If Your Tinnitus Vanished, How Would Your Life Change?

[Dr. Nagler]

I honestly wish we would all be cured, so we find true happiness.

True happiness comes from within.

stephen nagler

 

[erik]

I'd drink so much caffeine that I'd overdose lol! God how I miss green tea.

I have had 2 cups of coffee today and now drinking green tea....yum. Caffeine will not hurt you (moderate doses) and will not make your T worse. In fact, recently shown that caffeine might protect hearing and help T.

As far as my life changing if my T went away. It wouldn't really. Any life issues I am dealing with now is not because of my tinnitus.

 

[Danny Boy]

I have had 2 cups of coffee today and now drinking green tea....yum. Caffeine will not hurt you (moderate doses) and will not make your T worse. In fact, recently shown that caffeine might protect hearing and help T.

As far as my life changing if my T went away. It wouldn't really. Any life issues I am dealing with now is not because of my tinnitus.

That's good to hear...Might go back to have green tea powder now.

 

[Danny Boy]

True happiness comes from within.

stephen nagler

Well, it's not coming from my head lol!

 

[Danny Boy]

Do you have that? Does Trobalt help?

Keppra killed the reactive t, trobalt never did anything for that, sadly.

 

[bobbyb]

Spend as much time as I could physically bear in an anechoic chamber basking in the silence.

 

[Danny Boy]

Spend as much time as I could physically bear in an anechoic chamber basking in the silence.

Well, you'd most likely hear tinnitus, everyone can in one of those.

 

[bobbyb]

Well, you'd most likely hear tinnitus, everyone can in one of those.

Interesting, I was unaware. In that case I guess just somewhere really quiet would be alright.

 

[nills]

True happiness comes from within.

stephen nagler

yeah - you mean the within that is clogged with noise I guess ... sorry but within means that place of stilness where no problems can touch and no mind can go .. tinnitus pretty much fills that spot ... it is harder to enjoy the within with tinnitus.

 

[Dr. Nagler]

... it is harder to enjoy the within with tinnitus.

I totally understand that. Tinnitus is hard. Very hard. No doubt about it. But that does not change the fact that true happiness can only be found within oneself.

stephen nagler

 

[attheedgeofscience]

But that does not change the fact that true happiness can only be found within oneself.

Ever heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Basic Needs...?

As an analogy, there is no point in talking about "true happiness" unless your body is working as it should (and that would include tinnitus). Only when basic needs are addressed - and fulfilled - can a human being progress further up the pyramid (e.g. "true happiness").

attheedgeofscience
06/APR/2015.

 

[linearb]

Ever heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Basic Needs...?

View attachment 5807

As an analogy, there is no point in talking about "true happiness" unless your body is working as it should (and that would include tinnitus). Only when basic needs are addressed - and fulfilled - can a human being progress further up the pyramid (e.g. "true happiness").

attheedgeofscience
06/APR/2015.

Er, maybe I am being obtuse and not understanding something. You seem (to me) to be suggesting that tinnitus necessarily precludes happiness. Is that really your viewpoint?

That sounds like a pretty bleak world to be in. I'm not, like, crazy about my T, by any stretch... but I can still think of several times in the past week that I've felt extremely happy, been made aware and thankful for the things in my life, and T doesn't really keep that from happening (or even enter my mind at those moments as anything other than a footnote).

 

[attheedgeofscience]

I don't see anything on that pyramid about tinnitus

No, of course not: that's why I used the word "analogy"...

What about all the people with T who say they are happy and love their lives, are they lying or just misguided?

Well... if those people are happy, then tinnitus is not a big deal for them for whatever reason (e.g. mildness).

I'm here, I'm thinking, I'm breathing... that seems pretty good to me!

Good. Excellent. And so are patients with terminal cancer: they are here; they are thinking; they are breathing. But not much more than that, is my guess. Not exactly a definition of success.

 

[Vincent R]

I suggest people bookmark this thread. Once a way to silence T has been found, the question can be given a correct answer.

 

[NiNyu]

But that does not change the fact that true happiness can only be found within oneself.

That's not quite true. You can find happiness in others as well. But the question here is, can you be genuninely happy given your current (physical and mental) condition? And that's a subjective question no matter where the happiness can be found.


@linearb , if T doesn't affect you on an emotional level that's great -- for you. But then again, if T vanished it might be redundant to you as well, I suppose.

