It's been approximately 9 months since I developed tinnitus and hyperacusis from ididopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss. I am happy to say that although my tinnitus is just as loud (75 db) and fluctuating as before (sometimes it sounds like someone is frying bacon in my ear!) it doesn't bother me in the slightest! My 9 year old daughter was asking me about my tinnitus the other day, as I hadn't talked about it in a while, and I told her it didn't bother me anymore. She suggested that I write my story here to help others, and I thought, well yes, I guess now is finally the time!
Here's some background on me: I'm a stay-at-home mother of three who went back to school for nursing, and was in my last semester of school, when I caught a cold from one of my kids last January. I knew I was getting sick but my daughter needed some clothes for her first basketball practice the next day. So I, like a dodo (adoring mother) went out into a gusty, freezing cold rain storm to buy her some gear. The next morning I woke up and noticed that my right ear felt a little clogged. The feeling got worst and worst over three days time and by the fourth day, with a raging fever, my ear started screaming. Not ringing, screaming. Oh those dark days. It felt like the devil was inside of my head. I went to the doctor, and, to make a long story short, I kept getting misdiagnosed, until three weeks later when a competent ENT gave me a hearing test. Loo and behold wouldn't you know it, but I had a hearing loss of 75 dbs at 6000 kz and up in my right ear. He said I had ISSNHL from the virus. Of course my main gripe was the tinnitus though, because it was driving me crazy! I also had become highly sensitive to high pitched noises. Being the kind and caring doctor that he was, he told me that the cure for tinnitus was to have someone stomp on your foot, as the pain would distract you from the ringing >: (
A couple of months passed and I became more and more depressed. The hyperacusis was so bad that I could hardly get out of bed. The sound of my own children's voices was excruciating, ambulances would have me clutching my ears, crying in pain. I tried to use masking but with the hearing loss, all sounds just seemed to make my tinnitus louder. My life had become a non-stop panic attack and I saw no end in sight. I remember wanting to exchange my dilemma for others and pleading with God. "A broken leg! I would take a broken leg. Break all my bones, as long as I don't have tinnitus anymore." "Oh, she has cancer. I wish I had cancer, then I would either die or be cured, but I wouldn't have it forever." Pretty bad, huh?
The days got pretty dark. One day, on his way to work, my husband went to kiss me good-bye. I clutched at his wrist and told him, "Don't go, because I may not be here when you get back." He took me to my doctor who insisted that I check myself into the psychiatric hospital. More scared then I had ever been in my whole life, we went home and I packed my bags.
When I got to the hospital, the psychiatrist prescribed me Klonopin (a benzodiazepene) and Cymbalta (a SSRI). Shortly after taking the klonopin, a miracle occured. Sounds stopped hurting my ears! I could hardly believe it! I could still hear the tinnitus but it didn't bother me nearly as much. Suddenly I had a new lease on life. After that things progressed quickly. I still did not like the tinnitus, but sounds no longer bothered me, making it easier to adapt.
Don't get me wrong, it still wasn't easy. The medication wasn't a complete instant remedy, but it was a tool that helped me to habituate. By curbing the depression and hyperacusis, it allowed me to apply other principles that I had learned about but had never been able to utilize. These included:
- Masking: with my attention less focused on the tinnitus, I was able to play music or watch TV, listening to it instead of the t. Even while doing this I would panic sometimes with the thought "Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to mask this for the rest of my life to keep my sanity. How will I ever mask it ALL the time?! This is too big of a challenge." No, that is not why masking works. It works because of distraction.
- Distraction: Anytime you take your attention away from the t, your brain pays less attention, thus aiding in habituation. Masking with sounds, distracting with activities (exercising, playing with your kids, watching a movie, having fun!) are all things that tell your brain "Hey, this t sound is no big deal, so you don't have to focus on it anymore." My favorite distraction technique was discovering and listening to new artists (mostly All Sons and Daughters and Ray LaMontagne) with headphones. I know it's hard to believe, but trust me, over time it works. While distracting and masking you will still be bothered at times by your t, and when you do, you must actualize.
-Actualization: At first, when you get t, you hear it all the time! Or at least, you feel like you do. I noticed early on though that I could go short amounts of time without hearing my t. As I got better at distracting myself, I would still hear it though (sometimes 60 times in one hour, or more!). Each time I told myself, "Don't panic, you're hearing this now, but you'll forget it again. You're doing a great job, keep up the good work!". This is not easy, but it is necessary. And, I was right, I did forget it again, over and over and over, thousands of times, until now, I rarely think about it. Although, I always hoped it would be true, that this was a temporary torture, I didn't believe in the realization that I would get better.
