Hi everyone,
I used to be a regular poster many years back, but haven't visited for a long time as I'd consider myself fully habituated.
A quick back story:
I got tinnitus around 17 years ago from loud noise exposure (nightclubs). I struggled to cope and a few years in I didn't leave the house, I stopped working, sunk into major depression, had to wear maskers 24/7 to cope, spent most of my days reading about tinnitus, and was to be honest, suicidal. Being exposed to any level of sound above a normal conversational level would induce worry lasting weeks and constant checking behaviours to see if the T had changed, my limbic system was tuned in to it constantly.
Habituation:
Around 9 years ago I sorted myself out. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but there were significant changes in my personal life that meant I had to work, I had to leave the house, and I think in some ways this put me on the path to habituation. Up until last week, I would have considered myself a 'conqueror of tinnitus'. I now have a great career, a home, a relationship, I go on holidays, take long car journeys without putting plugs in (all thing I would never have dreamed off in the earlier years). I still have ups and downs of course, but noise exposures seldom worry me now, and even if I do the worry is transient. I'm still careful and avoid anything overly loud (concerts, cinema, power tools etc) but on the whole can do most things without issue. I often look back at how far I've come and think wow, the progress is something I feel grateful for, and I guess I'm almost proud of.
I should add I adopted my own perhaps unusual technic over the years which really helped me - if I'm somewhere a little 'noisy' (e.g a busy restaurant) , I plug ONE ear. This may seem strange, but plugging one ear mitigated the agonising worry that I'd done damage after being somewhere 'noisy'. With one ear plugged, if the situation had induced damage, well then I could be sure of it (because of course the unplugged ear would have an increase in T and the plugged ear would remain unchanged). This allowed me to go out and socialise still (because I could hear conversation through my unplugged ear) but also eliminated any worry that I had done damage as ultimately, there was never a distinguishable increase in my unplugged ear. Over time as I've got braver, there are many situations now where I don't even feel the need to use my one plug technic, however I still reserve it for some situations (e.g. places with crowds, and also places were I feel like there is a chance of sudden loud noise exposure)
Wednesday last week:
Last week I went to a training session, there were 30 people in a small-ish room, however as the majority of the session would simply be one trainer talking to the attendees I hadn't anticipated it would be an issue, and I decided not to use my one plug technic (my first error). I arrived to the session early (my second error!) and was in the room about 20 minutes before the session started. Many people hadn't seen each other since the pandemic so there was a lot of talking, all at once, in this enclosed room space, I was having to raise my voice to talk to the person next to me. I should have one plugged at this point, or better still left and returned at the session start, but bravery got the best of me I think and trumped sense. The session started my habituated brain quickly chalked the exposure up as not enough to worry about (I'm guessing high 80db's max at some points in those 20 minutes). I had a couple of other 'exposures' that day, the trainer wolf whistled at one point to get everyone's attention, and later, I got in a friends car and her music blared out for a few seconds before she turned it off. Still, I came home and told myself my usual mantra 'it wasn't that loud, you may spike for a day or two, but it will settle and you'll be fine'. I honestly thought that would be the case....
Today:
My ears did spike in the days following the incident, louder, new Morse code sounds, ears zoning in and out. A couple days in I was still able to keep my worry at bay using the resilience I've built up over the years and told myself it would settle.
I'm now on day 12, and the spike is real, my ears feel full with the sound, the sound hasn't much changed, but it has definitely ramped up in volume. I feel like I've been catapulted backwards 9 years to my darkest days. It's always been my biggest fear to go back to that place, and now I feel like I'm heading back to that headspace fast. I'm also dealing with intense anger at myself that I didn't leave the room, or at least use my 'plug one ear' method which would have determined one way or the other if this is indeed an increase or if I'm simply focusing on the tinnitus more. However, after years of having T at the same baseline, and being able to erase worry quite quickly, I'm quite certain this is indeed an increase and not 'all in my head'.
For anyone who has read the entirety of this post thank you. It is now, as it was when I posted many years ago, therapeutic at least to get my struggles out onto a page knowing the people who read it will 'get it'.
If there are any old timers who've experienced a spike after years of habituation, I would appreciate any insight you have to offer.
Thank you x
I used to be a regular poster many years back, but haven't visited for a long time as I'd consider myself fully habituated.
