Thanks for adding me to the group. I'll make this introduction short, cause if I tell you the whole story now I might as well write a book. It's been a long a very rocky road. I'm doing quite alright at the moment. For some reason I seem to have been able to cope with the tinnitus all these years. But it hasn't been easy, far from it.
I crashed on a motorcycle back in 1985. To make it short, it was basically as bad as it can get. Somehow and against all odds I managed to survive. But I had hit my head so hard that the skull was cracked, and in such a way that the hearing nerve on the left side had been almost severed.
Naturally I lost my hearing completely on that ear. Luckily I didn't get any brain damage. My eyesight got affected too, but not in any dramatic way.
I had so many injuries . I won't tire you with going through them all. It took me a few years to heal well enough to get back on my feet again. There were some results of that accident though, that I was going to have to carry with me for the rest of my life.
One of them is tinnitus.
There is a constant loud white noise/untuned radio/wooshing/tingling/cicada/electric steady beep kind of sound in my head, on the side of my deaf ear. Like I said, the nerve is damaged, and that's just what it feels like. Like a guitar cable that doesn't work, or something. All i get is noice, but no song. And it's on 24/7. It is never silent, and it doesn't get any better. There are no better days. But there are worse days. When I'm feeling weakened somehow, it's worse. When I have a slight cold, it's worse. Outside sound makes the tinnitus worse too. The sound of machines, of cars, of children screaming, subway trains etc etc. All sorts of louder sounds make it worse.
The doctors have diagnosed it as Tinnitus grade 5. In other words, the worst kind. I didn't think it could get any worse, but they switched my pain relief about a year ago, (I've got severe pain in my joints and hips etc) and the tinnitus got worse from the meds. Haha. ..wow. ... and me who thought that was it, that it couldn't get any louder.
Oh, this is turning into a long text. I better stop here.
But somehow, and with some good mental tools that I've picked up along way, I manage to live with this onslaught of foul sounds. And what choice to I have?
I crashed on a motorcycle back in 1985. To make it short, it was basically as bad as it can get. Somehow and against all odds I managed to survive. But I had hit my head so hard that the skull was cracked, and in such a way that the hearing nerve on the left side had been almost severed.
Naturally I lost my hearing completely on that ear. Luckily I didn't get any brain damage. My eyesight got affected too, but not in any dramatic way.
I had so many injuries . I won't tire you with going through them all. It took me a few years to heal well enough to get back on my feet again. There were some results of that accident though, that I was going to have to carry with me for the rest of my life.
One of them is tinnitus.
There is a constant loud white noise/untuned radio/wooshing/tingling/cicada/electric steady beep kind of sound in my head, on the side of my deaf ear. Like I said, the nerve is damaged, and that's just what it feels like. Like a guitar cable that doesn't work, or something. All i get is noice, but no song. And it's on 24/7. It is never silent, and it doesn't get any better. There are no better days. But there are worse days. When I'm feeling weakened somehow, it's worse. When I have a slight cold, it's worse. Outside sound makes the tinnitus worse too. The sound of machines, of cars, of children screaming, subway trains etc etc. All sorts of louder sounds make it worse.
The doctors have diagnosed it as Tinnitus grade 5. In other words, the worst kind. I didn't think it could get any worse, but they switched my pain relief about a year ago, (I've got severe pain in my joints and hips etc) and the tinnitus got worse from the meds. Haha. ..wow. ... and me who thought that was it, that it couldn't get any louder.
Oh, this is turning into a long text. I better stop here.
But somehow, and with some good mental tools that I've picked up along way, I manage to live with this onslaught of foul sounds. And what choice to I have?
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