 

[Danny Boy]

Do you have that? Does Trobalt help?

Trobalt just helped slightly with the amplification but did nothing for the reactivity.

 

[ady]

Good. Excellent. And so are patients with terminal cancer: they are here; they are thinking; they are breathing. But not much more than that, is my guess. Not exactly a definition of success.

You are not comparing terminal cancer with tinnitus?

With tinnitus, you always have hope and time on your side. With terminal cancer, not so.

 

[Gr8fulDude]

I don't think my life would change a bit because I no longer let T stand in the way of my enjoyment. Nor should you.

 

[NiNyu]

With tinnitus, you always have hope and time on your side. With terminal cancer, not so.

Why would you say that?

So people with terminal cancer are hopeless?

 

[Danny Boy]

Why would you say that?

So people with terminal cancer are hopeless?

There's treatments for cancer patients though, not tinnitus.

 

[MattK]

There's treatments for cancer patients though, not tinnitus.

You don't consider Trobalt a treatment? Did you know one of the side effects of cancer treatment is tinnitus? I have a friend who had breast cancer and now she's cancer free but has tinnitus.

 

[Danny Boy]

You don't consider Trobalt a treatment? Did you know one of the side effects of cancer treatment is tinnitus? I have a friend who had breast cancer and now she's cancer free but has tinnitus.

Trobalt isn't an official treatment...

 

[attheedgeofscience]

You are not comparing terminal cancer with tinnitus?

Well... what am I doing?

1. Comparing tinnitus with terminal cancer, or
2. Disproving a benchmark for success

With tinnitus, you always have hope and time on your side. With terminal cancer, not so.

Very true. But also beside the point.

 

[attheedgeofscience]

You seem (to me) to be suggesting that tinnitus necessarily precludes happiness. Is that really your viewpoint?

There is tinnitus and then there is TINNITUS. For the latter, my response - to your question - would be yes. Very much so.

 

[MattK]

There is tinnitus and then there is TINNITUS. For the latter, my response - to your question - would be yes. Very much so.

And that's why you're in the state you're in. That type of thinking keeps people broken.

 

[attheedgeofscience]

And that's why you're in the state you're in. That type of thinking keeps people broken.

At least I am not a dealer of false hope who uses funky phrases such as "fake it until you make it" (or some such non-sense). You only need to go to the "Success Stories" section and you will find several folks there who obviously are trying convince themselves that they are doing better by writing a story about their "success". Not so convincing when the same people reveal in other threads that they are considering TRT, clinical trials, and posting questions in the Doctor's Corner about help.

Call me cynical - although I personally prefer the word "objective", but cynical or not, at least I don't create false hope, nor do I sweep things under the carpet and pretend the problems aren't there. The truth is most people can't handle the truth, and so they put on their rose-tinted glasses hoping that will fix their problems. What a delusional mindset. Sad.

As for myself, the reason I am part of the forum is because of my involvement with Team Trobalt helping a community that cannot figure out how to help itself:

...I specifically asked the staff of TinnitusTalk to send "alerts" to all active users (so that they were notified of the developments in this thread upon their next log in). Additionally, @Markku spent a considerable effort producing a newsletter to all 6000 members (which was mailed to their private e-mail accounts). Despite these efforts to create awareness and interest among members, the response and willingness to support the initiative has remained close to what is probably best described as "non-existent" - here's why:

1. Out of 6000 members, none volunteered to join Team Trobalt, initially. I had to "hand-pick" members in order to get anyone to join (besides @Steve and @Markku who were already part of the team).
2. The ATA was initially contacted as the organization to assist us with the informal trial i.e. getting a formal study undertaken in order to (hopefully) prove efficacy of Trobalt (and hence move the drug from off to on-label in the treatment of tinnitus). The ATA did respond to our request, but I would not describe their feedback as especially "welcoming" i.e. we were essentially told that we should anticipate self-funding (to some degree) and we would have to submit a formal proposal for the ATA to consider (which would then - probably - take a fair bit of time to process by the SAB). We were also told another "fact" (by a former member of the ATA) we would have to comply with in order to increase our chance of success (of the proposal being approved by the ATA). But I cannot disclose that "fact" in public.
3. Despite many - both public and private-message - pleas to get participants of the trial to complete their progress forms regularly, the end result has been poor in this respect. I estimate that Team Trobalt has invested some 400 hours of our own time (in total). Still, getting a user to just spend one minute per week or per day to fill out the basic skeleton data of the progress forms has been somewhat difficult (for roughly 50% to 60% of the trialees). As late as yesterday, this very fact was actually highlighted by another non-Team Trobalt member:

attheedgeofscience
07/APR/2015.

