I've had tinnitus for many years. I'm not even sure when it started to be honest. I can remember having it on and off again as a teenager. Over the years it's got worse, and so much louder. I'm in the process of being assessed for potentially having vestibular migraine or menniere's disease. Since I started suffering with the vertigo a few years ago, the tinnitus has become especially loud. Worse in my right ear, which has very little hearing left (had balance and hearing tests late last year) but also in my left. I can frequently hear several pitches at once, from a low roar (like rapids at the bottom of a waterfall) to a terrible high pitched squeal. The high pitched squeal has two "pitches". Sometimes it is so loud and dominant, it feels as if my head will explode. I have to admit it is really getting me down. I've tried lots of distracting techniques, like background noise, but it's louder than anything. Headphones just don't work for me.. anything through the right ear just is a distorted sound anyway, which is just as annoying as the tinnitus. I'm nearly 50 and I'm completely fed up with us. My quality of life is close to hitting rock bottom. I have a neurologist appointment tomorrow evening, but I'm not really expecting any miracles. I take a few drugs for the vertigo when it joins the party, but none of them do anything for the tinnitus. Occasionally I resort to 5 mg of valium, but that's really only to help me relax a bit. It doesn't help with it, it just sort of numbs my feelings about it, and helps me feel less anxious when I think I'm about to get vertigo. The vertigo is horrible. It drops me to the ground, and the room spins around me. Then the nausea and vomiting start. I have been twice hospitalised with it, because it's so frightening, I actually thing I might be having a stroke or something very serious. I really thought I was going to die, to be honest, and part of me actually felt relieved.. some peace from this incessant noise, but some IM stemetil and fluids got me through it enough the second time to go home after a few hours and "sleep it off". It's exhausting, and not knowing when it will strike means I'm scared to go anywhere in case it happens when I'm out. There's no warning, it just happens so very suddenly.
Not expecting miracles.. just hoping to hang out with other people who will understand what I'm going through. Thanks for reading my sad tale of woes. I'm usually a positive person, but this thing has turned my life upside down. Hard to take pleasure in anything any more.
Not expecting miracles.. just hoping to hang out with other people who will understand what I'm going through. Thanks for reading my sad tale of woes. I'm usually a positive person, but this thing has turned my life upside down. Hard to take pleasure in anything any more.
