This will be a bit of a read.
I am only a month into my journey with tinnitus & hyperacusis. I don't know how bad mine is compared to yours but it's a shockingly loud jet engine in my head and I can't even watch the TV or listen to music on so I am probably at least moderate.
It started with most of what I read here. New medications, an acoustic trauma, what the heck is that jet engine in my head, why isn't it going away, I don't think I can live like this, what happens if it never goes away, what happens if it gets worse, that friggin' leaf blower? Next up is research, this makes it worse but also makes it better, some limited studies, no studies, studies with the opposite result, helped me, not sure if it helped me, it hurt me. Masking, no masking, don't overprotect. Then doctors don't understand this, most ENTs will tell you to go home and live with it, lots of scary stories, a few good stories, people mad about good stories, lots more scary stories. I cataloged every reasonable sounding thing that could help with emphasis on stuff with studies and some indication of therapeutic benefit. The list has almost 100 items on it. Everything from vitamin A to Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT). Overload, resisting a feeling of helplessness, exhaustion, now what? One thing was clear. 50 million Americans deal with this, it's real, some people suffer beyond words. But curiously, for some it's a minor annoyance, or that, it went away. There are 35,000 people here, where are the other 49 million? Some suffering in silence to be sure but all 49 million? Why did my father spend 45 years in construction with the most hearing damage inducing tools imaginable and never once any ear protection and no problem? I have his genes. I measured my leaf blower, all 15 seconds worth and then some construction tools. Have you ever heard a full on Skill saw plow through wet pressure treated lumber or a planar eating through maple? Holy crap! What's up with my wussy leaf blower incident?
I am a retired engineer. I like to research, solve problems, see evidence and proof. I spent most of my career and life in a world of numbers, data and measurement. I was good at my job, I am good at solving hard problems but I can be hyper vigilant, a little OCD, wound up, I'll sleep when I die, I need more time in the day, it's gotta be perfect. You don't launch moon rockets with a "good enough" attitude. Well you might get them to launch but...
I have been through high levels of stress before and this has caused health problems like heart arrhythmia in the late 90's. I started to learn then about the mind-body connection. Around 2000 I had some very eye opening experiences with some energy healers in Hawaii and elsewhere, things that challenged my perception of the world, things that I could not explain. There was more going on than just blood tests, scans, medicine, ... Our bodies and minds are more complex and interconnected than I thought and there is energy in many forms all around us it seemed.
My wife underwent cancer surgery on her throat 10 years ago. The nurse that wheeled her back said the surgery would start at 7:30am. I sat in the waiting room and at 7:30am, nothing. At 8:30am, nothing. At 9:15am I got this tension and painful lump in my throat, it was hard to swallow. What the hell is that? At noon I am wondering why have we not heard anything yet? Then the doctor comes out and reports a successful surgery and says sorry about the late morning but we had issues and a late start. I asked what time the actually operation started and he tells me shortly after 9am. Whoa, what the heck is going on there?
The last 5 years for me have been the most stressful ever. 5 years of cancer treatments and no cure. Wife got cancer and passed away at 54 after 9 brutal months. A cascading set of problems from cancer treatments and then COVID-19 isolation. I tell you this because it will be relevant to my conclusions so far and where I am going on my journey. We all have our crosses to bear. Many of us suffer for all kinds of reasons here, many more than me but stay tuned.
During this month some things started to puzzle me. Why did such a high percentage of people with this problem talk about perfectionism, anxiety and depression disorders, display such hyper vigilant focus. No judgment, I am most of these things. Why did my brother-in-law say oh ya I have had that since the army 25 years ago, it's no big deal? Did he have a milder version or is it his state of mind? He says that about everything, "oh that's nothing, it will just go away." He's been through emergency bowel perforation surgery and some terrible bike accidents so he has had his share but he's fit and active and just presses on no matter what.
Why does tinnitus go away for some people and some report 50 years with it? Why did so many people get downright defensive and really pissed off if someone tries to tell a success story? What button is that really pushing? Just frustration, maybe not so much? I know that everyone is bioindividual and there are degrees of most illnesses but this one is really all over the map.
