My Mum Recently Developed Tinnitus and She Is Totally Chilled About It

[Holly1987]

And she is totally chilled about it, she got it a few weeks ago and said she finds it's pretty irritating but just ignores it, she has told herself to just ignore it and get on with her life. Apparently it's moderately loud and she can hear it over everyday noises.

It blows my mind she is so calm, when I first developed tinnitus (at the start it was very mild) I basically had a nervous breakdown, I was having panic attacks all day and thought my life was over. I wonder if my initial reaction was my undoing... It's so much louder now and I wonder if a lot of that is because of how stressed I was.

Who knows? It's interesting how everyone reacts so differently.

 

[hans799]

I see that you've posted in my thread and said that you're also very nervous about T getting worse.

I think this has a lot to do with fundamental personality traits. I desire control over all aspects of my life, and score high on Neuroticism (baseline anxiety) on the Big 5 (OCEAN) personality test. As such, a condition that generates anxiety and cannot be controlled is my antithesis and results in a lot worry and suffering.

I bet that you're very similar. While your mother must be a very chill, low-anxiety person.

One of my best friends has classical noise-induced tinnitus. His girlfriend dragged him to a party and they stood near a loudspeaker. He has had high-pitched, medium-level T ever since. Says it took him half a year to sleep normally again. Yet he wasn't panicking, or visiting T forums. He didn't even mention it for years... until I specifically asked him about T when I was going through a rough patch. He saw it as an unpleasantness, but nothing tragic or life-altering.

It is what it is. Neurotic and controlling personalities are very useful in many life situations; T is not one of them.

 

[dougwarby]

And she is totally chilled about it, she got it a few weeks ago and said she finds it's pretty irritating but just ignores it, she has told herself to just ignore it and get on with her life. Apparently it's moderately loud and she can hear it over everyday noises.

It blows my mind she is so calm, when I first developed tinnitus (at the start it was very mild) I basically had a nervous breakdown, I was having panic attacks all day and thought my life was over. I wonder if my initial reaction was my undoing... It's so much louder now and I wonder if a lot of that is because of how stressed I was.

Who knows? It's interesting how everyone reacts so differently.

Good luck to her, I guess she is an example of how we should all manage our T, if only I could be so relaxed about it

 

[Agrajag364]

And she is totally chilled about it, she got it a few weeks ago and said she finds it's pretty irritating but just ignores it, she has told herself to just ignore it and get on with her life. Apparently it's moderately loud and she can hear it over everyday noises.

It blows my mind she is so calm, when I first developed tinnitus (at the start it was very mild) I basically had a nervous breakdown, I was having panic attacks all day and thought my life was over. I wonder if my initial reaction was my undoing... It's so much louder now and I wonder if a lot of that is because of how stressed I was.

Who knows? It's interesting how everyone reacts so differently.

Exactly the same with me and my dear father! I basically had a nervous breakdown and he was pretty chilled about it. And he is a bit of a stress head like me who gets quite intense about stuff sometimes. It really makes you question your reaction to every single thing that's ever happened to you.

 

[Agrajag364]

I see that you've posted in my thread and said that you're also very nervous about T getting worse.

I think this has a lot to do with fundamental personality traits. I desire control over all aspects of my life, and score high on Neuroticism (baseline anxiety) on the Big 5 (OCEAN) personality test. As such, a condition that generates anxiety and cannot be controlled is my antithesis and results in a lot worry and suffering.

I bet that you're very similar. While your mother must be a very chill, low-anxiety person.

One of my best friends has classical noise-induced tinnitus. His girlfriend dragged him to a party and they stood near a loudspeaker. He has had high-pitched, medium-level T ever since. Says it took him half a year to sleep normally again. Yet he wasn't panicking, or visiting T forums. He didn't even mention it for years... until I specifically asked him about T when I was going through a rough patch. He saw it as an unpleasantness, but nothing tragic or life-altering.

It is what it is. Neurotic and controlling personalities are very useful in many life situations; T is not one of them.

I agree with this, but I also do wonder about sound sensitivity in certain individuals-@Holly1987. I always hated sound when I was trying to sleep et cetera before I got tinnitus.

I had a constant headache for two years, something diagnosed as "new daily persistent headache". At the time I thought it would last forever as and yet I was pretty stoical about it, like your friend and his tinnitus- I just accepted it calmly as an unpleasant fact. Yet I cannot do that with the tinnitus, it bothers me far more than the headache ever did. How much of some people is greater reaction to tinnitus is to do with being neurotic and intense and how much it is to do with some kind of physiological sound sensitivity? I'd give a great deal to know the answer to that!


Sorry I post about this a lot in reply to various people on the forum but it pisses me off no end. Why why does this not bother some people from the start and sends others nuts?

 

[Lane]

From my own observations, I've come to believe it's a whole lot easier to be "relaxed" or "chilled" about something like tinnitus--IF--our bodies have a certain resilience to withstand such stress. Not all of us do. From my fairly extensive research, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of what we call "mental illness"--including the types of anxieties and depressions that result from tinnitus--are in fact the result of various kinds of nutritional deficiencies and/or a compromised stress response.

