I'll Take Tinnitus, Thank You.

[Valentin]

She has hearing loss Tenna but not significant according to her. She could understand what I was saying but the vibration ofIf she her noises seems to affect her the most. I didn't say she could barely hear her own voice I said she struggles and that was what she told me. There is an obvious difference between the adjectives barely and struggling.

Also I haven't once implied people said things that they never did. Don't try to nit pick to start an argument. if you do not like what I have to say do not read what I write.

If she stuggles to hear her voice, she simply has a huge bone conduction hearing loss.

 

[Samsara]

There are many degrees to pinches of salt yeah. If one struggles at hearing their own voice you make it sound like she barely cant, hence struggling.
Your entire opening in this post was JUST that. If you did not like what was written, apply your own logic to yourself, dont tell Me to stop while youre doing it yourself. where is the selfinsight and empathy

Tenna take a deep breath and calm down okay? I'm sorry that you are unable to understand certain things I write but like I said before let's just agree to disagree and not argue. Attempting to nit pick to score points isn't going to us anywhere. I never said I didn't like what you wrote I don't agree with it there is a difference. Doesn't mean I'm not going to read your posts.

Let's not escalate this any further please out of respect for Markku and everyone else on the forum

 

[Samsara]

If she stuggles to hear her voice, she simply has a huge bone conduction hearing loss.

Valentin this is a good point. She never mentioned this when I met her though but she explained that the vibration from all the noises in her head disturbs her the most rather then the noises themselves.

 

[mick1987]

Sorry if I came across as putting word's in your mouth samsara, but the OP had a positive outlook on his tinnitus, could be worse attitude, he is trying to cheer people up, he shouldn't be reminded that there are extreme cases of tinnitus where people would disagree. The majority of tinnitus sufferers recover their lives, I don't think striking fear into people because of extreme cases is necessary, we are all doing the best we can to cope with this condition, I believe having a positive attitude helps.

I personally know what severe tinnitus sounds like, surely all you have to do is go on to YouTube to find out, I would say mild is only hearing it in the quiet, moderate where you can here it with the TV on in the day, then severe where you hear it everywhere, even in loud environment s like you say, I even get to experience severe tinnitus when you get fleeting tinnitus for a few seconds. I think a lot of people know what severe tinnitus sound's like, that is why I believe people who claim to have habituated to severe tinnitus actually have severe tinnitus.

If you are OK with tinnitus now or getting better why would you trade tinnitus for lung cancer? My sister has a terminal lung disease, most people don't make it past their 20s, she is now in her 30s and she's has struggled the breath properly since birth, she is now getting worse to the point where she will soon need a lung transplant, even then her life will be cut short by half, I'm so proud of her for coping with such a horrible disease, I certainly wouldn't trade tinnitus with her illness, even if me tinnitus did get worse, I am grateful I am healthy.

 

[mick1987]

I would trade my tinnitus for my sisters illness if that meant she would be healthy though, I would do it in a heartbeat!

 

[Tenna]

We can agree to disagree surely, but please out of respect, dont be sprru about my lack of comprehension, and dont help fueling something up for debate, if you dont intend to debate it. The lack of understnding which you attached to everyone, is a funny product of respect. Theres a clear Mutual lack of understanding so lets leave it yes.

Alright so she does have significant hearing loss causing the vibration and enhancement of the sensations

 

[Samsara]

Sorry if I came across as putting word's in your mouth samsara, but the OP had a positive outlook on his tinnitus, could be worse attitude, he is trying to cheer people up, he shouldn't be reminded that there are extreme cases of tinnitus where people would disagree. The majority of tinnitus sufferers recover their lives, I don't think striking fear into people because of extreme cases is necessary, we are all doing the best we can to cope with this condition, I believe having a positive attitude helps.

I personally know what severe tinnitus sounds like, surely all you have to do is go on to YouTube to find out, I would say mild is only hearing it in the quiet, moderate where you can here it with the TV on in the day, then severe where you hear it everywhere, even in loud environment s like you say, I even get to experience severe tinnitus when you get fleeting tinnitus for a few seconds. I think a lot of people know what severe tinnitus sound's like, that is why I believe people who claim to have habituated to severe tinnitus actually have severe tinnitus.