Before I tell you what I think I have learned so far, a few definitions. I will never say hypochondriac. That means it's consciously made up. The person knows that they are really not sick. I believe that almost everyone here suffers, let's assume all. Psychosomatic is not hypochondria, it merely says that emotions and your central nervous system interact with your apparent physical body. You get into a yelling match with your challenging teenager and you have a tinnitus flare. That's psychosomatic, you revved up your central nervous system and your tinnitus really got worse. Placebo: something benign causes change because you believe it will. This does not say that the effect is not real, it says that if you believe it will work it will work. It's not BS, it tells us something about the mind body connection and how we can get better.
I think that it's constructive to separate deafness and permanent hearing loss from tinnitus and hyperacusis. It is pretty generally accepted that acoustic trauma can damage hair cells in the inner ear for instance and in SEM photos they look all withered up and fallen over like dead trees. Most believe that they can never regenerate or be repaired. I am not so sure about that as an absolute statement but let's go with that for now. Protect what you got, there are no do overs. With an acoustic event bad enough your number one concern is permanent measurable and debilitating hearing loss. Gunfire, bombs, explosions. Think Pete Townsend and The Who on the Smothers Brothers Show. Townsend suffered complete and total deafness in that ear. I competed in shooting competitions and if you get caught with your ear protection off with a large caliber weapon discharging nearby, it is shockingly loud. Some strategies are trying to address that issue, trying to avoid the worst case hearing loss as a result of that trauma. Trying to combat hair cell death in the immediate days and hours after a massive trauma. NAC or steroid injections into the eardrum are examples. Protect the hair cells and limit the subsequent oxidative stress damage, etc.
Separately however is the question, what are tinnitus and hyperacusis? Why does our body act like we have a severed limb and generate, in this case phantom or phantom like noise or sensitivity to sound. It is in our heads, literally, but why? What purpose can the jet engine in my head have especially since I did not suffer any perceivable hearing loss? Many here report perfect hearing test results. I didn't get tested and if I did I don't have a baseline but I didn't notice any hearing loss at least. Maybe for a period it's inflamed nerves or muscles and the whole thing needs to settle down, a period of quite is probably in order like a sprained ankle, but what's going on years later?
A few things are clear. Keep your body in top shape including your vitamin and mineral status, through a healthy diet if possible. Manage stress and sleep right. Make good lifestyle choices. When that firecracker goes off you want your Glutathione status tip top so that you minimize the possibility of oxidative stress damage in your inner ear by example.
If you have an acoustic trauma that is bad enough to dull your hearing, consider getting to an experienced ENT to get some treatment or go with some study based supplementation like NAC plus Glycine like the military uses. If you're going to take a medicine assault like Cisplatin chemo consider protective supplementation to prevent ototoxicity or if tinnitus starts, do the same immediately. But that's all the immediate damage from an assault on the inner ear. What about tinnitus and hyperacusis in the weeks, months or years after all of the original trauma is long over. What is going on with us now? Why is there a jet engine in my head with no major hearing loss? Why has my body betrayed my like this. Ed Harris portraying Beethoven yelled to God "why do you infest my mind so!?".
I was deep into my list of 100 potential treatments and I came across this video of a guy that says he cured his tinnitus. He said basically that he needed to get his head right and get his system settled down and it went away, that the ringing is not your ears, it's your brain. Not hypochondria, it's psychosomatic (my words). I then started reading the comments and one guy referenced a book by Dr. John Sarno. Holy crap, I remember that guy. I read his book on back pain. Howard Stern turned me on to that guy's book decades ago after years of debilitating back pain. The basic premise is that your pain is real but it's an endless loop of negative feedback between your brain and its thoughts about back pain and your back. Once he was able to convince people of this, their back pain went away. Not everybody was down with the whole thing but he helped a lot of people including me. The point that really got me hooked was he studied a group of people with back pain complaints and a group that were asymptomatic and he studied their films. The percentage of spine abnormalities (including slipped disks) and nerve problems was the same in both groups! Whoa!?
So I'm sitting at my computer absorbing this notion that we have some control over a revved up central nervous system that is influencing our brain to delivery this incessant infestation of noise and being amazed by the Dr. Sarno connection to my successful back improvement and my tinnitus completely disappeared for about 30 seconds. Yes, it slowly came back but what the hell was that? It has been nonstop for weeks, no breaks of silence until then. This proves nothing yet BUT, can this experience be sustained? It's the first thing besides limiting salt that has helped and the only thing that caused total silence even if only for 30 seconds.
