Hello my fellow people! I woke up one morning with noticeable hearing loss in my left ear and an unbelievably loud, piercing eeee sound, which I could hear over almost everything.
This sent me into a panic and immediately set up up an ENT appointment. The sound was so intrusive, literally destroying my serenity and quality of life as I knew it. To make matters worse, eating anything that needed to be crunched would only exacerbate the sound.
I consulted with various doctors, ENT, an audiologist and got an MRI... leading me to what appeared to be a dead end as they brushed it off as TMJ and anxiety.
Audiologist confirmed a loss of 4 kHz hearing range and I was told to pretty much get used to it. This pretty much devastated me as I had no idea how I could live with this piercing siren in my head! On a scale of 1-10 I was at a solid 9.
The following weeks I resorted to benzos (Ativan and Valium) to gain some sanity... as I felt I was losing it fast. This was a blessing and a curse. It helped me sleep and made the tinnitus quieter for a while the next day but only fueled it for the next several days. I felt completely hopeless. My life was certainly on a downward spiral and couldn't enjoy anything in the moment because my focus was lost in the noise.
My only way of coping was using a wireless earbud with a tinnitus app or music playing in attempt to distract myself.
Fast forward to the present and a lot of patience and prayer and it appears it's slowly fading. It's still certainly there but it's only at a 4 or 5/10 instead of a 8 or 9.
Here are the things I've done in the last few months to try and adjust my brain to ignore/relieve the tinnitus:
Wear an earbud with soothing sounds all day, everyday.
Stimulate the lost frequency, 4 kHz in my case, with a simple tone generator.
Avoid loud noise and slowly reintroduce louder sounds over time.
Sleep, the more quality sleep, the better I feel and less stressed I am about the situation.
Massaging neck and jaw area.
Lower existing anxiety, in my case, I found meditation and especially progressive muscle relaxation seemed to be one of the pivotal keys to lowering my tinnitus.
I hope anyone reading this can possible benefit from anything I've said, although I'm sure it's been said a thousand times before. If anything, time and patience is invaluable, which is extremely difficult when you're in acoustic agony. By no means am I cured but it's much less bothersome now than it was before and I'm optimistic that one day we will all find solace and freedom from this mental torture.
My heart truly goes out to everyone, especially those fighting it for decades!
This sent me into a panic and immediately set up up an ENT appointment. The sound was so intrusive, literally destroying my serenity and quality of life as I knew it. To make matters worse, eating anything that needed to be crunched would only exacerbate the sound.
I consulted with various doctors, ENT, an audiologist and got an MRI... leading me to what appeared to be a dead end as they brushed it off as TMJ and anxiety.
Audiologist confirmed a loss of 4 kHz hearing range and I was told to pretty much get used to it. This pretty much devastated me as I had no idea how I could live with this piercing siren in my head! On a scale of 1-10 I was at a solid 9.
The following weeks I resorted to benzos (Ativan and Valium) to gain some sanity... as I felt I was losing it fast. This was a blessing and a curse. It helped me sleep and made the tinnitus quieter for a while the next day but only fueled it for the next several days. I felt completely hopeless. My life was certainly on a downward spiral and couldn't enjoy anything in the moment because my focus was lost in the noise.
My only way of coping was using a wireless earbud with a tinnitus app or music playing in attempt to distract myself.
Fast forward to the present and a lot of patience and prayer and it appears it's slowly fading. It's still certainly there but it's only at a 4 or 5/10 instead of a 8 or 9.
Here are the things I've done in the last few months to try and adjust my brain to ignore/relieve the tinnitus:
Wear an earbud with soothing sounds all day, everyday.
Stimulate the lost frequency, 4 kHz in my case, with a simple tone generator.
Avoid loud noise and slowly reintroduce louder sounds over time.
Sleep, the more quality sleep, the better I feel and less stressed I am about the situation.
Massaging neck and jaw area.
Lower existing anxiety, in my case, I found meditation and especially progressive muscle relaxation seemed to be one of the pivotal keys to lowering my tinnitus.
I hope anyone reading this can possible benefit from anything I've said, although I'm sure it's been said a thousand times before. If anything, time and patience is invaluable, which is extremely difficult when you're in acoustic agony. By no means am I cured but it's much less bothersome now than it was before and I'm optimistic that one day we will all find solace and freedom from this mental torture.
My heart truly goes out to everyone, especially those fighting it for decades!
Member
maybe he will trade ears with me lol.
