My Tinnitus Has Changed ...

[Dr. Nagler]

Dr. Nagler will be fine!
He has WNG's and his family and nice home and friends and his circle and security and money and access to therapists and medical help plus he can write his prescriptions and has experience in how to deal with this.

Yes, amandine, I will be fine. I really believe that will be the case. But in truth what will make me fine isn't the things you listed, although I am grateful for them all. What will make me fine is Strategy, Determination, Flexibility, and Insight.

All the best -

stephen nagler

 

[DebInAustralia]

importantly..he has a strategy...one that has worked for him previously..

 

[LadyDi]

Thank you for sharing these recent events with us, @Dr. Nagler. I join the many others in wishing you success on this next leg of your tinnitus journey. I know I will learn and draw strength from your experience and actions, as I have in the past. God speed. And I hope you will take time for yourself, as you have spent much time on others here.

 

[amandine]

What will make me fine is Strategy, Determination, Flexibility, and Insight.

Dr Nagler I sincerely hope that you will be fine really soon and back to 'normal'.

Your post and something else I read today got me thinking....
so here is my burble for what it is worth...

We could all do with being just a little bit more humble. I am as guilty as anyone of arrogance and remind myself to remember this. As the saying goes; ''there by the grace of God go I.''

Please let me explain:
Today I was reading a little snippet of a story written by a homeless man. It was a comment he wrote with respect to a newspaper article about Tinnitus. This young man, whilst sleeping on the streets in doorways and empty buildings, was struck by Tinnitus. Can anyone of us contemplate this awful situation to be in?

He joked that it is only when he is inside buildings that his T is at its worst.
This young man must have tremendous determination to make it though his day. How to get out of his dreadful situation must use up all his flexibility strategy and patience. Due to his current lifestyle and suffering from tinnitus must give him an insight into many aspects of life of which most of us are ignorant. How his T must rage with all the stress of something that most of us must take for granted each night, that of finding somewhere to sleep.
No sit back and relax of an evening for him as he contemplates how bad or weak the signal in his brain is. He has to find something to eat regardless of the electricity buzzing about his head. He no doubt could handle being homeless more easily and could find and fight his way out eventually of that situation. With T, trying to get back in the race must make his way through life so much harder. He surely finds it difficult enough just to get through the day and into his cardboard box at the end of it.

In our comfortable lives we never know what may happen to us tomorrow.
Above all we can remember, compassion and humility, as there by the grace of God go I.
Just a thought...........

 

[gary]

Amandine, nice story, but what exactly is it you are trying to say here. I must be missing something.

 

[Stink]

Amandine, nice story, but what exactly is it you are trying to say here. I must be missing something.

@amandine is beating around the bush. she is saying dr. nagler should sometimes be more sympathetic------his messages can occasionally be harsh . direct . he probably means well

 

[amandine]

@amandine is beating around the bush. she is saying dr. nagler should sometimes be more sympathetic------his messages can occasionally be harsh . direct . he probably means well

No I am not.......read the words then in between them.......please
sympathy is not what i was suggesting at all.

 

[gary]

Hi Amandine, I am really confused here. I see no other word in between. Please share what exactly are you trying to say.

 

[MattK]

Amandine, I am also confused. I think I understand the point of the story and how fortunate we are compared to the homeless guy... But beyond that, I have no clue what you're trying to say. What exactly does this have to do with Dr Nagler and his strategy for coping with tinnitus?

 

[Dr. Nagler]

Had another decent day yesterday. So it definitely looks like I'm moving in a positive direction. My tinnitus is still markedly louder than it was three weeks ago - no change there at all - but it is bothering me less and less, and consequently I am less and less aware of it. In TRT terms, that would Hr and Hp. So when Dr. Jastreboff says that with TRT re-habituating is like re-learning how to ride a bike, I suspect he knows what he's talking about! Much much quicker the second time around.

Sincere thanks to those here who kept me in their thoughts during this rather challenging time for me. I'm probably still going to "lay low" for a bit - but hopefully by next week I'll be back in the swing of things.

stephen nagler

 

[gary]

Dr. Nagler, glad the second time around is easier for you, thanks for keeping us updated. Will be looking forward to reading you're replies, please, just don't rush it. "lay low" as long as you need to....

 

[DebInAustralia]

Im so happy for you Dr Nagler

Good work ☺

 

[Teri]

AWESOME! Glad you are doing better.

