Poll: Would You Trade Your Tinnitus for a 5-Year Prison Sentence?

[Óscar PP]

What would you rather have:

- Your tinnitus for the rest of your life
- 5 years in a (Western) minimum security prison and no tinnitus from the day you enter prison and never again in your lifetime.

 

[Knietppe]

Easy yes.

 

[BlueMoon86]

After my third night of insomnia and the dreaded realization that I can no longer mask it at all, I'd take a fucking Cambodian prison at this rate.

 

[streifzug]

I'd do five years in an American Supermax prison to rid myself of this shit.

 

[Jon R.]

Yes, I would do hard time for seven years.

 

[Calapsodis]

I think even people with mild tinnitus would say yes. Sure, prison isn't glamorous, but neither is a chronically debilitating condition with VERY limited treatment options and no cure.

 

[Jupiterman]

I don't think these fantasy questions help.

 

[Óscar PP]

I don't think these fantasy questions help.

I think they do help portray the extreme pain tinnitus and other ear problems cause to its sufferers.

While the medical establishment keeps gaslighting us and telling us it's just a sound, suck it up, and other b***s***, the fact that at the moment, more than 75% of people would take prison (even though they didn't commit any crime) instead of tinnitus is very revealing.

 

[BB23]

10 years in solitary.

 

[Ivano_m]

Right away in jail!

 

[Calapsodis]

10 years in solitary.

Imagine the silence.

 

[dipp]

I would take 30 years in prison over tinnitus. I'm not joking at all.

Also, I would trade my legs for a reduction of only half of the tinnitus volume. I told this to my therapist, and at first, he thought that I was joking. The general public doesn't know how this condition makes us suffer.

 

[Mattv]

The sooner you stop feeling sorry for yourself and accept your tinnitus, the sooner you will find peace.

 

[ScrollDownPlease]

I'd go to prison, but only so I can actually focus on the gym properly (ridding the tinnitus is the cherry on top).

 

[Supersix]

Would you rather have terminal cancer or tinnitus? Minimum security prison sounds like a country club. People with terminal cancer would trade without hesitation. I tell myself this all the time and to people I know.

 

[lolkas]

This question may sound silly, but it brings up an interesting idea. What if there were a combination of questions one could answer that would demonstrate to the world how impactful this condition is? I think the Tinnitus Quest team would also like to see such a "live" questionnaire being around. Hypothetically, it would show how impactful this condition is on average.

I mean, there are not many conditions one would trade any years of their lives in prison; some state here that they would easily do 30 years if they get silence once they step onto prison premises.

What do you think?

 

[Mister Muso]

Add a poll option for hyperacusis, and I'd say Yes in a heartbeat.

Maybe I would have done prison time back when my tinnitus was an 8 out of 10. Right now, it's about 4 or 5, so I can accept it.

 

[Jupiterman]

You're not going to go to prison for tinnitus!

This thread proves nothing; anyone can make claim to a fantasy question they know they will never need to follow through.

What about kidnapping some famous person(s) and holding them to ransom to invest their billions into tinnitus research? Did someone start a poll on this question?

 

[Óscar PP]

You're not going to go to prison for tinnitus!

This thread proves nothing; anyone can make claim to a fantasy question they know they will never need to follow through.

What about kidnapping some famous person(s) and holding them to ransom to invest their billions into tinnitus research? Did someone start a poll on this question?

Why do you get so worked up about it? We've all thought at some point of "fantasy" scenarios, as you call them, in which we could decide to stop our tinnitus in exchange for another predicament. It's part of the bargaining stage of grief.

By the way, and since you mentioned it, we recently had a case of a millionaire with tinnitus who, instead of investing all his fortune (I believe it was $600 million USD) in tinnitus research, decided to take his own life. That's the despair tinnitus, and other hearing problems can cause a person.

→ Texas Roadhouse CEO Kent Taylor dies by suicide after suffering severe tinnitus from COVID

 

[Allen Y.]

I wish I could do good behavior and get rid of this tinnitus shit hole!

 

[ECP]

I wish I could do good behavior and get rid of this tinnitus shit hole!

If I had the power to do it, Allen, I'd sentence you and every one of us here to a hundred hours of community service. Afterward, we will all be released from tinnitus and hyperacusis with perfectly healthy ears and brains and live happily ever after.

If I were a real judge who could make such a miraculous thing happen, I'd be so darn excited about issuing this sentence that I'd want to pound my gavel repeatedly, just like a judge on television. Of course, I wouldn't do that because I wouldn't want any of us to have symptom spikes. So this fantasy will have to be a very quiet one, and we'll have to save all the noise-making until we are all officially cured.

A girl can dream, right?

 

[Pinhead]

I'd give much more than that. Tinnitus is a prison, and spending a lifetime behind bars of noise is more agonizing than five years of life spent behind steel bars, planning the rest of my life in freedom and happiness.

 

[Jupiterman]

This 'fantasy' thread reminds me of the Tom Hanks film The Green Mile.

- An entity that heals all diseases.

- The prisoners on death row fantasizing about their lives if they weren't on death row.

 

[Óscar PP]

This 'fantasy' thread reminds me of the Tom Hanks film The Green Mile.

- An entity that heals all diseases.

