Hi Paulmanlike,
Forgive me for correcting someone more knowledgeable on this topic, but "...I think if it's remained at that level for 5 months then it is as good as it gets and you won't get any improvement doing nothing" doesn't necessarily describe my scenario. I am not saying that I have been at the mosquito stage for five months, I am saying that I have gone from the jet engine stage TO the mosquito stage IN five months. If I had a five month long plateau at the mosquito stage, that would be one thing. But rather, I have had a five month long drop off from point a to point b.
Additionally, I want to ask you about what you mean when you use the word habituation.
1. If, by habituation, you mean get used to the ringing and let it fade into the background, then I do not think that I could do that.
2. But, if by habituation, you mean always have a masker in a quiet room and then just get back to living my life, then I could probably do that.
3. Lastly, are you yourself "habituated"?
4. I feel like, for the sake of everybody suffering from tinnitus, I kind of owe it to them to go to Neuromod just so that they learn what happens to me. In your opinion, should I bother going?
4.5 I have heard of some cases where people habituate and then it goes away after they've habituated. Could that possibly happen to me?
Hi realdougconnolly.
I thought it had remained at mosquito stage for some time. I had a debate with somebody who told me long lasting tinnitus always fades very, very slowly. I disagree with this from my own experience and speaking with many tinnitus 'veterans' over the years. I believe tinnitus lasting longer than 3 months will mostly be permanent unless an underlying cause can be found, which in many cases it can't. The most common cause of tinnitus is noise induced. There are however some cases like yours on a couple of threads where uncommon cases have faded over a long period of time, but in my opinion it's uncommon. That's just my opinion though and I have read countless things on tinnitus and spoke with many sufferers.
1.) You are new to tinnitus. Many newbies come here and I will put it like this. When I had depression I was told I won't feel this way forever. I didn't believe them. But I got better. Same as tinnitus.
2.) You have a mild case of tinnitus where it's only audible in a quiet room. The need for a masker is to hide the noise. Why is that? It's because of the emotions you feel when you hear the noise - negative thinking. I am sitting in a quiet room now and I can hear mine, but the emotions I have felt with the noise in the past were very negative. Now, the noise is something that is just there. I have no emotion to the ringing (apart from occasional moments)
3.) I am mostly habituated. I don't have to sleep with a masker anymore. I don't obsess over the noise. I have no depression associated with it. The only thing I have associated with it is anxiety (however I have an anxiety disorder) that it will get worse. That's my only concern but bear in my I am an obsessive compulsive and sometimes the fear of suffering is sometimes worse than the actual suffering itself.
4.) Honestly I would not recommend Lenire but I have not tried it. My reason is that I have followed new treatments over the years and saw all the hype, the buzz, the dissatisfaction over the years and Lenire so far is going the same way in my opinion. However, if you're prepared to spend 3000 Euro on a treatment that has received little press, no publication of peer review and not so many positive comments on here then it's a huge gamble. You don't owe it to the community, but you do owe it yourself to find peace, whether that is trying Lenire is your call. Also I have spent money before on therapies and the gut wrenching heartache when the tinnitus stayed the same was heart breaking.
5.) People will say tinnitus goes away once they habituate. My friend told me his went away but in most cases that doesn't happen. What really happens is that your brain becomes so used to it, the attention to it becomes less and less. Like the sound of a fridge, you don't hear it because you're so used to it or the noise doesn't signal any importance. That's what habituation is... you just learn to live with it.
I regularly talk to somebody with tinnitus who can always hear it over his truck diesel engine driving and he only 'hears' it when we talk about it because he's that used to it.
You'll be fine.
If you react during the first 6 weeks just keep going. There is value in returning to Neuromod after 12 weeks, at least to get a MML reading, but I think we can do very well without the 6-week checkup. At least until they put some proper data behind the choice of second timing instead of just blind trial and error.
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