 

[jchinnis]

Stephen, you may recall that I went through a major worsening of my tinnitus, along with sudden hearing loss, not that many years ago. I had succeeded in getting back to normal (for me anyway!) a couple of years after my tinnitus first arrived in 1989.

I remember talking with you at the time. I also called Billy Martin.

As you (and Dr. Martin) told me then, I would adjust much more quickly this second time.

And I did. And so will you.

Jim

 

[MattK]

Glad to hear that you're doing better, @Dr. Nagler . I wonder if your tinnitus would still get louder by eating Thai food (I'm sure you wouldn't want to risk it any time soon). But I ask because I just wonder if there has to be an upper limit to how loud tinnitus can get. Like is there a maximum that once you reach it that the brain physically cannot produce a louder version of tinnitus? If that's so and if you've reached it, at least the bright side would be that you can eat Thai food without it worsening.

 

[uncle vikin]

Dr. Nagler ,One day at a time little victory's will add up to full habituation and success again .Prayers and thinking of you and all who have T and such types of hearing disorders. Mike K.

 

[Paul201]

@Dr. Nagler Goodluck hopefully this bolt out of the blue will soon revert to previous levels or else you will habituate to the new level, which must really be loud considering the old levels were too

 

[Dr. Nagler]

Stephen, you may recall that I went through a major worsening of my tinnitus, along with sudden hearing loss, not that many years ago. I had succeeded in getting back to normal (for me anyway!) a couple of years after my tinnitus first arrived in 1989. I remember talking with you at the time. I also called Billy Martin. As you (and Dr. Martin) told me then, I would adjust much more quickly this second time. And I did. And so will you.

I remember that time well, my friend. You were not at all a happy camper. I'm glad things worked out well for you. And I'm glad that they have apparently worked out well for me too! It took me around six days, once I began using sound generators again. I also made an effort not to spend time unnecessarily focusing on my tinnitus - so I backed off a good bit on thinking about and responding to Tinnitus Talk questions, etc. I'm really feeling pretty good at this point. My tinnitus has not settled down at all, but I have!

And I've got to believe that the thoughts, prayers, and good wishes of the folks on this board made a huge difference. So my sincere thanks to all.

Glad to hear that you're doing better, Dr. Nagler. I wonder if your tinnitus would still get louder by eating Thai food (I'm sure you wouldn't want to risk it any time soon).

Actually, my wife and I will probably go out for Thai food sometime next week. And I do expect that it will "kick my tinnitus up" even more the next day. Now there is no way in the world I would have gone out for Thai a couple of weeks ago, when my tinnitus was causing me a good bit of distress. So I clearly understand why folks who have not habituated want to avoid doing anything that might rock the boat. But now that I am pretty much back to my old self (save for the louder tinnitus), I just don't care any more. So Thai food, here we come!

stephen nagler

 

[amandine]

Dr. Nagler,

Glad to hear that you are doing better!
I realise that you had white noise generators and therapy and experience to help you.An!d am happy that you have found some relief in whatever way you have done that.
But can you give some idea or help for those who dont have such things please? And for those that are surrounded by extreme stress .....what to do to stop it ramping up and up and up........desperation street here i am afraid!
thank you
by the way please dont say go and find someone worse off than yourself as that is a pretty hard thing to do here as I am the one who is worse off.......with a useless drunken person that I have to live with.......making it impossible for me...........either alone all day or with a drunk..........what a choice here!
Did you or are you using meds to help you through this?
I took half a sleeping pill last night to get some sleep but didnt help much.
This afternoon I took half a xanax to try to stay calm but not working.
He has just come back drunk.
No cant get away cos he takes the only car and comes back drunk! and abusive..........
when he was out of this house for the past three days it went down considerably but today woke up with it really loud. I hope it was not the half a sleeping pill that I took that has done this. It has ramped up and up all day and I am walking around like a crazy person just going round and round in circles. Now it is so loud and high pitched I simply cant cope any more and I can hear him downstairs swearing and insulting me so any ideas on how to cope and calm down I would greatly appreciate now that you are feeling better.
thank you

 

[Dr. Nagler]

Dr. Nagler,
Glad to hear that you are doing better!

Me too!

I realise that you had white noise generators and therapy and experience to help you.An!d am happy that you have found some relief in whatever way you have done that.
But can you give some idea or help for those who dont have such things please? And for those that are surrounded by extreme stress .....what to do to stop it ramping up and up and up........desperation street here i am afraid!