If you are OK with tinnitus now or getting better why would you trade tinnitus for lung cancer? My sister has a terminal lung disease, most people don't make it past their 20s, she is now in her 30s and she's has struggled the breath properly since birth, she is now getting worse to the point where she will soon need a lung transplant, even then her life will be cut short by half, I'm so proud of her for coping with such a horrible disease, I certainly wouldn't trade tinnitus with her illness, even if me tinnitus did get worse, I am grateful I am healthy.

Apology accepted Mick1987 no hard feelings. I apologize to you as well if my posts came across to you as only people with severe Tinnitus care about it thus belittling and causing offense. That was certainly not my attention and I didn't think that they gave that impression when I wrote them but sorry anyway.

I only posted on this thread in defense of Dan and those who might find the OP's post offensive. I disagree that people shouldn't mention extreme cases because they are out there and we should be aware of them. Even the ATA does this do they not? They mention on their site that 2 million of the 50 million sufferers in America are disabled by it. Should they not mention those 2 million? I think it's important. Personally I'd rather have the whole truth about something so there can be more understanding on the subject.


Regarding the lung cancer comment I should have clarified that in hindsight. Yes I'am doing much better as I can actually forget I even have Tinnitus during the day. I can only hear it in silent environments. It's at night when I'm trying to sleep it drives me crazy. I've always been a great sleeper my whole life. Now it takes me a long time to fall asleep and even then I keep waking up falling asleep waking up and falling asleep. I'm so tired and anxious when my alarm goes off. It's a nightmare but I know it's nothing compared to some people and at least I can actually fall asleep. I do miss my silence so much it's horrifying because sometimes it actually feels like I'm cured some days then it comes back at night when I go to bed.

If you want more details maybe you can PM me so I will keep it brief here. Cancer is a subject I have had quite alot of experience of in my life both professionally and personally. For early stage lung cancer I'm fairly confident that I could tackle this successfully. This is for early stages not late stages. Therefore I would swap my Tinnitus for early stage lung cancer in a heartbeat because I feel confident of getting rid of it. I'm powerless against the Tinnitus.

Hope that makes sense to you.

 

[Emily]

I think this was a good post help us keep things in perspective. Although I will admit after my Meniere's diagnosis I spent a lot of time wishing that I "just" had a brain tumor (acoustic neroma) instead. I figured at least with that they could remove it and I would have a chance of being symptom free. Nope, instead I'm stuck with a blaring loud ear and some other crap. But, hey it's not terminal and I still have a good life for the most part!

 

[Samsara]

We can agree to disagree surely, but please out of respect, dont be sprru about my lack of comprehension, and dont help fueling something up for debate, if you dont intend to debate it. The lack of understnding which you attached to everyone, is a funny product of respect. Theres a clear Mutual lack of understanding so lets leave it yes.

Alright so she does have significant hearing loss causing the vibration and enhancement of the sensations

I'm more then happy to debate something but the tone of your posts Tenna indicate you are far more interested in petty nik picking and point scoring. That is completely irrelevant to me.

I call it how I see it and I stand by what I said. I make no apologies for that. By respect I meant keeping things civil and on topic. I can tell particular one word or sentence from me is going to set you off. Please remember what Markku said on this thread.

Also no you are wrong it is not established that she has significant hearing loss. She claims she does not and could hear everything I was saying when we met earlier this year. Maybe it's more of a distraction problem when she tries to hear her own voice I don't know I'm not trained in that area. I only went by what she said but I don't see what she would have to gain by lying and saying her Audiogram was pretty much normal for her age.

 

[mick1987]

ok samsara, you will habituate to your tinnitus, i know how sh*t it is when you can't sleep or keep waking up in the night because of the noise. But be assured that it won't be that way forever. I couldn't sleep unless i was drunk other wise i would be up all night listening to my newly increased tinnitus in my head, but now i can look past the tinnitus, push it away from my thoughts, i can sleep as many hours as i want to, it is your reaction that is keeping you awake, not the noise. Once you lose the worry, panic and fear of tinnitus your brain stops focusing on it and you become less aware of it even in silence, that is the first stage of habituation. I have gone from thinking the worst a few months ago, thinking this is going to torment me forever, to now, no more depression or anxiety, insomnia has gone, im irritated sometimes when going to bed, but it doesn't affect me anymore, it's lost it's power over me, you will get there to. Have a happy new year.

 

[Samsara]

Thanks Mick1987 I'm sure you are right. I'm being abit dramatic but some days it feels like I have the sword of Damocles hanging over me when I think about the inevitable problems I'm going to have falling asleep. The noise just haunts me but I haven't even had this a year yet so I'm sure I will eventually get used to it like you say.

