, as others have said, you need to get sleep. This is priority number one. If you're going up to San Francisco for a specialist, I would definitely recommend making the trip to wherever a psychiatrist is. Very humbly, I think this is the best thing to help you sleep. A psychiatrist is who helped me sleep when I had terrible insomnia. I had to try a few different things, but there are many mends other than benzos that will definitely knock you out. A good doctor will help you choose. I grew up in the bay area - where are you located? Maybe I can help you locate someone.
I can tell from the way you're writing that you're in a desperate place. I commend you for having the
courage to write here. When I was in that bad of a place, I could barely function, much less type. My mother had to fly out and try to stop me from doing something desperate. You
can be okay again. I cannot imagine the fear and stress of having tinnitus and having your level of hearing loss at the same time. That must be incredibly frightening and isolating feeling. However, if my may be so bold, it seems to me you must be very strong to have even made it this far and this long. I have faith that you can be okay and am sending prayers your way. I know when I was in a very bad place it was hard to get myself going, or outside or doing anything. Everything felt like it took a monumental effort, so I'm going to list out my humble suggestions so things are a bit more concrete looking. That's something that helped me when I was at my worst - having a list of things to do, but if it doesn't work for you then I hope you excuse me
. I hope it helps a little and like everyone has said,
we are here for you. Hang in there.
1. Get to a psychiatrist as soon as possible.
Getting a psychiatrist is not just about taking to someone - it's more about finding a way to help you cope with your suffering in the immediate future and to have someone to help you manage your medications. It's dangerous to take more than your prescribed amount of medication without direct doctor supervision and it can cause you a lot of anxiety to go off a benzo drug without tapering off over a long period of time. I took just .5mg a day of klonopin and still tapered off of it over seven weeks. If you just stop "cold turkey" you can cause more severe anxiety and potentially cause other withdrawal symptoms. This is not to scare you at all (and I'm not a doctor, just repeating what my psychiatrist told me), but just because I really do care and benzos are serious drugs. If you don't like the first psychiatrist you see, you can go to another later, but don't let yourself go into too much of a withdrawal from the benzo medication. Just see someone soon for now. Be honest with the doctor about why you took it and what happened. This is what their job is, they will help. If they don't, go to another. Even just give a doctor a call, sometimes they can help to a degree over the phone.
2. Go the American Tinnitus Association Website and get a list of their professionals in California or your area. The ATA isn't great for everything, but they do have a good list of people who actually work with tinnitus patients.
http://www.ata.org/
3. Check out this Barry Keates (sp?) tinnitus library. I have tried his supplements and didn't get a great deal of help from them (my tinnitus is from loud noise, different from yours) but I have a dear friend with tinnitus caused by a more vascular reason who swears by it. That is beside the point though, he has written a million cited articles on tinnitus and everything related to it. Here is one one what I believe you said caused yours:
http://www.tinnitusformula.com/library/sudden-sensorineural-hearing-loss-and-tinnitus/
4. Try not to panic. I know you are panicing that that's a very hard thing to stop, I didn't sleep normally for months after my tinnitus started. I did take sleeping pills, there are many, many options out there to help you sleep. A good psychiatrist will help you. But truly, the more you panic about the sound of your tinnitus, the more your brain will pay attention to it. It's not about not hearing the sound, it's about not being afraid of it. If you panic in response to the tinnitus, your body interprets it as a threat and will literally not be able to ignore it. Your brain is thinking of tinnitus as a grizzly bear running towards you in the woods and telling you to run, but you can't. Tinnitus, though truly awful, will not directly kill you and you need teach your brain that this is the case. This is a LONG process. Be patient with yourself, but do start trying to do little things as others have said to distract yourself (like a long walk outside).
5. Know that things can get better. You can get your life back, so many out there have. It will be a journey, but I do believe it is possible. You can live with so, so much more than you presently believe you can. I did not think I could ever be happy again with tinnitus in my life, I wanted to end my life, and now, I am more or less "fine". It is still a daily struggle in many ways, but life is as good as it ever was. My tinnitus is not the same as yours, but I think the ability for human beings to live with more than they think they can bear is rather universal. It doesn't come easily, but it is definitely possible. Like I believe Karen said, over time the tinnitus either A. seems to lessen in intensity or B. not seem so loud (as you teach your brain not to pay attention to it).
Let us know how things go and if you need any California related help or anything at all feel free to email me:
hopeblog@outlook.com. I don't know how to do the private message thing on here yet (kind of new to the forum, but of course feel free to message me that way as well if you want!)
Take care of yourself.