Is My Life Expectancy Now Shortened? Will I Become Stupid?

[momo]

Honestly I'm asking these questions because I'm just absolutely terrified.

I keep reading posts and seeing things online about how tinnitus affects the brain and destroys the brain and exhausts the brain and the body and things like that.

So obviously this isn't good for health, right? Honestly will tinnitus make me idk, stupider in the long run? Will it affect my memory, my mind? I'm so scared lol. And in turn will that affect my life expectancy? I'm only 25. But I don't wanna live knowing that I'll never be as good as I was just one year ago. I don't want to be a broken person. I'm so upset lol.

 

[Zug]

Nope.

 

[Michael B]

momo, you're getting upset over things that are not true. Tinnitus can be hard to manage for some, but it depends on the individual and the severity of their tinnitus. That aside, it doesn't do any of the things you suggested.

 

[Pleasure_Paulie]

I suggest you get your advice from your doctors. The google doctors here and on other forums will say things with no medical backing.

Seek medical advice if you have fears raised above and get all proper medical checks.

 

[Gman]

Honestly I'm asking these questions because I'm just absolutely terrified.

I keep reading posts and seeing things online about how tinnitus affects the brain and destroys the brain and exhausts the brain and the body and things like that.

So obviously this isn't good for health, right? Honestly will tinnitus make me idk, stupider in the long run? Will it affect my memory, my mind? I'm so scared lol. And in turn will that affect my life expectancy? I'm only 25. But I don't wanna live knowing that I'll never be as good as I was just one year ago. I don't want to be a broken person. I'm so upset lol.

I actually think my memory is better and my focus sharper than in my pre T days. Maybe it's the NAC and other antioxidants and eating more healthy food. Although it can be exhausting in terms of it being an additional layer of stress and concern on top of everything else.

 

[InfiniteLoop]

It depends on people and the kind of activity to perform. In my case, it has had a great impact on concentration and other intellectual abilities. It is just not the same as before intrusive tinnitus.

 

[Tinker Bell]

Correlation does not always equal causation. Memory loss, problems concentrating, and gray matter loss are typical parts of the aging process regardless of whether we have tinnitus.

Incidentally anxiety and depression are known to cause memory loss, impact gray matter, and affect concentration too. So is tinnitus to blame or the anxiety that comes along with it?

It's kind of like worrying that your health is going to get worse due to tinnitus, and completely ignoring the fact that your health will naturally get worse as you age. Or having anxiety about tinnitus causing health problems, and inadvertently causing health problems because of your anxiety.

 

[dpdx]

I have intrusive tinnitus so it is harder to focus, concentrate, etc

 

[astaff14]

I'm worried about this too. All I can say is don't let yourself get too paranoid about it as it will only exacerbate why symptoms you might have/how you feel. For instance I just got super paranoid about developing visual snow and now I swear I'm seeing it much more than I used to.
Try and stay positive and calm as much as possible. You will not become less smart, just make sure to take care of yourself.

 

[JohnnyMx]

Honestly will tinnitus make me idk, stupider in the long run

It is a very valid question at the onset of your Tinnitus, mainly because all of the stories and information you find on Internet can be confussing. The answer is NO, at least you had a severe cause, which those are very few cases (I can hear my Tinnitus inside of a big loud airplane, and I consider my T to be just moderate).

The thing that could make an impact on your hability to think is the anxiety and depression caused by Tinnitus. But those can be treated.

I'm a software engineer, a lead engineer in a company that builds complex software. I can do my job without a problem.

I know WAY too much people that are idiots without having any kind of health problem, so don't worry.

By the way, about the life expectancy, I think it even INCREASED after my T spike. Because I was running a VERY unhealthy life, lack of exercise, junk food, ALOT of extra weight, I was directly to be diabetic and alot of hearth problems. Once my T spiked, I changed alot of unhealthy decisions, I've lost TONS of weight and I developed alot of good healthy habits).

Take care!

 

[Bill Bauer]

I suggest you get your advice from your doctors. The google doctors here and on other forums will say things with no medical backing.

Since there had been no published studies on this, the medical doctors will ALSO not be basing their advice on peer-reviewed medical studies. People here might base their advice on their own experiences as well as on what they learned while reading this forum. My guess is that people here will be basing their advice based on More empirical data than the doctors.

