I usually say what I think. Many may think this is not in good taste. My tinnitus is fresh because is about 3 weeks so I can't compare to your suffering. But I wouldn't last as long as you did. I admire your desire to live with this horrible illness.
But sometimes if something is not bearable at all, then what can we do? If somebody would say to us that in 2025 there will be cure for tinnitus than there is an anchor to catch and try. But there is literally nothing now and I bet within 5-10 years too.
In my opinion life is great as long as you enjoy it. It is hardly to do if you are seriously ill - and tinnitus is such illness.
- First of all, there are promising cures/treatments in the making that involve cochlear cell regeneration undergoing clinical trials and roughly, realistically, 10 to 15 years away, there is also neuromodulation based therapy available since this year (look up "Lenire") which may/can alleviate your symptoms.
- Second of all, time is always on your side, 1. through the habituation process (which over 90% of sufferers eventually undertake, though since it's a physiological process (and not a psychological one, as most people believe), this takes time (usually 6 to 18 months) and because it is tied to brain plasticity, some people cannot habituate, they are a minority though so the odds are in your favour), habituation isn't a cure, but it allows you to lead a normal life again.
2. Through healing, while a lot of the sustained damage from a trauma is irreversible (specifically cell death), a large part of it, isn't, and assuming you take care of your ears soon after the onset, they can (for the most part), given time, recover. This does not happen overnight and the ears are one of the slowest organs to heal (though realistically, most organs take time to heal), this means that tinnitus can eventually fade IF you protect your ears, avoid headphones and avoid loud noise exposure during the months following the trauma, recovery can take up to two years (I did say it is slow) and is very gradual (it very slowly fades as time goes by, until you eventually notice it isn't as loud or persistent as it was).
When I first had my tinnitus, it was at a severe debilitating level, covering everything up to 60+dB and disturbing enough that I couldn't think or read properly, (yes, tinnitus can be that loud, debilitating and intrusive), this level of tinnitus lasted for about 23 days, until it got to moderate and it only got mild a couple of days ago, 2 months after the onset, it is currently at 1/10 since last night, it was at 8/10 when it first started), of course I did everything to possibly increase and improve recovery, from taking large doses of prednisone for a month, to going to 7 mHBOT sessions, which I'd like to think helped somewhat recover faster, but I don't know for sure if it had any effect, what I know did, is that I kept my ears protected from loud noises everytime I was outside my home or workplace, this is paramount to a proper recovery and should be done up to 4 months, if not 6, after a noise trauma, loud noise exposure after trauma will only delay recovery further, if not impair it as your damaged ear cells would be more prone to permanent damage (as they have yet to heal).
Just like when you break a bone, you can't just carelessly move it around if you want it to mend, this is why we use casts, you can bring that same reasoning to your ears, while you can't use casts on these, you can use noise protections and let your auditory nerve and cochlear stereocilia heal, just like for bones, this is a lengthy process that does not happen overnight, and the more you stress it, the less likely you are going to get a proper recovery. The body takes weeks to fully heal scar tissues in a young and healthy individual, that should be telling.
I do believe having a positive mindset helps through the recovery, my tinnitus went from severe to mild a few days after I changed my mindset from being suicidal to being positive, is it a coincidence? Perhaps, but I'd like to think it isn't. Either way, negativity is not going to help you or anyone else, it will also block the habituation process (so long as the noise is perceived as a threat, it will be processed through the amygdala rather than the nucleus accumbens and will literally block habituation as the amygdala does not have receptors that deregulates, which means it can't shrink, which means it will always perceive the sound as loud/threatening, while the nucleus accumbens handles repetitive, (mostly annoying), background noises, so the way you perceive the noise is actually important to recovery, assuming it does not fade or entirely fade on its own, in which case, you will want to eventually habituate, I can't stress enough that this process is physiological and cannot be rushed.
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