-Realization: You will get better. You're probably read this many times (I know I did, I poured through all of the forums and support groups, reading success story after success story), but the truth, is you will. Tinnitus is scary at first because it's new, but over time it just becomes old hat. At first your brain thinks it's a threat, drawing your attention to it, but as your brain starts to realize it's not causing you any harm, the sound will fade into the background. (This is what happens to people who move next to an airport or train tracks. At first they can't stand the loud noise, but over time they habituate to it until they eventually stop hearing it. Most of the time I don't even notice the t anymore, and when I do I say, "Oh hello, and goodbye I have other things to do." Actually, my thought process isn't even that complicated anymore, it's more like, "Oh, it's you again, whatever."
- Relaxation: Mediation, yoga, tai chi, exercise, these are all things that can help take the t edge off, and be more relaxed, which is necessary for habituation. When you're body is healthy you feel better too, making it easier to adapt to t. My favorite free site for guided relaxation was www.tinnituseprogramme.org/ It's also a really good program for tinnitus suffers created for free by an audiologist.
Some people say not to talk about your tinnitus because it makes you think about it more, therefore slowing down the habituation process. I think that's a bunch of old school, tough it out psychological malarky. At first, tinnitus is torturous! You wouldn't tell someone who's spouse just died to stop talking about them so they could forget about their spouse. Loss is difficult, and tinnitus is a loss that no one understands unless they have gone through it themselves, so talk about it! I found the more I talked about t, the more people I discovered had it (many of my family members have tinnitus and I just never knew because they had habituated to it years ago!). This was very reassuring that someday it wouldn't bother me either, and now, it doesn't! : ) I haven't been on medications in three months and I'm loving life again!!
I want to give thanks to the people who have helped me along the way. Mark McDill, you are awesome. You were so right about the paper tiger. Thank you a thousand times over for standing by me and praying for me while I was still in it's clutches. Tandpiano, I am so glad God brought us together for this crazy and weird journey. To everyone else, remember, God has seen you through many difficult circumstances, and he will see you through this one too. Don't beat yourself up, when you have a bad hour, day or week with t. Time, the support of family, friends, and maybe even a kind doctor or counselor, are your best friends. You WILL succeed, 99.85% guaranteed : )
Claire
Here's some background on me: I'm a stay-at-home mother of three who went back to school for nursing, and was in my last semester of school, when I caught a cold from one of my kids last January. I knew I was getting sick but my daughter needed some clothes for her first basketball practice the next day. So I, like a dodo (adoring mother) went out into a gusty, freezing cold rain storm to buy her some gear. The next morning I woke up and noticed that my right ear felt a little clogged. The feeling got worst and worst over three days time and by the fourth day, with a raging fever, my ear started screaming. Not ringing, screaming. Oh those dark days. It felt like the devil was inside of my head. I went to the doctor, and, to make a long story short, I kept getting misdiagnosed, until three weeks later when a competent ENT gave me a hearing test. Loo and behold wouldn't you know it, but I had a hearing loss of 75 dbs at 6000 kz and up in my right ear. He said I had ISSNHL from the virus. Of course my main gripe was the tinnitus though, because it was driving me crazy! I also had become highly sensitive to high pitched noises. Being the kind and caring doctor that he was, he told me that the cure for tinnitus was to have someone stomp on your foot, as the pain would distract you from the ringing >: (
A couple of months passed and I became more and more depressed. The hyperacusis was so bad that I could hardly get out of bed. The sound of my own children's voices was excruciating, ambulances would have me clutching my ears, crying in pain. I tried to use masking but with the hearing loss, all sounds just seemed to make my tinnitus louder. My life had become a non-stop panic attack and I saw no end in sight. I remember wanting to exchange my dilemma for others and pleading with God. "A broken leg! I would take a broken leg. Break all my bones, as long as I don't have tinnitus anymore." "Oh, she has cancer. I wish I had cancer, then I would either die or be cured, but I wouldn't have it forever." Pretty bad, huh?
The days got pretty dark. One day, on his way to work, my husband went to kiss me good-bye. I clutched at his wrist and told him, "Don't go, because I may not be here when you get back." He took me to my doctor who insisted that I check myself into the psychiatric hospital. More scared then I had ever been in my whole life, we went home and I packed my bags.
