Hi everyone,
I'd like to share my story because I found this forum and the success stories very useful when my tinnitus was at its worst.
I will try and keep this post as short as possible and focus on details and what was useful for me.
My tinnitus was stress-induced and came on slowly but very surely. Like many others I became suddenly aware of it and once I was "dialled in" to it, it became deafening.
I had four separate tones. One I called the "blanket", a loud electrical signal with a very high frequency that was audible almost all the time. The other three were more warbling, cricket-like tones, in both ears. All tones were audible when no background noise was present. The crickets got lost in normal day to day background noise but the "blanket" was audible at all times and was ever-present.
This was actually my second bout of tinnitus and my learnings from my first bout were very useful. I am hyper protective of my ears so I was very confident that my tinnitus was not caused by any kind of damage. A trip to the GP ruled out any kind of obstruction or wax buildup. I did not bother with a hearing test as I was not having any issues in that regard.
For recovery, I focused on three main things:
1. Stress reduction through daily relaxation
2. Evaluating my life overall and looking at what needed to change
3. Fixing some health related things that had gotten out of whack
Here's what REALLY helped in the acute phase for symptom reduction:
1. Masking. This was HUGE for me. I slept with earbuds and played rain sounds from YouTube. Any time the T became bothersome during the day I masked with various different sounds. This one in particular I kept coming back to:
2. Relaxation. I am a workaholic and was stressing myself out unnecessarily about a lot of different things. Learning to let go, relax, and trusting that everything is OK. This goes really deep and I really went a long way into evaluating my life, my stress points, and trying to put myself on a better path mentally. This really helped a lot.
3. Sleep hygiene. I ended up sleeping on the couch for a couple of months as my partner has a bad snoring habit and I found it very uncomfortable to wear earplugs as they seemed to aggravate the tinnitus. Going to bed at the same time with either the sleeping sounds in my headphones or the air-conditioning on to mask the tinnitus was a BIG help.
4. Daily listening to tinnitus whilst relaxing. I would prepare myself mentally, then sit in a quiet room and listen to my tinnitus whilst deep breathing, relaxing, and telling myself that it's not dangerous and that it's going to be OK. This helped me reduce my fear of the tinnitus and to get used to confronting it rather than running from it.
Eventually the tinnitus does fade and you start to forget about it. Sitting here I have headphones on and I cannot really hear the tinnitus anymore, except perhaps for the "blanket", but its very mild. The crickets are totally gone. I have no issue with tinnitus at all.
All in all it took about 4 months to get to this point.
One thing the GP said which really stuck with me was this: "With most people, tinnitus is always there in the background, and stress brings it into the foreground". This is obviously a simplification but I find that sentiment to be quite accurate. If I listen carefully, the tinnitus is still there a very tiny bit, but its 90% quieter and I've just forgotten about the rest of it.
In addition, I really can't overstate the importance of generally getting my life together and facing some demons and personal failings that were causing me stress and unhappiness. In this way I am thankful that I had this tinnitus episode because it showed me that there were some difficult changes I needed to make in my life. Having made them, my tinnitus is gone and I feel much better about life in general, and my stress levels are massively reduced.
I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them.
I'd like to share my story because I found this forum and the success stories very useful when my tinnitus was at its worst.
I will try and keep this post as short as possible and focus on details and what was useful for me.
My tinnitus was stress-induced and came on slowly but very surely. Like many others I became suddenly aware of it and once I was "dialled in" to it, it became deafening.
I had four separate tones. One I called the "blanket", a loud electrical signal with a very high frequency that was audible almost all the time. The other three were more warbling, cricket-like tones, in both ears. All tones were audible when no background noise was present. The crickets got lost in normal day to day background noise but the "blanket" was audible at all times and was ever-present.
This was actually my second bout of tinnitus and my learnings from my first bout were very useful. I am hyper protective of my ears so I was very confident that my tinnitus was not caused by any kind of damage. A trip to the GP ruled out any kind of obstruction or wax buildup. I did not bother with a hearing test as I was not having any issues in that regard.
For recovery, I focused on three main things:
1. Stress reduction through daily relaxation
2. Evaluating my life overall and looking at what needed to change
3. Fixing some health related things that had gotten out of whack
Here's what REALLY helped in the acute phase for symptom reduction:
1. Masking. This was HUGE for me. I slept with earbuds and played rain sounds from YouTube. Any time the T became bothersome during the day I masked with various different sounds. This one in particular I kept coming back to:
2. Relaxation. I am a workaholic and was stressing myself out unnecessarily about a lot of different things. Learning to let go, relax, and trusting that everything is OK. This goes really deep and I really went a long way into evaluating my life, my stress points, and trying to put myself on a better path mentally. This really helped a lot.
3. Sleep hygiene. I ended up sleeping on the couch for a couple of months as my partner has a bad snoring habit and I found it very uncomfortable to wear earplugs as they seemed to aggravate the tinnitus. Going to bed at the same time with either the sleeping sounds in my headphones or the air-conditioning on to mask the tinnitus was a BIG help.
4. Daily listening to tinnitus whilst relaxing. I would prepare myself mentally, then sit in a quiet room and listen to my tinnitus whilst deep breathing, relaxing, and telling myself that it's not dangerous and that it's going to be OK. This helped me reduce my fear of the tinnitus and to get used to confronting it rather than running from it.
Eventually the tinnitus does fade and you start to forget about it. Sitting here I have headphones on and I cannot really hear the tinnitus anymore, except perhaps for the "blanket", but its very mild. The crickets are totally gone. I have no issue with tinnitus at all.
All in all it took about 4 months to get to this point.
One thing the GP said which really stuck with me was this: "With most people, tinnitus is always there in the background, and stress brings it into the foreground". This is obviously a simplification but I find that sentiment to be quite accurate. If I listen carefully, the tinnitus is still there a very tiny bit, but its 90% quieter and I've just forgotten about the rest of it.
In addition, I really can't overstate the importance of generally getting my life together and facing some demons and personal failings that were causing me stress and unhappiness. In this way I am thankful that I had this tinnitus episode because it showed me that there were some difficult changes I needed to make in my life. Having made them, my tinnitus is gone and I feel much better about life in general, and my stress levels are massively reduced.
I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them.
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