 

[GregCA]

Since there had been no published studies on this, the medical doctors will ALSO not be basing their advice on peer-reviewed medical studies.

True, but they'll likely be able to use their cognitive abilities (deductive reasoning, logic, reasonably structured thinking, scientific methods, etc) to offer suggestions to their patients, taking into consideration all the data they know about how the body works, which they've learned through the years, both in school and as part of the experience they have accumulated while seeing more patients than most people in here are likely to have met in their entire lives, virtually or otherwise.

 

[Nicholas]

My dad has T since he was 15 years old, and I can assure you, no, you won't become stupid.

 

[Bill Bauer]

True, but they'll likely be able to use their cognitive abilities

They will do this, if they actually think of you as a person who is suffering. Most of them think of T patients as having something that is incurable, that the patient should just get over. Despite the fact that there ARE things that might help (or that might hurt) people like us, the doctors are not aware of any of it and will just tell one to get used to T while cautioning one Against changing one's behaviour (because they have no idea that following this advice has the potential to make one's body uninhabitable).

 

[GregCA]

They will do this, if they actually think of you as a person who is suffering. Most of them think of T patients as having something that is incurable, that the patient should just get over. Despite the fact that there ARE things that might help (or that might hurt) people like us, the doctors are not aware of any of it and will just tell one to get used to T while cautioning one Against changing one's behaviour (because they have no idea that following this advice has the potential to make one's body uninhabitable).

It looks like you are falling for a cognitive bias called hasty generalization.

 

[Bill Bauer]

It looks like you are falling for a cognitive bias called hasty generalization.

According to the link above, hasty generalization is "essentially making a rushed conclusion without considering all of the variables."

Well, let's see. I have been reading this forum almost every day for the past 14 months for so. Most newbies report their experiences with their family doctors and ENTs. I remember only ONE time when a newbie reported NOT being dismissed. If I remember correctly, that person was from Eastern Europe and he or she got prescribed steroid shots. And Still that person (not realizing that he or she got better care than most of us) was complaining about the doctor not taking his or her condition seriously, and not being very helpful.

You would think that if the majority of doctors were to be knowledgeable and caring (as you seem to be assuming [possibly as a result of wishful thinking combined with "hasty generalization"]), that some of their patients would post here and make up at least 10% of the posts, but that is definitely not what we see. The evidence seems to be more consistent with the hypothesis that the doctors are not being taught about T in medical school (nothing except something along the lines of: "it is an incurable disease and you should advise your patients to try to get used to it and to get over it").

 

[GregCA]

Well, let's see. I have been reading this forum almost every day for the past 14 months for so.

Now you're victim of another bias: the sampling bias. The people who come in this forum are not representative of the population of T sufferers, for the very reason they come here. Compared to the rest of the T sufferers, the people coming here are likely to have a T that is harder to deal with, and likely to have had a negative experience with doctors (procedures that went wrong, etc). You are generalizing your belief about doctors from this heavily biased sample.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Now you're victim of another bias: the sampling bias. The people who come in this forum are not representative of the population of T sufferers, for the very reason they come here.

That might be the case. However, every single person READING your post is part of the population that DOES come here. So the information we learn on this forum might not be relevant for a randomly selected T sufferer. However, it (the information supplied by people posting here) is MORE relevant than information obtained in an unbiased sample of T sufferers to people who are Reading this forum.

If what I said above is not clear, here is an analogy. Information about life expectancy of cancer patients (obtained from a sample of cancer patients) is not relevant for a randomly selected person. However, the information about average human life expectancy (that is found by selecting people at random to be included into our sample) is LESS relevant to a cancer patient than information coming from a sample that contains only cancer patients.

Another issue is that the larger the sample size the less likely your sample will be Completely unlike the population. My sample size is very large. Like I said earlier, it is very unlikely that the majority of T sufferers has a positive experience, given how almost nobody in my sample had reported such an experience. Due to the bias that you pointed out I would not expect the fraction of satisfied patients in my sample to be the same as the fraction of satisfied patients in the general population of T patients. However, given the sample size, we also wouldn't expect them to be Completely unlike one another.