I then bought Dr. Sarno's book – The Divided Mind and further links brought me to Julian Cowan Hill's book – Tinnitus, From Tyrant to Friend (he also has YouTube videos). I have started with the second book. The basic premise is that we need to calm our central nervous system. Most tinnitus sufferers have a similar personality which is revved up or fearful and hyper focused and that our CNS has manufactured the noise long after any trauma is over and you can reduce or eliminate it with some work. Listening for it all the time, worrying about it, being told it will never go away and listening to too many negative stories all add up to staying in this heightened state of "red alert" as he calls it. I think that this is part of why some people get relief if doctors give them medicine to calm them down in the beginning, we get more relaxed and start to not GAS about it. Some people even talk about trippy drugs bringing relief.
For those of you that really need a more mechanical and relatable approach, consider plasticity, the notion that the brain and our CNS can change and reroute. Stroke function recovery, my nerve function recovery four years after surgery damage in 2016. I can change my blood pressure and heart rate through relaxation exercises. What else is possible?
I suspect that this will not resonate with everyone here, might anger some. I might even take a few flamethrowers. That's OK, do what works for you. I will suggest that if this pisses you off, ask yourself why? I am trying to offer some food for thought that might help some people. I am now convinced that at a bare minimum, some of us that might be hyper vigilant and fearful of the entire thing might get at least some relief if we can accept this and then start calming down the CNS. Like breaking the cycle that causes panic attacks on a less obvious level. Ever had a panic attack or watched someone going through one? It's real, it's scary, they are suffering AND it is frequently psychosomatic. That people like me that have suffered immense stress need to get out of our heads and settle things down. The psychosomatic connection to illness has helped reduce my suffering in the past so I'm going down this path for now. In addition, I am going to pursue some supplements and foods that make sense for a stressed out guy my age that wants to protect his hearing and his health in general. I am almost certainly B12 and Glutathione deficient for instance.
I'll let you know how things go. All the best for some relief to all of you who are suffering.
George
I am only a month into my journey with tinnitus & hyperacusis. I don't know how bad mine is compared to yours but it's a shockingly loud jet engine in my head and I can't even watch the TV or listen to music on so I am probably at least moderate.
It started with most of what I read here. New medications, an acoustic trauma, what the heck is that jet engine in my head, why isn't it going away, I don't think I can live like this, what happens if it never goes away, what happens if it gets worse, that friggin' leaf blower? Next up is research, this makes it worse but also makes it better, some limited studies, no studies, studies with the opposite result, helped me, not sure if it helped me, it hurt me. Masking, no masking, don't overprotect. Then doctors don't understand this, most ENTs will tell you to go home and live with it, lots of scary stories, a few good stories, people mad about good stories, lots more scary stories. I cataloged every reasonable sounding thing that could help with emphasis on stuff with studies and some indication of therapeutic benefit. The list has almost 100 items on it. Everything from vitamin A to Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT). Overload, resisting a feeling of helplessness, exhaustion, now what? One thing was clear. 50 million Americans deal with this, it's real, some people suffer beyond words. But curiously, for some it's a minor annoyance, or that, it went away. There are 35,000 people here, where are the other 49 million? Some suffering in silence to be sure but all 49 million? Why did my father spend 45 years in construction with the most hearing damage inducing tools imaginable and never once any ear protection and no problem? I have his genes. I measured my leaf blower, all 15 seconds worth and then some construction tools. Have you ever heard a full on Skill saw plow through wet pressure treated lumber or a planar eating through maple? Holy crap! What's up with my wussy leaf blower incident?
I am a retired engineer. I like to research, solve problems, see evidence and proof. I spent most of my career and life in a world of numbers, data and measurement. I was good at my job, I am good at solving hard problems but I can be hyper vigilant, a little OCD, wound up, I'll sleep when I die, I need more time in the day, it's gotta be perfect. You don't launch moon rockets with a "good enough" attitude. Well you might get them to launch but...