When I got to the hospital, the psychiatrist prescribed me Klonopin (a benzodiazepene) and Cymbalta (a SSRI). Shortly after taking the klonopin, a miracle occured. Sounds stopped hurting my ears! I could hardly believe it! I could still hear the tinnitus but it didn't bother me nearly as much. Suddenly I had a new lease on life. After that things progressed quickly. I still did not like the tinnitus, but sounds no longer bothered me, making it easier to adapt.
Don't get me wrong, it still wasn't easy. The medication wasn't a complete instant remedy, but it was a tool that helped me to habituate. By curbing the depression and hyperacusis, it allowed me to apply other principles that I had learned about but had never been able to utilize. These included:
- Masking: with my attention less focused on the tinnitus, I was able to play music or watch TV, listening to it instead of the t. Even while doing this I would panic sometimes with the thought "Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to mask this for the rest of my life to keep my sanity. How will I ever mask it ALL the time?! This is too big of a challenge." No, that is not why masking works. It works because of distraction.
- Distraction: Anytime you take your attention away from the t, your brain pays less attention, thus aiding in habituation. Masking with sounds, distracting with activities (exercising, playing with your kids, watching a movie, having fun!) are all things that tell your brain "Hey, this t sound is no big deal, so you don't have to focus on it anymore." My favorite distraction technique was discovering and listening to new artists (mostly All Sons and Daughters and Ray LaMontagne) with headphones. I know it's hard to believe, but trust me, over time it works. While distracting and masking you will still be bothered at times by your t, and when you do, you must actualize.
-Actualization: At first, when you get t, you hear it all the time! Or at least, you feel like you do. I noticed early on though that I could go short amounts of time without hearing my t. As I got better at distracting myself, I would still hear it though (sometimes 60 times in one hour, or more!). Each time I told myself, "Don't panic, you're hearing this now, but you'll forget it again. You're doing a great job, keep up the good work!". This is not easy, but it is necessary. And, I was right, I did forget it again, over and over and over, thousands of times, until now, I rarely think about it. Although, I always hoped it would be true, that this was a temporary torture, I didn't believe in the realization that I would get better.
-Realization: You will get better. You're probably read this many times (I know I did, I poured through all of the forums and support groups, reading success story after success story), but the truth, is you will. Tinnitus is scary at first because it's new, but over time it just becomes old hat. At first your brain thinks it's a threat, drawing your attention to it, but as your brain starts to realize it's not causing you any harm, the sound will fade into the background. (This is what happens to people who move next to an airport or train tracks. At first they can't stand the loud noise, but over time they habituate to it until they eventually stop hearing it. Most of the time I don't even notice the t anymore, and when I do I say, "Oh hello, and goodbye I have other things to do." Actually, my thought process isn't even that complicated anymore, it's more like, "Oh, it's you again, whatever."
- Relaxation: Mediation, yoga, tai chi, exercise, these are all things that can help take the t edge off, and be more relaxed, which is necessary for habituation. When you're body is healthy you feel better too, making it easier to adapt to t. My favorite free site for guided relaxation was www.tinnituseprogramme.org/ It's also a really good program for tinnitus suffers created for free by an audiologist.
Some people say not to talk about your tinnitus because it makes you think about it more, therefore slowing down the habituation process. I think that's a bunch of old school, tough it out psychological malarky. At first, tinnitus is torturous! You wouldn't tell someone who's spouse just died to stop talking about them so they could forget about their spouse. Loss is difficult, and tinnitus is a loss that no one understands unless they have gone through it themselves, so talk about it! I found the more I talked about t, the more people I discovered had it (many of my family members have tinnitus and I just never knew because they had habituated to it years ago!). This was very reassuring that someday it wouldn't bother me either, and now, it doesn't! : ) I haven't been on medications in three months and I'm loving life again!!
I want to give thanks to the people who have helped me along the way. Mark McDill, you are awesome. You were so right about the paper tiger. Thank you a thousand times over for standing by me and praying for me while I was still in it's clutches. Tandpiano, I am so glad God brought us together for this crazy and weird journey. To everyone else, remember, God has seen you through many difficult circumstances, and he will see you through this one too. Don't beat yourself up, when you have a bad hour, day or week with t. Time, the support of family, friends, and maybe even a kind doctor or counselor, are your best friends. You WILL succeed, 99.85% guaranteed : )
Claire
Member
