My Tinnitus Has Become Intrusive Due to Ear Infection, Need Advice

[Bazan]

Hi all


Just need some advice, from you wonderful people who have to live with this…… I've had very mild tinnitus for 10 years only ever heard it at night time, kind of forgot I had it, ….. had an ear infection in November and with that and it now become loud and intrusive.

I then started having panic attacks anxiety and major depression, the anti-depressants have really helped with the nasty effects, but I'm still struggling to cope with new sound, I am guessing it's going to take time to get used it?

Kind feel like I am in a bubble, had to have a few weeks of work, but I have returned and glad as I was dwelling on it at home to much, but finding it hard to concentrate, only been back 4 days, feels like I'm living one day at a time at mo, I'm exercising / swimming every lunch hour and find that really helps lift my mood, was wondering if there is any chance it may calm down to a low level??


Best wishes


Brian

 

[billie48]

was wondering if there is any chance it may calm down to a low level??

Welcome to the forum, Brian. Sorry to hear you are suffering from the spike. If the spike is for sure coming from the ear infection, then once the cause of the spike, the infection, is taken care of and the ears going back to normal, you stand a very good chance the T will fade back to your former tolerable baseline level. Give it some time for the ears to heal and for the central nervous system to learn to fade out this level of T as your new level of T is relatively new.

Being so scared or anxious of T initially is a very normal reaction of the body trying to protect us from harm and danger. We are often very scared when T is new or when it spikes to new level because T is both an alien sensation and a new ailment to your body. Our brain doesn't understand T or its spikes and doesn't know what to expect. Failing to shake the spiking T, the brain just reacts in trauma and shock. Your limbic nervous system kicks in overriding the normal parasympathetic nervous system and you function in fight or flight mode, the defensive mechanism for a human in face of a danger. The fight or flight center or the Amygdala is in control now making every sensation quite acute and intense and you easily succumb to fear and worry as that is how the body tries to protect you. It tends to tell you to be aware of the threatening object which in this case is the new T. That is why we tend to monitor T non-stop initially and can't seem to help it. Unfortunately at this phase when we are overcome by fear and anxiety, panic attacks, depression and sleeplessness are often the result.

Try remaining calm and positive as humanly possible as you can. By being calm and positive, and be more accepting of the new normal, by educating ourselves more about T and its spikes (like what you are learning by joining this forum), and by doing some relaxing or interesting activities or by going back to living life again, our brain will have a better chance to restore the normal parasympathetic nervous system, and the pre-frontal cortex will take over processing the T ringing stimulus from the scare-crow center, the Amygdala. One of the functions of pre-frontal cortex is to suppress the fear reaction. It will also let you handle other negative reactions/emotions more normally.

This process is similar to a child being afraid of the dark because of not understanding what it is all about. Fear sets in and stress builds up and the child cries to get help and to relieve the stress. Later on and growing up the child learns more about the dark and the fear fades and no stress/fear will be forth coming to trigger the limbic system. Likewise with our tinnitus experience, our brain needs to take time to understand T more and be more hardened to it so the fear reaction will subside. But this process takes time and may take learning some good strategies. I mention some helpful strategies in my success story dealing with both severe T & H. Perhaps you can benefit by checking it out below. You should read many success stories to have hope which will help calm you. People do get better and their T lowered over time with good strategies. Don't panic nor despair. Good life can be back. Believe it. Take good care. God bless your recovery.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...w-i-recovered-from-tinnitus-hyperacusis.3148/

In the meantime, if your loud T is really bothering you, try to start masking it for the time being. Have you had any idea how to do that?

 

[Bazan]

Hi Billy


Bless you and thank you for taking the time for you very informative information, what you describe re the limbic nervous system is def happened to me with panic attacks / anxiety etc…… which the anti d seem to be controlling and def beginning to feel like my old self again, one day at a time at mo, find exercise am swimming is really helping lift my mood.


I guess only time can heal, really hope the noise come down even a little, so intrusive been 2 months now and no change at all…… ……. def good to be back at work as well, am using white noise from a app oticon / tinnitus sound,


Best,

Brian