New to Tinnitus

[Michael Sullivan]

Hi, I'm Michael. I'm 18. On January 2nd I listened to very loud music in an acoustic chamber that my "friend turned up to the max". I was exposed for an hour.

My hearing was gone for weeks but it returned. I have normal hearing, but as of yesterday I noticed tinnitus that is in my head and left ear.

I've been depressed for the last two months and my personal life has gone from an 8/10 to a 0/10 I don't see friends. I just sit in my house and look up tinnitus help. I'm freaking out. I can't get away from the buzzing.

I had a brain stem cell hearing test 2 days ago. I wonder if that created this tinnitus.

Thoughts? Help? Advice? Would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Kibakiru]

Hi, Michael! I'm Ren.
I'm 16-years-old and I have both Pulsatile and regular tinnitus, one for each ear (Regular being in my left and Pulsatile in my right). It makes for a fun time -- Sarcasm.

I first got mine on January 28 (Pulsatile) and then developed regular tinnitus around two weeks into that. I'm an anxious person by nature (refer to the post I made in https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/help-me-please-tinnitus-is-breaking-me.20497/#post-237182 which tells more about it and some other things, if you're interested. You may find something helpful about it~ ^^). My regular tinnitus can range from a dog whistle to a fire alarm and my pulsatile sounds like I've got my head stuck out the window of a car with the wind roaring in my ear, along with the vibration of it - so it's probably the hardest one to mask. I can't sleep in my own room because it's too quiet and since I share that room, I can't really put on any masking noise unless I want to keep the other person up. I prefer to sleep downstairs where I can turn the volume up on the television and drone the noise it with my dogs snoring.

I had constant anxiety, I was crying every day, hyperventilating, and at one point I demanded to go to the hospital because of severe vertigo and my head felt like it was honestly going to explode or I was gonna go deaf.

Long story short (and the longer story is in that thread, again), I've had both forms of tinnitus (lucky me!) for just over a month now. I've gotten used to it. I don't cry (sometimes I want too, but i prefer to mentally give it the middle finger than shed a tear), I don't get anxiety, and I sleep fairly regular now. It's more like a background noise for me now. I know it's there but I'm not listening to it. As impossible as that may seem to you, since you only recently developed it; but it *will* happen, providing you let it.

The drone of your computer, the rattling of the air conditioning, the television, they all become background noise; your tinnitus will too.

I hope you read my other post and find some comfort in that. It's late right now and I feel like if I tried to get any deeper than this, I'd make no sense. Haha~

 

[Michael Sullivan]

Hi Ren! @Kibakiru I read your whole story it made me cry a little to be honest. You and me are so young. We have our whole lives in front of us, but this Tinitus managed to snag us while we were so young. Literally the whole day I've been looking up things about it. This is so unfair. Like you I listened to loud music through my headphones. And the car. I liked loud music. I never learned anything about hearing loss or Tinitus. But now I know a lot because a problem happened. Do you have hearing loss or no? Because I have perfectly normal hearing but this Tinitus has come up recently. Today was a really depressing day for me. I sat in bed most of the day doing nothing. I'm scared but your reply made my day. Having someone so young being able to relate. I just wanted to live a great life but this is getting in the way of that. I haven't been to school for weeks and have went to a cognitive therapy place to work on my anxious thoughts of my hearing. All my friends ask me where am I? It gives me hope that you too know what it's like and have had it longer than me. I'm supposed to return on Monday. I'm a high school senior. I'm supposed to be ready for graduation and be happy, but I'm the opposite. Coming to the realization that I might not go back to silence ever again. But the day that I do and I hope you do too. It will be the best day of our lives. I have some friends praying for me. I don't know if it will help but it's worth it. I'm going to pray for a miracle for you and me. Do you go to school with Tinnitus? How do you think we got Tinnitus? Since no one our age has it.

 

[Jenni8619]

Hi Michael!

Just wanted to welcome you to the forum. I'm sorry to hear that you are struggling right now I don't have much advice, as I'm new to this forum but I hope some of the more experienced members can help you!