I have been through high levels of stress before and this has caused health problems like heart arrhythmia in the late 90's. I started to learn then about the mind-body connection. Around 2000 I had some very eye opening experiences with some energy healers in Hawaii and elsewhere, things that challenged my perception of the world, things that I could not explain. There was more going on than just blood tests, scans, medicine, ... Our bodies and minds are more complex and interconnected than I thought and there is energy in many forms all around us it seemed.
My wife underwent cancer surgery on her throat 10 years ago. The nurse that wheeled her back said the surgery would start at 7:30am. I sat in the waiting room and at 7:30am, nothing. At 8:30am, nothing. At 9:15am I got this tension and painful lump in my throat, it was hard to swallow. What the hell is that? At noon I am wondering why have we not heard anything yet? Then the doctor comes out and reports a successful surgery and says sorry about the late morning but we had issues and a late start. I asked what time the actually operation started and he tells me shortly after 9am. Whoa, what the heck is going on there?
The last 5 years for me have been the most stressful ever. 5 years of cancer treatments and no cure. Wife got cancer and passed away at 54 after 9 brutal months. A cascading set of problems from cancer treatments and then COVID-19 isolation. I tell you this because it will be relevant to my conclusions so far and where I am going on my journey. We all have our crosses to bear. Many of us suffer for all kinds of reasons here, many more than me but stay tuned.
During this month some things started to puzzle me. Why did such a high percentage of people with this problem talk about perfectionism, anxiety and depression disorders, display such hyper vigilant focus. No judgment, I am most of these things. Why did my brother-in-law say oh ya I have had that since the army 25 years ago, it's no big deal? Did he have a milder version or is it his state of mind? He says that about everything, "oh that's nothing, it will just go away." He's been through emergency bowel perforation surgery and some terrible bike accidents so he has had his share but he's fit and active and just presses on no matter what.
Why does tinnitus go away for some people and some report 50 years with it? Why did so many people get downright defensive and really pissed off if someone tries to tell a success story? What button is that really pushing? Just frustration, maybe not so much? I know that everyone is bioindividual and there are degrees of most illnesses but this one is really all over the map.
Before I tell you what I think I have learned so far, a few definitions. I will never say hypochondriac. That means it's consciously made up. The person knows that they are really not sick. I believe that almost everyone here suffers, let's assume all. Psychosomatic is not hypochondria, it merely says that emotions and your central nervous system interact with your apparent physical body. You get into a yelling match with your challenging teenager and you have a tinnitus flare. That's psychosomatic, you revved up your central nervous system and your tinnitus really got worse. Placebo: something benign causes change because you believe it will. This does not say that the effect is not real, it says that if you believe it will work it will work. It's not BS, it tells us something about the mind body connection and how we can get better.
I think that it's constructive to separate deafness and permanent hearing loss from tinnitus and hyperacusis. It is pretty generally accepted that acoustic trauma can damage hair cells in the inner ear for instance and in SEM photos they look all withered up and fallen over like dead trees. Most believe that they can never regenerate or be repaired. I am not so sure about that as an absolute statement but let's go with that for now. Protect what you got, there are no do overs. With an acoustic event bad enough your number one concern is permanent measurable and debilitating hearing loss. Gunfire, bombs, explosions. Think Pete Townsend and The Who on the Smothers Brothers Show. Townsend suffered complete and total deafness in that ear. I competed in shooting competitions and if you get caught with your ear protection off with a large caliber weapon discharging nearby, it is shockingly loud. Some strategies are trying to address that issue, trying to avoid the worst case hearing loss as a result of that trauma. Trying to combat hair cell death in the immediate days and hours after a massive trauma. NAC or steroid injections into the eardrum are examples. Protect the hair cells and limit the subsequent oxidative stress damage, etc.
Separately however is the question, what are tinnitus and hyperacusis? Why does our body act like we have a severed limb and generate, in this case phantom or phantom like noise or sensitivity to sound. It is in our heads, literally, but why? What purpose can the jet engine in my head have especially since I did not suffer any perceivable hearing loss? Many here report perfect hearing test results. I didn't get tested and if I did I don't have a baseline but I didn't notice any hearing loss at least. Maybe for a period it's inflamed nerves or muscles and the whole thing needs to settle down, a period of quite is probably in order like a sprained ankle, but what's going on years later?