My suggestion would be to (1) work on identifying and eliminating your barriers to habituation, (2) read through and put into place the principles outlined in my "Letter to a Tinnitus Sufferer" at the bottom of this post, and (3) try to avoid environmental silence.

thank you

You are welcome.

by the way please dont say go and find someone worse off than yourself as that is a pretty hard thing to do here as I am the one who is worse off.......with a useless drunken person that I have to live with.......making it impossible for me...........either alone all day or with a drunk..........what a choice here!

You do have a choice. Leave this guy. Then you will immediately be better off - so you can more readily find people who are worse off than you. In other words, make a difference in your life ... then you can make a difference in the lives of others, which will, in turn, make even more of a difference in your own!

Did you or are you using meds to help you through this?

No

I took half a sleeping pill last night to get some sleep but didnt help much.
This afternoon I took half a xanax to try to stay calm but not working.
He has just come back drunk.
No cant get away cos he takes the only car and comes back drunk! and abusive..........

So YOU take the car ... and don't come back at all!

stephen nagler

 

[JohnnyMx]

I really enjoy that you are doing very well with your spike Dr. Nagler. I read more and more about the power of TRT.

I'm handling my ultra high pitched T much better than 2 years ago, when it started. Most of the day i'm ok with it, BUT sometimes when i'm tired, or got bad sleep night, my T spikes alot. Most of the days it is smoothly to handle my T, but somedays I need to force the engine to handle it.

Do you recommend TRT for the case? or do you think that i'm just fine with this self-habituation.

Do you know some TRT clinics near San Diego Ca. ?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Teri]

@ Dr. Nagler

I love this quote:

"make a difference in your life ... then you can make a difference in the lives of others, which will, in turn, make even more of a difference in your own!"

I have written it on a note card and have it taped to my bathroom mirror!

THANKS!

 

[Kathi]

I am so happy to hear that you are doing better @Dr. Nagler ! You are brave to go out for Thai food--and because you are so brave and live your life in spite of your loud tinnitus--I have the courage to be brave and live mine.

I'm in my 17th month and while life is not perfect...it's much better than it was when I first got tinnitus. A lot of my progress is owed to you telling us to drive our own bus and my CBT therapist--as well as my brain finally realizing that tinnitus is just noise--not a threat. The first months of fight or flight reaction, 24/7 was hell. Thank goodness I had to work or I might've really gone off the deep end. I was close that first few months.

It made my day to read that you are re-habituating--and so quickly. If I have a major setback I will definitely do TRT--but for now, I'm okay.

 

[2131e]

hi dr. nagler, just a note to say that i'm very glad that you are feeling better after your T spike. thank you for giving us so much support here on this forum. i hope that you're fully habituated (re-habituated) soon.

 

[RCP1]

6 days to Re-habituate ! My Oh My. The Legend has just earned himself another stripe. The Mr Myagi of TRT has encouraged this Irish Daniel San to go and sand down another boat house... Awesome.

 

[Dr. Nagler]

(2) read through and put into place the principles outlined in my "Letter to a Tinnitus Sufferer" at the bottom of this post

Forgot to add it to Post #141 - so here it is below.

stephen nagler

 

[john mccluskey]

Hi Dr nagler ive been reading your posts for the last month since I have been given this bloody noise. Trying to take your advice and learning how you have surived. I'm in a bad way at the moment starting cbt on Thursday but I'm covered in a horrible noisy fog at the moment. Looking at the posts from everybody you must be a very special guy who even with his own demon to deal with you have helped many others.hopefully one day I will be as strong as you but at the moment that seems along way away God bless and stay strong

 

[Dr. Nagler]

Looking at the posts from everybody you must be a very special guy who even with his own demon to deal with you have helped many others.hopefully one day I will be as strong as you but at the moment that seems along way away God bless and stay strong

I thank you most sincerely for the kind words, but you do not need to be a "special guy" to do what I did, and you don't need to be "strong" either. What you need, in my opinion is a strategy. The four-point formula is: Strategy, Determination, Flexibility, Insight. The words "special" and "strong" are nowhere to be found in that formula. In fact, it takes much more strength to deal with intrusive tinnitus day in and day out like you do ... than not to deal with it at all, which is what I do.

All the best -

stephen nagler

 

[billie48]

So happy about your progress, Dr. Nagler. It reaffirms that even if T increases, it doesn't mean total disaster. Hope this will erase some fear from people who often worry about their T getting louder. Will love to see you back in full swing soon.

 

[marqualler]

Thai food, here we come!

@Dr. Nagler, I will eat some Thai food in your honor! Thanks for sharing your insight and, even more importantly, your positivity. It really helps!