Thanks to Tinnitus, Nearly 10 Years without an Alarm Clock

[Agsw]

Hi, just thought I would give a short overview and say Hi to everyone on here.

The start of my tinnitus is unknown, although I used to play in a band in my teenage years. I'm in my mid fifties now. I just woke up one morning with tinnitus after getting back from a holiday. I could have caught an infection in the pool, remember the plane journey affecting my ears also. Since that day my life changed forever.

Mad everyone says… The local UK doctor just told me to "man up" and get on with it. I was upset and he tried to convince me I was depressed. For a moment I believed him and collected the medication. However walking to my car I realised it's nothing to do with depression, it's just the newly ringing noise 24/7 that's causing me major stress and anxiety, so I destroyed the medication. I felt a claustrophobic sensation as I couldn't get away from the noise. I used to run into my garden just to be in a large open space. I felt enclosed, caged. Anyone else had that feeling?

I searched all the forums and definitely found comfort in seeing other people's stories and experiences that were new to me… but not to many thousands of others. For the first 6 months, life was challenging, I ran my own business and could not just stop, although to be honest it took my mind off it most of the day, although it was always there.

At night my bedroom felt like a Dungeon as silence was not my friend. Tiredness exacerbated the tinnitus. I hated going to bed at first. I was always in an awakened state and to this day have never needed an alarm clock to get up early and haven't overslept once I'm afraid to say.

So what information can I pass on that maybe constructive? (Apart from seeing a doctor of course... hopefully better than mine).

1. Read other people's experiences, especially newer sufferers'. This certainly helped me and gave me some comfort.
   
   
2. Let everyone know about it. People cannot see it. So tell them your plight and you'll find people more understanding and surprisingly interested.
   
   
3. Accept you're going to have down days. I felt guilty for feeling anxious and a bit sorry for myself. However, looking back I think you should allow yourself time to acknowledge the challenges ahead which might get tearful alone or with family, but it's also constructive and helped me organize, prioritize and pull up my boots to plough through the bad days.
   
   
4. Savour and cherish the moments where you have a flicker of enjoyment, a laugh, a loving moment that for a short while you forgot about tinnitus... REMEMBER... these moments WILL happen and only get longer and more enjoyable. Yes you'll have setbacks I guarantee it, but just treasure these moments and look forward to the longer spells.
   
   
5. It's going to take a while to find out what's the best masking technique for you. I chose not to try and mask during the day, but at night I needed something. I tried sooo many sounds, noises, songs, chants and an infinite amount of relaxation combinations on apps. So what have I found works for me? Human speech... boring documentaries on everything and anything. Even politics... lots of debates... I've watched the night of the Brexit elections thousands of times (from UK) as it's about 11 hours of uninterrupted speech. The more you listen, the more your brain doesn't bother getting interested in the conversation. It turns into a tonal drone... but not a repetitive one like apps. I found songs did the opposite and your brain kept listening to the damn lyrics!
   
   
6. It's going to get better... I promise. You might not think that is possible, but trust me. There is life after tinnitus. I actually tried to tell my brain the noise was like "Crickets on a warm evening" try to conjure up any positive feeling on the sound. I'm sure this helped me accept its part of me and if so we need to be friends.
   
   
7. I'm over 9 years in and feel like I have 85% of my life back. Yes it's always there still, but unless I'm having a bad day I mostly forget about it. It's every evening that it reminds me of it's presence. My brain seems to grab a short amount of deep sleep but then my tinnitus wakes me up and then the light sleep state ensues until morning. This constant awakening is the 15% of life I feel deprived of. But I can accept this.
   
   
8. Fairly obvious... Cover your ears when in moderately loud environments. I found after tinnitus all noises seems much louder to me than others, especially high frequencies. So order and always carry protection!

Thanks for letting me post this. I do hope it might help someone even in the slightest to manage their tinnitus.

 

[mohn]

Thanks for the post. Much needed support for sufferers.

Hope you get better.