Hugs,

Jenni

 

[Kibakiru]

@Michael Sullivan

It is pretty sad that we got something like tinnitus at such a young age but I think it's also a good thing. I think part of the reason why I was able to 'cope' a lot quicker was because I am the age that I am. I have a lot that I want to do and I don't want my tinnitus to stop me, so I didn't want to delay habituation to it. I can mourn the loss of silence but I won't dwell on it, because it won't do me any good. I still reserve the right to complain about it every now and again, but then I move on -- because, really, what else can we do?

I have good hearing. I'm actually sensitive to sound (not quite hyperacusis). Tinnitus doesn't drown anything out for me, surprisingly. You'd think I can't hear anything over the wind noise but I can hear everything just fine.

You will have silence again. Once habituation kicks in, tinnitus will become a form of silence for you (and I know how irritating that'd sound to anybody starting out with tinnitus, it used to bother me as well when people would tell me the same thing -- but it is true). Right now, I'm sitting in 'silence'. The wind in my ear and the ringing is there but I'm not tuned in to it; that is my silence -- asides from my dogs snoring. And I'm not bothered by it at all. I never used to sit in silence anyway. I always had some form of background noise. I just miss the option that was always there to turn these noises off and have silence. To have a button that could turn these noises off would be great, but I can't; so I rely on my mind to tune it out.

I left school in my sophomore year to home school myself, but I do study with my tinnitus and it doesn't distract me. Since I'm at home, I can usually have background noise and I'm usually so focused on my work so that even if I am sitting in silence, I don't listen to whatever noise is there. I technically would have graduated last year so I'm no longer in school either way. Though I will be attending college either this year or the next (still deciding what course I want to take) and that'll be a whole new obstacle to hurdle, but I will get over it.
I'm an artist but my tinnitus has never affected that. I just can't listen to the music like I did in the past (unnecessarily loud). It feels less climatic at a lower volume but I'd rather not sacrifice my ears for music.

I honestly don't know why or how I got it. The ringing probably is from my music but my pulsing isn't explainable to me, considering it came on randomly. I'd had it in the past for around two minutes but it went away that time. It's just one of those things to me. To be honest, as long as there's nothing bad that's gonna happen to me, I'll live with it. Until there comes a day when somebody comes up with a solution, there isn't much other options. It's better to habituate now than demonise it. We're young so there's a higher chance that we may recover from the tinnitus. Like I said, there's always hope.

I appreciate your prayers. I'm not a religious person myself but I do hope that you find peace with this, or peace finds you first -- hopefully this won't be permanent for you, considering it is still early. They usually only consider it 'permanent' after 3-4 months, and even then, tinnitus can disappear at random times. Just don't give up on the idea that we will have silence again, but until then; the best we can do is adapt and continue living life to the fullest.

 

[Michael Sullivan]

@Kibakiru

Your right, moving on is really the only way to go. It's just sad at the moment. Reading how people like you aren't bothered by it really inspires me. I think I want to try to get out of the house Tommorow and do something. Maybe I'll run the track at my gym. That's always a good stress reliever. I really do need to make a change in my life and get out and socialize. So I can stop being depressed. That's good to hear that I'm not in the 'permanent' stage yet, I hope it really does go away. I think that because it is so new to me it bothers me.

I wish you the best. It seems like you and me both want adventurous lives and to enjoy it.

Have you tried white sound therapy does it help?

If it does Infact stay, our hearing will eventually go down as we age, so say in 20 years would it be worse?
because our good hearing that we have now would have declined.

And one more question how did you cope with it or accept it being there? Are their times you get angry that it's there.

 

[BettyHasHope]

Good luck to everyone on this forum and no matter what never give up on praying for a cure. I hope scientist get a boost from God and help them find a cure to silence tinnitus. Your school can help raise money to donate to a foundation that wants to cure tinnitus or hearing loss. You might think u can hear fine but maybe you have some sort of hearing loss that is causing the tinnitus

 

[MikeL1972]

Hi Michael,

Welcome to the site!

Hang in there young man... you will be fine.

The early stages are always the most difficult. Tinnitus is new to your system and your nervous system perceives it as an intruder - which it is. Gradually, your mind will accept the ringing and eventually, it won't care. This in turn will decrease your stress and anxiety levels. The clinical term for this is called 'habituation'.

