How Can I Keep Going with My Life? My Life Isn't the Same After Tinnitus — Positive Stories Please!

[Solose]

I have tinnitus due to an ongoing ear infection that's been antibiotic resistant, as well as doing a too forceful Valsalva. It has gone done in volume while I was on Prednisone earlier, to a level where I was content and felt I could live with it. I've had lots of ups and downs. It's now back to absolutely deafening and I am afraid I have some permanent hearing damage. I just started on a new antibiotic as it had gotten infected again and spread into the bone and nasal passages. I also have ETD. It's been 1 month since the tinnitus started.

All of this happened just as I was in between switching jobs. My new job has been very nice, I got an email from the director that said, "we can't wait until you start to discuss all the awesome things you will do here."

The problem is I am not sure I can start, with this ongoing ear issue, plus the tinnitus. The ear issue is tolerable, but my tinnitus is so loud. I feel am not the same person that interviewed there. I am not the same parent or spouse I was I was before this.

I probably have to start because we would lose our house with only my spouse's salary. It's a job in a therapy center working with preschoolers and doing staff training, so very loud, lots of talking and listening involved. I plan to wear an earplug in my bad ear where I have tinnitus.

I need some positive stories of how others were able to get on with their lives with this.

 

[Markos.pen]

This is my first post/reply. Your story resonated with me so I wanted to respond. The first month absolutely sucked (this past February). It freaked me out, had never heard of tinnitus (pun) and could hardly mask it. Read some bad stories, made my anxiety and negative thoughts worse. I called my parents and siblings crying a few times. My T started right after getting a nice promotion at work. My anxiety and lack of sleep was so bad that I was afraid I wouldn't be up to task for my new responsibilities. I even had a big vacation to Egypt that I cancelled because I didn't think I would be able to cope with the distress away from home. Eventually, I was able to get a decent handle of things. I consider my T mild-moderate depending on the day (and whether I drink caffeine).

I really hope the antibiotics eventually take care of that infection and your T starts to level out. Any sinus issues make mine flare up. What helps me is avoiding really quite spaces like the plague. I always have a fan on, whether it's in bedroom or my office. I ask my Google Home to play rain noises while I sleep. None of this completely masks it but it's enough to prevent me from overly focusing on it. When it's really bad, I have hearing aids with built in white noise generator. They are a pain in the neck to wear since I don't really need them to hear and I hate being 30 y/o wearing them. But the masking noise really helps relax me. I only wear them around the house now when the T is really loud and I can't sleep.

I'm not really great at providing support. All I can say it's that my first month was the worst month and things have mostly gotten better with some spikes here and there. I'm not saying my tinnitus has improved. It's mostly my state of mind that has improved with the help of some of the mitigations I mentioned above. Good luck Solose. Hang in there!!!!

Edit: I also try to self impose a rule to only go digging for the latest tinnitus research 1 week out of the month. I believe that allowing myself anything beyond that would be counterproductive. My goal is to achieve a state of mind that allows me to live with it and not obsess over a cure. I try to treat any news about any new effective treatments, trials, devices as a bonus. I can stand to wait a few weeks to catch up on the latest. This is my 'research week'.

 

[Solose]

Thank you, I needed that. I was set to start yesterday then the infection hit again. I feel so frustrated and angry as my tinnitus was down to a manageable level until getting off Prednisone but I have been on it for 3 courses already and the doc won't prescribe more. I just feel like this situation was medically mismanaged and that's why it's gotten to the point that it has.

I also have hearing loss, so maybe if it's permanent a hearing aide could help. There is nothing to do in this situation but suck it up and at least try this job. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist so the idea of being a disappointment is hard.

 

[Markos.pen]

Thank you, I needed that. I was set to start yesterday then the infection hit again. I feel so frustrated and angry as my tinnitus was down to a manageable level until getting off Prednisone but I have been on it for 3 courses already and the doc won't prescribe more. I just feel like this situation was medically mismanaged and that's why it's gotten to the point that it has.

I also have hearing loss, so maybe if it's permanent a hearing aide could help. There is nothing to do in this situation but suck it up and at least try this job. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist so the idea of being a disappointment is hard.

I find myself hardly even noticing it when I'm really busy at work. Hopefully there's a lot for you to do at the new gig.

I initally purchased the hearing aid because I misunderstood tinnitus. Multiple audiograms showed permanent hearing loss in the high frequency ranges. I thought having a hearing aid tuned to compensate at these frequencies would somehow help reduce my tinnitus. So I bought these expensive hearing aids, wore them for a while and saw no improvement. But I found that turning on the masker signal really helped with my anxiety. But as I said above, I only use them now when the tinnitus is really bad. The noise from fans and google home nature sounds, is usually enough masking for me to be relaxed.