Same to you I hope you have happy new year too!

All the best

 

[dan]

Give it a rest Tenna.

 

[NeoM]

Thanks man, when people make statements that once you get severe tinnitus you no longer habituate to it, it's impossible, you will live in misery, people who claim to have habituated to severe tinnitus are lying how bad it is really gets on my tits! When I first got tinnitus I found the yuku forum, their I read about people who have tinnitus a lot worse than myself and have recovered their lives, happy, living normally, it show's that no matter how bad tinnitus gets you will habituate, not live a life of misery, I was inspired, like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, tinnitus is a livable condition. That is a goal to reach in the future if your tinnitus does increase. Reading that you only don't care about your tinnitus because it isn't severe is offensive in it's self, imagine new tinnitus sufferers coming here with severe tinnitus reading that once you get past a certain point you are basically f****d! People have recovered their lives with loud tinnitus and people with tinnitus need to know that, this is a support forum!

What I've read is that the severity of someone's tinnitus has little to do with the degree of loudness of the sound and instead the person's emotional reaction to the sound.

For instance read this guys story... http://www.reddit.com/r/tinnitus/comments/trn2m/tinnitus_16_years_later_tinnitus_oh_yea_i_forgot/

His tinnitus was able to be heard in the shower and he has achieved habituation through his own Tinnitus Retraining Therapy model.

This thread is becoming a "negative counseling 101" guide.

 

[Markku]

For the future newbies reading this thread; please know that the odds are in your favor for you to begin feel better and habituate.
Yes, there is a percentage who struggles more than the rest, and who are significantly more debilitated by this, but do not think that you will be one of them. Likely in the long term you will not -- so you shouldn't even entertain the thought as it will only negatively affect (at the very least slow down) your outcome for accepting the condition and eventually reaching the stage of habituation.

I have no reason to doubt those people with intrusive, severe tinnitus who say they have habituated, and are now living happy and fulfilling lives. Likewise, my heart goes out to those who have severe tinnitus and continue to struggle and being debilitated. We absolutely need better treatments, period.

However, debating about whose tinnitus is worse is meaningless because how we perceive tinnitus is very subjective. Yes, the loudness can vary as can the types of noise. Some have hearing loss, others not. Each case is different. In theory, if we had two people with the exact same tinnitus / hearing profile, one could very well be habituated, but the other still struggling after, say, one year of onset.

I believe those who know me, know that I never minimize how debilitating tinnitus can be to some. At the same time we should be friendly and encouraging (which @I who love music was in his first post in my opinion), and acknowledge that while we have various kinds of tinnitus, we all are in the same boat and in the end all of us want effective treatments to come available.

Let 2014 be a year full of promising news for us, and I sincerely hope everyone who now struggles will see improvements in the upcoming year.

Bless you all,
Markku

 

[Stan Younce]

Saying I would rather have my tinnitus than some other horrible disease is utter nonsense. It is just as nonsensical to say I would rather have 'X' disease than my tinnitus. Fact is, the tinnitus sufferer could have both. Then would he say I would rather have my tinnitus and lung cancer rather than heart disease? Yes, things could be worse. And may very well get worse the longer one lives.

It seems to me that wishing I had this or that rather than what I do have comes down to acceptance. Acceptance of what you do have. Personally, I have not yet accepted that I have this horrid affliction called tinnitus. A barrier to habituation some say. Something I need to work on in the coming year.

 

[object16]

4 months ago my tinnitus was so bad i was sure i was going to be in a pine box very soon. it was this screeching noise like someone screaming in your ear, something you would make for hell for your worst enemy. it was so bad that i was sure i was going to have to quit my job etc and probably be dead very soon some way or another. very fortunately for me, i was able to "baby" my hearing and gradually nurse it back to some semblance of health, although it is still quite bad, it is no where near as bad 4 months later. but however i have to be super cautious, and cannot tolerate ANY kind of sound, even my wife playing a movie with low frequency effects, i have to tell her to shut it off. so tinnitus can get that bad, that you are sure you are going to die, and probably many people do not get any improvement at all, at which point you have to ask yourself is it worth putting yourself through the misery - for sure if this was my dog, and it was 4 months ago, i would have had the dog put to sleep. right now there is no need to put the dog to sleep, but i go around almost everywhere now with a bose noise cancelling headset, and i have quiet masking on all the time. and i need a huge bag of meds or i will for sure get no sleep what so ever.