In the meantime, go back to school, finish up high school, and then march forward to whatever is next!! Best of luck.

 

[Michael Sullivan]

@MikeL1972
Thank you! I will, and thanks for the positivity.

Would you suggest trying Zinc supplements? Or ginkgo leaf supplements?

 

[MikeL1972]

@MikeL1972
Thank you! I will, and thanks for the positivity.

Would you suggest trying Zinc supplements? Or ginkgo leaf supplements?

The ENT I went to last March basically told me to save my money and not buy into it because there is no FDA approved evidence that vitamins/herbs erase (or even diminish) tinnitus. Could be a placebo effect at best. It's up to you, however.

 

[Kibakiru]

I'm still accepting it but I'm getting there. You will too.
Of course. You're allowed to feel sad. You've lost something that you otherwise wouldn't have given a second thought about. We often don't realise how good we have it until we lose it. It's the grieving process. Eventually you will move on. It may take you a while, but you will. I never forced myself to habituate. I let myself get angry and go through the motions, and it helped me get it out and understand how I felt about it.

I think going outside would be good. The sounds outside mask my tinnitus so I don't notice them at all, which is great.
There's no reason to let tinnitus rule your life. Your personality shouldn't become your tinnitus. Your personality is you. You often won't notice your tinnitus if you're having fun, so go out and have fun. Distraction is good. Find hobbies. Etc.

I have an uncle who has had tinnitus since he was born and his hearing, although reduced throughout his years, has never really affected his tinnitus. I suppose it depends on how you deal with your tinnitus. If you be reckless with it, you'll probably make it worse. If you're careful, it's not likely that it will get worse. It may spike sometimes (normal tinnitus does that anyway), but that spike usually goes back down. There are some unlucky people whose tinnitus does get worse but they go through the whole motion of re-habituating to it. It's usually not a case of age and just a lack of luck, but it's apparently rarely anything but a spike in their tinnitus. Just take care of your hearing. Look into buying ear plugs.


By accepting that it is there, that was my first step. I think there came a point that I'd cried so much that I was dehydrated and I didn't want to cry anymore. Realising that I can still do the things that I love to do, like watching movies, art, writing, etc; also helped me cope with the first stage. I learned what kind of masking works for me. I sleep with the television on which gives my brain a distraction when I'm going to sleep (I just focus on what they're saying when I've got my eyes closed and eventually it slips from mind). I think another big part on coping was learning that there were celebrities that had tinnitus, like Will.I.Am. Knowing that these people have tinnitus yet were out doing such big things was inspiring to me.
It's a learning process. I'm not done habituating but I'm on the journey.

I don't get angry anymore but I do get frustrated at times, usually when I'm stressed out for other reasons and just not being able to have that silence can be annoying.

White noise doesn't do much for me but brown noise works pretty well, though I don't sleep with any of those noises. There are all sorts of noises (blue, pink, white, brown, etc), you've just got to find which one works for you.
I've found that I can sleep better when there's a noise similar to my tinnitus. Mostly because I can trick my brain into thinking the noise is not coming from my head therefore it blocks it out like any other background noise.

 

[Andrea Lopez]

Good luck to everyone on this forum and no matter what never give up on praying for a cure. I hope scientist get a boost from God and help them find a cure to silence tinnitus. Your school can help raise money to donate to a foundation that wants to cure tinnitus or hearing loss. You might think u can hear fine but maybe you have some sort of hearing loss that is causing the tinnitus

Betty, has your T gone?

 

[MikeV]

I believe that zinc helped me... or it may have been coincidental. Can't say for sure unless I was to stop taking the zinc supplement and see if my T gets worse. But I'm not willing to do that. I have had tinnitus for about 1 yr. High pitched tone, mainly in my left ear but also in my right. Or, so my brain tells me that. Anyway, after trying Ginko for a few months with not apparent improvement, I started taking 200 mg of zinc per day - 100 in morning and 100 at night. I have noticed a very good reduction in volume, and possible a slight drop in frequency of occurrence. But the main thing is the volume drop. Keeping my fingers crossed!