I had severe debilitating tinnitus for years, until it started to improve. I found myself doing more and more as I improved. I was going for dinners at loud restaurants again, back playing hockey, was seeing friends nd family once again. I was way more involved in life. I wasn't all of a sudden more confident in taking risks, I've never really been scared of my tinnitus getting worse for some reason. . It was the fact that I could go out and do things without having a complete mental breakdown from the screaming in my brain that helped me more than anything.
Not one time did I ever have a major setback from noise that wasn't temporary until recently. I was, and maybe still am under the impression that you may not be at higher risk than someone without tinnitus, but who knows.
I think I let my guard down, I'm sure if I had been more careful like a guy like
@Wolfears i wouldn't be back in this serious mess again. After laying in a mri at 120db (with plugs) for 45 min My life is now completely destroyed once again.
I was on the path back to a somewhat a normal life, I only had very loud and annoying tinnitus for the first time in almost 5 years of hell, the mentally handicap tinnitus was backing off but I blew it because I let my guard down, or maybe didn't have my guard up in the first place.
I see both sides of the argument, they are both valid. Some folks are more cautious, some are bigger risk takers, I guess we all just find that line where we are comfortable. But, looking back I wish I had sat on the more cautious side, I would still be sitting in the group that can go out and function, forget about tinnitus for a while by keeping busy. Instead, I'm so distracted that I literally have a hard time doing anything at all. As embarrassing as this is, I'm just trying to hold it together one day at a time, trying to complete simple tasks, and sleep more than 10 min at a time.
Would I have gotten permanent tinnitus in that machine if I had healthy ears, I think so. Is it worse because I already had tinnitus, absolutely. Healthy or not, you can always make your current situation worse.
I believe that I am worse off after the recent incident because I was already half way down the tinnitus road. Since the new injury I've traveled further down that road, but as far as distance per injury, I don't think that you actually travel any further each time you re-injure.