A few things are clear. Keep your body in top shape including your vitamin and mineral status, through a healthy diet if possible. Manage stress and sleep right. Make good lifestyle choices. When that firecracker goes off you want your Glutathione status tip top so that you minimize the possibility of oxidative stress damage in your inner ear by example.
If you have an acoustic trauma that is bad enough to dull your hearing, consider getting to an experienced ENT to get some treatment or go with some study based supplementation like NAC plus Glycine like the military uses. If you're going to take a medicine assault like Cisplatin chemo consider protective supplementation to prevent ototoxicity or if tinnitus starts, do the same immediately. But that's all the immediate damage from an assault on the inner ear. What about tinnitus and hyperacusis in the weeks, months or years after all of the original trauma is long over. What is going on with us now? Why is there a jet engine in my head with no major hearing loss? Why has my body betrayed my like this. Ed Harris portraying Beethoven yelled to God "why do you infest my mind so!?".
I was deep into my list of 100 potential treatments and I came across this video of a guy that says he cured his tinnitus. He said basically that he needed to get his head right and get his system settled down and it went away, that the ringing is not your ears, it's your brain. Not hypochondria, it's psychosomatic (my words). I then started reading the comments and one guy referenced a book by Dr. John Sarno. Holy crap, I remember that guy. I read his book on back pain. Howard Stern turned me on to that guy's book decades ago after years of debilitating back pain. The basic premise is that your pain is real but it's an endless loop of negative feedback between your brain and its thoughts about back pain and your back. Once he was able to convince people of this, their back pain went away. Not everybody was down with the whole thing but he helped a lot of people including me. The point that really got me hooked was he studied a group of people with back pain complaints and a group that were asymptomatic and he studied their films. The percentage of spine abnormalities (including slipped disks) and nerve problems was the same in both groups! Whoa!?
So I'm sitting at my computer absorbing this notion that we have some control over a revved up central nervous system that is influencing our brain to delivery this incessant infestation of noise and being amazed by the Dr. Sarno connection to my successful back improvement and my tinnitus completely disappeared for about 30 seconds. Yes, it slowly came back but what the hell was that? It has been nonstop for weeks, no breaks of silence until then. This proves nothing yet BUT, can this experience be sustained? It's the first thing besides limiting salt that has helped and the only thing that caused total silence even if only for 30 seconds.
I then bought Dr. Sarno's book – The Divided Mind and further links brought me to Julian Cowan Hill's book – Tinnitus, From Tyrant to Friend (he also has YouTube videos). I have started with the second book. The basic premise is that we need to calm our central nervous system. Most tinnitus sufferers have a similar personality which is revved up or fearful and hyper focused and that our CNS has manufactured the noise long after any trauma is over and you can reduce or eliminate it with some work. Listening for it all the time, worrying about it, being told it will never go away and listening to too many negative stories all add up to staying in this heightened state of "red alert" as he calls it. I think that this is part of why some people get relief if doctors give them medicine to calm them down in the beginning, we get more relaxed and start to not GAS about it. Some people even talk about trippy drugs bringing relief.
For those of you that really need a more mechanical and relatable approach, consider plasticity, the notion that the brain and our CNS can change and reroute. Stroke function recovery, my nerve function recovery four years after surgery damage in 2016. I can change my blood pressure and heart rate through relaxation exercises. What else is possible?
I suspect that this will not resonate with everyone here, might anger some. I might even take a few flamethrowers. That's OK, do what works for you. I will suggest that if this pisses you off, ask yourself why? I am trying to offer some food for thought that might help some people. I am now convinced that at a bare minimum, some of us that might be hyper vigilant and fearful of the entire thing might get at least some relief if we can accept this and then start calming down the CNS. Like breaking the cycle that causes panic attacks on a less obvious level. Ever had a panic attack or watched someone going through one? It's real, it's scary, they are suffering AND it is frequently psychosomatic. That people like me that have suffered immense stress need to get out of our heads and settle things down. The psychosomatic connection to illness has helped reduce my suffering in the past so I'm going down this path for now. In addition, I am going to pursue some supplements and foods that make sense for a stressed out guy my age that wants to protect his hearing and his health in general. I am almost certainly B12 and Glutathione deficient for instance.
I'll let you know how things go. All the best for some relief to all of you who are suffering.
George
Member