In rare experiments, as many as 90% of institutionalized people diagnosed with schizophrenia are able to be discharged if they followed certain rigorous nutritional guidlines. -- This is why I mostly focus on "foundational" type therapies, to do whatever I can to improve my body's resilience in whatever ways I can. Sleep is especially important for this resilience. There's been many instances where people were initially diagnosed with schizophrenia, when in fact their schizophrenic symptoms were a result of lack of quality sleep.

 

[hans799]

I agree with this, but I also do wonder about sound sensitivity in certain individuals-@Holly1987. I always hated sound when I was trying to sleep et cetera before I got tinnitus.

I have that, too. One of my earliest memories in relation to sound is trying to get my then-baby sister to stop her light mewling during the night because it was keeping me up. In the end I just slept in another room for a while, just couldn't bear with it. Then later I slept in a dorm room for 3 years with 3 other college-age men. Now that was real fun. I literally wrote articles on the various types of earplugs available for sleep.

Would love to see some research on the correlations of tinnitus impact, neuroticism, desire to control, sound sensitivity etc. Unfortunately these are all pretty subjective.

 

[Holly1987]

@hans799 @Agrajag364 I am exactly the same, I can't stand any background noise especially a radio or TV, it drives me crazy. I have been this way from a very early age.

 

[Starthrower]

Who knows? It's interesting how everyone reacts so differently.

@Holly1987 I agree!! Your mom's (non) reaction was interesting to read.

I don't know about some of you but I have a real sensitivity to florscent lighting and the new low energy light bulbs.

 

[Agrajag364]

From my own observations, I've come to believe it's a whole lot easier to be "relaxed" or "chilled" about something like tinnitus--IF--our bodies have a certain resilience to withstand such stress. Not all of us do. From my fairly extensive research, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of what we call "mental illness"--including the types of anxieties and depressions that result from tinnitus--are in fact the result of various kinds of nutritional deficiencies and/or a compromised stress response.

In rare experiments, as many as 90% of institutionalized people diagnosed with schizophrenia are able to be discharged if they followed certain rigorous nutritional guidlines. -- This is why I mostly focus on "foundational" type therapies, to do whatever I can to improve my body's resilience in whatever ways I can. Sleep is especially important for this resilience. There's been many instances where people were initially diagnosed with schizophrenia, when in fact their schizophrenic symptoms were a result of lack of quality sleep.

I would politely disagree with that point about schizophrenia and mental illness. I'm sure nutritional deficiency is a factor in some mental illness.

 

[Bill Bauer]

score high on Neuroticism (baseline anxiety) on the Big 5 (OCEAN) personality test

So do I.

desire to control

I don't know what you mean by that. Doesn't everyone want to minimize discomfort and maximize the number of enjoyable experiences? What would a person who lacks what you call "the desire to control" be like? A vegetable?

 

[coffee_girl]

My grandfather has it too and he just doesn't give an eff, it is loud as a train and he just shrugs it off and continues to do his thing. He's a friggin champ <3

 

[Lane]

I would politely disagree with that point about schizophrenia and mental illness. I'm sure nutritional deficiency is a factor in some mental illness.

I understand the skepticism. However, I had an aunt (about the sweetest person you'd ever want to meet) who developed schizophrenia, so it's always been a topic of interest for me. And I've spent a fair amount of time reading about it. Here's a link to an article that's mostly in line with how I view it: Below the link is a snippet from the article. -- Best...

Niacin Treatment of Schizophrenia
Recent Research Confirms Abram Hoffer's Original Work -- by Robert G. Smith, PhD

Niacin cures many schizophrenics
In the early 1960s, Hoffer and Osmond published studies showing that niacin (also known as nicotinic acid or vitamin B3) given at sufficiently high doses could effectively treat some schizophrenia patients.[3-7] Although Hoffer and Osmond's theories about how niacin could treat schizophrenia were never proven sufficiently to convince the rest of the field, their results in treating thousands of patients with niacin therapy and curing many were striking. The term "orthomolecular" was coined by Linus Pauling for the use of essential nutrients such as niacin in preventing disease, and in particular, schizophrenia.[8] Looking for more recent studies, a search on PubMed of the terms "schizophrenia niacin" returns several dozen articles. One of them asserts that some schizophrenics can be well treated with niacin, and refers to Hoffer and Osmond's early studies, reviewing several theories about likely mechanisms.[9]

 

[Holly1987]

My grandfather has it too and he just doesn't give an eff, it is loud as a train and he just shrugs it off and continues to do his thing. He's a friggin champ <3

I wish I could do that! My Mum was like "it is what it is... life goes on" meanwhile 2 years in and I'm still barely coping!

 

[coffee_girl]

I wish I could do that! My Mum was like "it is what it is... life goes on" meanwhile 2 years in and I'm still barely coping!

Me too, I freak out about it a lot the first 2 years of mine, I really don't know how some people can just ignore it. My grandfather has had his since the war, he says that it gets easier as time goes on. His hasn't changed at all in 50 years so yeah...there's that

 

[hans799]

Doesn't everyone want to minimize discomfort and maximize the number of enjoyable experiences?

You're right, imprecise wording. Of course every living thing does this. But the degree to which an individual craves control certainly varies among people.

There are "control freaks" who have detailed plans for everything, and there are those who just don't really think of consequences and do whatever they like (like the guy who seriously asked in another thread if he can continue DJing after getting T). I lean toward the first.