 

[valeri]

Here we go again

All you people that preach happiness and hunky dory despite tinnitus good on you.
It's either that you are some super humans or your t is so bloody mild "need to look for it" to hear it type.

Maybe you should stop and think of those who have real TINNITUS and whose lives are destroyed not because of their thinking but purely because of the severity of their condition.
There's many on this board who went from highly functioning individuals to nothing.

So please let's go back to the main question of this thread.
If you think your life is perfect and there would be no change if your t dissapeared simply skip this thread.

 

[attheedgeofscience]

All you people that preach happiness and hunky dory despite tinnitus good on you.
It's either that you are some super humans or your t is so bloody mild "need to look for it" to hear it type.

Agreed. 100%.

There a number of members on this forum who would be a perfect fit for enrollment with the Flat Earth Society.

 

[MattK]

At least I am not a dealer of false hope who uses funky phrases such as "fake it until you make it" (or some such non-sense). You only need to go to the "Success Stories" section and you will find several folks there who obviously are trying convince themselves that they are doing better by writing a story about their "success". Not so convincing when the same people reveal in other threads that they are considering TRT, clinical trials, and posting questions in the Doctor's Corner about help.

Call me cynical - although I personally prefer the word "objective", but cynical or not, at least I don't create false hope, nor do I sweep things under the carpet and pretend the problems aren't there. The truth is most people can't handle the truth, and so they put on their rose-tinted glasses hoping that will fix their problems. What a delusional mindset. Sad.

As for myself, the reason I am part of the forum is because of my involvement with Team Trobalt helping a community that cannot figure out how to help itself:

attheedgeofscience
07/APR/2015.

I can appreciate that you don't want to fake that you're happy when you're not. I'm not suggesting that you do that at all. But just because some might be faking it, that doesn't mean all are. Or could it be the ones who post a success story and then contradict themselves later are just having a bad moment but at least 80% of the time they are doing well?

I can genuinely say that I have my life back and am doing everything I'd be doing without tinnitus except that now I'm more conscious about my hearing and protecting it.

You say there is tinnitus and there is TINNITUS. Sure, some cases are worse than others. I won't pretend to know anything about those who've got H on top of tinnitus or other auditory problems. I'm just talking T. But take mine: I can hear my tinnitus over almost everything. and it often competes with other noises such as the shower or white noises. But for the most part, it doesn't bother me at all even when I am thinking about it like right now. Would I rather it be gone? Of course but that's not an option. But what was an option was changing my way of thinking and I did and now I am living a happy life.

The mindset some of you have is this: if someone has T and is happy then they are either lying or it's mild T. You got it so ingrained into your thinking that T is so unbearable that there is absolutely no way someone can live a happy life with it. This is a massive stumbling block keeping you down.

If you prefer to call this way of thinking "objective" then all I can say it hardly is. It's just you forcing anything that contradicts your belief that TINNITUS = misery to fit that paradigm.

With that said, I'm not going to keep posting as I don't want to turn this into another drawn out argument. I'm not trying to aggravate anyone.

But I do wish you could see that this thinking is hindering you from moving on, and that while some could be faking it, that doesn't mean all are.

 

[attheedgeofscience]

I can genuinely say that I have my life back and am doing everything I'd be doing without tinnitus except that now I'm more conscious about my hearing and protecting it.

Right. So what makes you log on to TinnitusTalk just about every day for several hours? I believe I could think of some more exciting forums to join or activities to do. But - hey - perhaps TinnitusTalk is such a cool place to "hang-out" - you never know.

But I do wish you could see that this thinking is hindering you from moving on, and that while some could be faking it, that doesn't mean all are.

I have answered questions in this thread from a general point-of-view. Not my own. I don't think anyone knows that much about me really.

It's just you forcing anything that contradicts your belief that TINNITUS = misery to fit that paradigm.

I do not have TINNITUS. Not anymore, at least.