New User, Some Positives, Melbourne Australia

Hi guys my story is a long and complicated one, im hoping that i can use it to get a few things off my chest, find some fellow tinnitus affected people and maybe even provide a glimmer of hope for someone out there.

Ok so far as i can remember ive had tinnitus (T) from a young age probably (early as 12 or 13 and pulsatile tinnitus {PT} in my left ear only) im 27 now, but i habituated well and never gave either form of tinnitus a second thought but i knew i had it when i would listen for it but it never bothered me at all.
My T sounds like the high pitch noise you get when an old tv has the volume off but theres that noise it generates.

fast forward to about couple of months ago, i started developing sleeping disturbances and symptoms of anxiety and probably a dash of depression too, but mainly anxiety due to uni exams and few underlying things (i still havent adressed all of them and im not even sure what they are).
Anyway the sleeping disturbance continued and so did the anxiety anyway, long story short i developed the dreaded pulsatile tinnitus in both ears and i became hyper aware of my ears and sounds!
Ok at first this drove me absolutely insane and i would spend all day every day, thinking about it, going to doctors, reading the horror stories online (here and other places), i started to get more physical symptoms, feeling of pain in my ear, pressure all sorts of things, but doctors couldnt find any obvious things in my ears.
Being acutely aware of my ears and hearing then lead to my regular tinnitus also driving me insane, i started getting into depression thinking about how i wont be able to do such and such and suicidal thoughts etc. further destroying my sleep.

However gradually i have become more habituated to both forms of T and PT, this involved at first taking benzos to calm me down to sleep a bit (but i tried avoiding them as much as possible only when i get desperate for sleep as i dont want to become an addict) and some counselling to learn cognitive techniques. So i spend 15-20 minutes a day dedicated to writing down negative thoughts and positive thoughts, relating to my tinnitus and sleep disturbance and talking to myself repeating things like "tinnitus cannot hurt me, only my emotional reaction to it can" instead of the avoid thinking about it at all. Furthermore i dont try to drown the noise, i acknowledge its there but then let my brain wonder off and only comes back when i think about it.
I cant claim to be totally habituated but it has gotten a lot better than before, and i dont feel like my life has ended, and i spend less times during the day trying to listen for t when im in a loud environment.
My sleep disturbance has more or less continued but im slowly working on fixing that too.

also note in my paragraphs i havent used the word suffering with tinnitus or refering to my sleep disturbance as insomnia, i picked this up from the psychologist and few online resources which say to avoid labelling conditions as it trains your subconscious to then live up to those labels.

in the mean time i have found an ENT who has recommended for me to get an MRI and MRA of my brain and skull to rule out any malformations or tumours results are due back ina day or 2. Im confident it will be all clear, but a part of me also wants them to find something just so i can address it (how weird does that sound, almost hoping for a brain malformation just to know why im going through all this!)

anyway im from Melbourne Australia and would love to meet some people who have T or PT, just so i can talk about it, cause everyone i come across does not understand PT in particular.

further i wanted to have a bit of a positive story, although im not completely "cured" or habituated, i still feel its a lot better than reading about the totally suicidal people, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Hi Ash and welcome

I'm a little further south than you down in Tas. You sound like you have a great positive attitude and with experience of T and habituation already as well as CBT will surely be a success story very soon. What caused your original T? Do you have some degree of hearing loss as well?

 

Hi Tamika
My hearing tests have come back normal (had one ~1month ago)

Not sure when exactly i had the tinnitus from, but i do remember a few episodes around 12-13 when i was having trouble sleeping due to a noise in my ear but i cant categorically rule out wheter they were just transient episodes or if i became habituated but no idea what bought my T on initally.

My recent T as an adult seems to stem from anxiety issues, lack of sleep and the fact ive been using many drugs to try restore sleep such as alprazolam(xanax), temazepam, amitryptline, valdoxan, which may or 1 of them have contributed. i have not used any drug consistently, but been taking them sporadically when i really struggle to fall asleep.

Interestingly a few days ago i was having a bad sleep night and i took amitrypyline (endep 10mg) to help me sleep, and my tinnitus seemed worse during the day, but maybe that was because i had read up on amitryptiline both causing tinnius and 1 study showing it was used for the management of tinnitus.


I dont always have a positive attitude, esepecially since im still dealing with my sleep disturbance, and its only been a month since the PT and T kicked in properly, if i have an especially bad night i do get a bit down, but the aim is to try to focus on the positives as much as possible and not give into the negative thinking. so i guess that in iteself a sign of a postive attitude im not sure.

but i can relate to people being in despair, suicidal thoughts and just wanting the noise to stop.
I mean i would love nothing more than my MRI result to show some malformation which is causing all of this, but i also need to accept the MRI will most likely be clear and i have to continue to do CBT to deal with it. to me it seems like my issues are anxiety and sleep related.

although my conscious anxiety is down substantially, i think i still have a high level of subconscious anxiety which is disturbing my sleep patterns.