- The prisoners on death row fantasizing about their lives if they weren't on death row.

And you'd be the annoying prison guard who constantly bullied the prisoners.

Just ignore this thread if you don't like it, pal!

 

[Kerza]

We are dealt the hand we are dealt.

 

[ECP]

This 'fantasy' thread reminds me of the Tom Hanks film The Green Mile.

- An entity that heals all diseases.

- The prisoners on death row fantasizing about their lives if they weren't on death row.

Even though I love movies, I never got around to seeing "The Green Mile." After you mentioned it, I looked it up online, and the plot summary was so interesting that I decided to add it to my Amazon Prime movie list.

I agree with you that this poll isn't helpful at all because it isn't based on reality, but I humbly propose that it isn't doing any harm either. As @Óscar PP said, it's really about the bargaining stage of grief, and that's a perfectly natural thought process for anyone coping with a major loss.

Even if our pie-in-the-sky bargaining fantasies don't affect reality, they at least validate our feelings of pain, injustice, and regret. Given that the medical establishment has so little to offer us in the way of treatments and cures, people like us have no choice but to turn to one another to get perspective on what we may have done wrong or what we could be doing differently from here on out. @Juliane talks a bit about karma in her profile posts. I do not believe that anybody deserves tinnitus or hyperacusis, but I can understand the speculation because my mind has gone there quite a bit.

When I consulted my primary care doctor almost two years ago to discuss my sudden and unforeseen ear problems, I burst into tears because I didn't think what happened to me was karmically fair. All I did was take pity on a frail 90-year-old acquaintance who was almost completely deaf and desperate to have me work for her for only four hours a week because her granddaughter wasn't doing enough for her as a caregiver. Did I really deserve to get tinnitus and noxacusis as a direct result of my well-intentioned decision to work for her for only four hours every Wednesday afternoon? I don't think so. Did I really deserve to be ghosted by her cold-hearted granddaughter after I quit and became "useless" to her family? I don't think so.

I'd still have perfectly healthy ears if I had spent that same four hours every Wednesday not working for that 90-year-old lady. My life would be normal, but how could I have known that I was damaging my hearing one day at a time by allowing her to yell into my ear while clutching my arm to maintain her balance and walk without falling?

I thought at the time that the greater health hazard was allowing her to fall because she might break a hip or get a concussion and die. I thought that as long as I could help her walk without falling, I was helping her, and it didn't matter that she was yelling so close to my ear while clutching my arm. I was about half her age and in excellent health. I was also fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and diligent about masking. She was not. In short, I was so concerned about protecting her health that it never occurred to me protect myself from her. A big mistake.

When I reviewed my primary care doctor's paperwork to see what she wrote about my initial appointment, I saw that she diagnosed me with an "adjustment disorder." I'd never heard of that, so I looked it up, and I learned that adjustment disorder is what they call it when a person is having trouble coping with a recently acquired disease or injury.

Given that tinnitus and hyperacusis are considered incurable and difficult to treat, it's understandable that we'd have wild and crazy fantasies about doing something that will completely reverse the damage to our ears and brains. It's hard to adjust to something unfair.

I don't think that any of us deserve to have ear problems, no matter what choices we have made, but I feel compelled to say that if we can do a little something that will magically turn the tide in our favor, I'm all for it.

So yeah, if I could go to prison for a while in exchange for complete healing of all my symptoms, I'd probably do it. Not that I ever committed a crime.

 

[BrOKeN_1]

The sooner you stop feeling sorry for yourself and accept your tinnitus, the sooner you will find peace.

This works like 1/8 of the time. And then only if you don't have the addition of pain hyperacusis.

I was also fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and diligent about masking. She was not.

I'm curious if you've ever considered that the COVID-19 vaccine itself caused your tinnitus, given that this is the case with so many people who took the vaccine.

 

[crescentsky]

Ugh, both options are equally bad, lol. I can't imagine how my other health issues will do in prison.

 

[ECP]

I'm curious if you've ever considered that the COVID-19 vaccine itself caused your tinnitus, given that this is the case with so many people who took the vaccine.

I had the COVID-19 vaccine in April, May, and November of 2021.

My ear problems didn't start until September of 2022, so if the vaccine played any role in this, then there was a very long delay.

I personally think that the vaccine wasn't a factor for me, so I have continued getting my annual booster, and I plan to get another one this autumn.

Having said that, I do believe all of you who say that the vaccine may have been a factor for you. It's only natural to speculate if your ear problems began right after you got the vaccine. I might be tempted to think the same way if it had happened to me.

 

[BrOKeN_1]

I had the COVID-19 vaccine in April, May, and November of 2021.

My ear problems didn't start until September of 2022, so if the vaccine played any role in this, then there was a very long delay.

I personally think that the vaccine wasn't a factor for me, so I have continued getting my annual booster, and I plan to get another one this autumn.

Having said that, I do believe all of you who say that the vaccine may have been a factor for you. It's only natural to speculate if your ear problems began right after you got the vaccine. I might be tempted to think the same way if it had happened to me.

I'm actually quoting other Tinnitus Talk members. My tinnitus was preceded by vaccination, and although I have no intention of vaccinating further, I don't personally think it factors into my condition. I merely inquired because of your stated timeline.