A quick back story:
I got tinnitus around 17 years ago from loud noise exposure (nightclubs). I struggled to cope and a few years in I didn't leave the house, I stopped working, sunk into major depression, had to wear maskers 24/7 to cope, spent most of my days reading about tinnitus, and was to be honest, suicidal. Being exposed to any level of sound above a normal conversational level would induce worry lasting weeks and constant checking behaviours to see if the T had changed, my limbic system was tuned in to it constantly.
Habituation:
Around 9 years ago I sorted myself out. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but there were significant changes in my personal life that meant I had to work, I had to leave the house, and I think in some ways this put me on the path to habituation. Up until last week, I would have considered myself a 'conqueror of tinnitus'. I now have a great career, a home, a relationship, I go on holidays, take long car journeys without putting plugs in (all thing I would never have dreamed off in the earlier years). I still have ups and downs of course, but noise exposures seldom worry me now, and even if I do the worry is transient. I'm still careful and avoid anything overly loud (concerts, cinema, power tools etc) but on the whole can do most things without issue. I often look back at how far I've come and think wow, the progress is something I feel grateful for, and I guess I'm almost proud of.
I should add I adopted my own perhaps unusual technic over the years which really helped me - if I'm somewhere a little 'noisy' (e.g a busy restaurant) , I plug ONE ear. This may seem strange, but plugging one ear mitigated the agonising worry that I'd done damage after being somewhere 'noisy'. With one ear plugged, if the situation had induced damage, well then I could be sure of it (because of course the unplugged ear would have an increase in T and the plugged ear would remain unchanged). This allowed me to go out and socialise still (because I could hear conversation through my unplugged ear) but also eliminated any worry that I had done damage as ultimately, there was never a distinguishable increase in my unplugged ear. Over time as I've got braver, there are many situations now where I don't even feel the need to use my one plug technic, however I still reserve it for some situations (e.g. places with crowds, and also places were I feel like there is a chance of sudden loud noise exposure)
Wednesday last week:
Last week I went to a training session, there were 30 people in a small-ish room, however as the majority of the session would simply be one trainer talking to the attendees I hadn't anticipated it would be an issue, and I decided not to use my one plug technic (my first error). I arrived to the session early (my second error!) and was in the room about 20 minutes before the session started. Many people hadn't seen each other since the pandemic so there was a lot of talking, all at once, in this enclosed room space, I was having to raise my voice to talk to the person next to me. I should have one plugged at this point, or better still left and returned at the session start, but bravery got the best of me I think and trumped sense. The session started my habituated brain quickly chalked the exposure up as not enough to worry about (I'm guessing high 80db's max at some points in those 20 minutes). I had a couple of other 'exposures' that day, the trainer wolf whistled at one point to get everyone's attention, and later, I got in a friends car and her music blared out for a few seconds before she turned it off. Still, I came home and told myself my usual mantra 'it wasn't that loud, you may spike for a day or two, but it will settle and you'll be fine'. I honestly thought that would be the case....
Today:
My ears did spike in the days following the incident, louder, new Morse code sounds, ears zoning in and out. A couple days in I was still able to keep my worry at bay using the resilience I've built up over the years and told myself it would settle.
I'm now on day 12, and the spike is real, my ears feel full with the sound, the sound hasn't much changed, but it has definitely ramped up in volume. I feel like I've been catapulted backwards 9 years to my darkest days. It's always been my biggest fear to go back to that place, and now I feel like I'm heading back to that headspace fast. I'm also dealing with intense anger at myself that I didn't leave the room, or at least use my 'plug one ear' method which would have determined one way or the other if this is indeed an increase or if I'm simply focusing on the tinnitus more. However, after years of having T at the same baseline, and being able to erase worry quite quickly, I'm quite certain this is indeed an increase and not 'all in my head'.
For anyone who has read the entirety of this post thank you. It is now, as it was when I posted many years ago, therapeutic at least to get my struggles out onto a page knowing the people who read it will 'get it'.
If there are any old timers who've experienced a spike after years of habituation, I would appreciate any insight you have to offer.
Thank you x
Member
Now I hear my tinnitus pretty much everywhere :/ It is loud hissing is what I have for the most part. Ear that is worse has louder hissing and still hurts sometimes so I think I'm not done with the ear infection. 