 

[GregCA]

Another issue is that the larger the sample size the less likely your sample will be Completely unlike the population. My sample size is very large.

This law of statistics is only true for random samples, which is not the case here (which is crucially why the sampling bias applies).
A famous mistake during the Landon vs Roosevelt election is described here.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Thank you for providing an interesting and useful link.

This law of statistics is only true for random samples, which is not the case here (which is crucially why the sampling bias applies).
A famous mistake during the Landon vs Roosevelt election is described here.

I can see a difference of 20%, but not a difference of more than 50% (50% or more of the T sufferers in the population being happy with their doctors vs virtually 0% of the people who posted here being happy).

 

[GregCA]

I can see a difference of 20%, but not a difference of more than 50% (50% or more of the T sufferers in the population being happy with their doctors vs virtually 0% of the people who posted here being happy).

You cannot see it because you are not well versed in statistics.

 

[Bill Bauer]

You cannot see it because you are not well versed in statistics.

But I am. I had even published papers in top rated stats journals. Statistics is not my field, but I have a good grasp of undergraduate stats (in addition to some advanced topics normally taught in graduate school).

A paper that I presented at a conference held at Sorbonne university (that's the one that was featured in Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre-Dame) had a significant stats component. It was also published in a good peer-reviewed journal.

 

[Andrei90]

Honestly I'm asking these questions because I'm just absolutely terrified.

I keep reading posts and seeing things online about how tinnitus affects the brain and destroys the brain and exhausts the brain and the body and things like that.

So obviously this isn't good for health, right? Honestly will tinnitus make me idk, stupider in the long run? Will it affect my memory, my mind? I'm so scared lol. And in turn will that affect my life expectancy? I'm only 25. But I don't wanna live knowing that I'll never be as good as I was just one year ago. I don't want to be a broken person. I'm so upset lol.

I'm not going to dance around the question or try to lie to you. When it comes to T alone, you probably won't encounter anything like this. But if it does get louder and intrusive, I imagine it will lead to concentration problems as well as other psychological issues. These will affect memory and cognitive abilities. And there's literature out there that does connect congitive decline along with hearing loss. What's important is that you have this information now. Protect yourself from noise and you should be fine.

 

[TuneOut]

I suggest you get your advice from your doctors.

Most regular doctors are jacks of all trades, masters of none. Even most ENTs, whose area of expertise is the auditory system, know jack shit about tinnitus.

 

[Champ]

My dad has had tinnitus for 25 years (he's almost 70) and he is still sharp as a hunting knife.

 

[Pleasure_Paulie]

Most regular doctors are jacks of all trades, masters of none. Even most ENTs, whose area of expertise is the auditory system, know jack shit about tinnitus.

ENT's know a lot about tinnitus. Its just they don't say what we wan't them to tell us which is there is effective treatments or a cure the medical community has accepted.

 

[Bill Bauer]

ENT's know a lot about tinnitus.

How would they know, if there have been no studies carried out on important topics like what causes T and H spikes for people with different types of T?

 

[TuneOut]

ENT's know a lot about tinnitus. Its just they don't say what we wan't them to tell us which is there is effective treatments or a cure the medical community has accepted.

Oh yeah? The next time you're at an ENT, ask them what is the prevailing theory on tinnitus formation. Ask them about the latest research on tinnitus. Ask them which therapies have been shown to be most effective. Ask them if the tinnitus ears are more susceptible to further trauma than healthy ears. Really probe them. Then post the responses here.

 

[Jcb]

I was a bit dense to begin with, I doubt T can me less intelligent however that thought is
But seriously as most people have said on this thread, you'll be fine, over thinking it can lead to you being more anxious and then strain on the brain and so on, it's a vicious cycle. You just need to take each day as it comes and slowly you'll start to live your life as you previously did, some adjustments may need to made but I'm more than confident you'll get there.

 

[Tinker Bell]

Oh yeah? The next time you're at an ENT, ask them what is the prevailing theory on tinnitus formation. Ask them about the latest research on tinnitus. Ask them which therapies have been shown to be most effective. Ask them if the tinnitus ears are more susceptible to further trauma than healthy ears. Really probe them. Then post the responses here.

Does any medical professional or researcher know the definitive answers to these questions?