PLEASE READ THIS: i have gone without sleep before, and after 2 weeks, you start hallucinating and you go completely psychotic, at which point it is for sure you will do yourself in, because in a psychotic state your thinking is completely different, believe me i've been there, i have gone psychotic, and when you are in that state you have no idea there is anything different. if you are lucky, and you get out of that state, due to being put on major tranquilizers etc., you will remember your psychotic state, and you will also see all the huge bruises and gashes that you made to your body by jumping off tables and landing as if you are a flying squirrel - i still have those scars on my knees, so i am sure that it did actually happen the way i am describing it.

so please do not tell me that there are other things you can have that are worse. tinnitus can get so bad that it is immediately life threatening, you are in a state that you can easily kill someone else or yourself, and have absolutely no idea that what you are doing is rash or wrong.

i've been there, i have the actual physical scars on my body to prove it.

so i do not EVER want to get into a contest about who has the worse disease, this is not a contest, and it is definitely not fun at all.

I was placed in a lock down cell in a psych hospital, and the staff were sure that i would be in there forever.

READ THIS AGAIN: The psych hospital staff thought I would be in a permanent long term psych ward, strapped into bed with restraints, and with a feeding tube.

whoever is saying these things that there are worse things you can have, obviously has a pretty mild state of tinnitus, and i wish mine was like that. i know. 20 years ago i thought i had bad tinnitus. 8 years ago i thought it was really really bad. now looking back i wish i could get to that 20 and 8 year ago state. even 1 year ago state.

so the original post is actually in a way cruel because you have no idea about what can actually really happen, and what actually i really myself went through.

 

[Tenna]

Dan this is a support forum, and none in this thread but you, had sincere intend of offensiveness and wishing pain for others. You are the first one I've seen in here to awaken such hostile intent, in no way are you in a position of being the big guy here, asking me to let your harmful wishes for others rest.
Samsara and I agree to disagree. And for this year I wish everyone, including you Dan, will have a good year and get the life improving treatment/habitation they need, asap.
But, if I ever see people in here wishing for others to suffer, then this is clearly not the support forum for me.

 

[mick1987]

This doesn't make anyone feel better, quite depressing really!

 

[Misery]

If something works for you, keep it. If it doesn't work for you, reject it. The OP is beneficial to some and not to others. I believe he had only good intentions when posting.

If this post doesn't work for you, keep reading others, and you'll find something that's beneficial to you.

 

[kharaa]

While I wholeheartedly agree with the OP, I also understand that some people's tinnitus can be so devastating that the first post can sound offensive to them.

However, I fully agree with Tenna that the OP's intention was not to cause drama or unnecessary bickering / heated debate on the subject, instead his intention was to look positively (by a subjective point of view, of course, which many tend to share) at tinnitus as a condition.

Anyway, let's remain courteous to each other

Peace & love
Markku

To many people it was making light of a condition that tortures some of us to suicide, and pretending that having something else would be preferable. I have no doubt that was not his intent, but it's clear that even some people with tinnitus here, have not a single clue as to how severe it gets. Personal for me, i've delt with health issues all my life. including chronic anxiety, and GI issues. I was born with a neurological disorder that renders my upper body very week and without stamina. I can't lift an object over 50-60 pounds for more than a handful of seconds without help. I've delt with life threatening infections (like c.diff) and diverticulitis every 5 months(which i'm on antibiotics for now)

Tinnitus is worse then all that i dealt with before, x100 no doubt in my mind. My Tinnitus is so severe that it hinders my ability to hold simple conversations and causes me severe insomnia to the point that even the use of cannabis, and ambien at the same time doesn't always knock me out. I spent every day, trying to make it from hour to hour to avoid ending my own life, for my families sake.

Tinnitus is no laughing matter, i'm glad some of you have it mild enough or have it habituated to it, to the point that it's at least only a moderate issue for you. but i've been suffering from tinnitus for 8 years.. and it was intrisive and loud then. and it's gotten so much worse for me this last year, that i'm shocked i made it through 2013.

 

[object16]

I agree completely with kharaa - like a screaming screech from hell saying: hello! you are now in hell - hahaha - if it was my dog i'd be having it put to sleep. luckily it has gotten slightly better, but i am now like a cripple - i cannot go anywhere with sound: cannot go to a show, cannot go to a movie, cannot even go into the grocery store without noise cancelling headphones, and if a Harley goes by, then it just sends me back to square zero.