- Feb 5, 2021
- 1
- Tinnitus Since
- 2005
- Cause of Tinnitus
- Prolonged noise exposure (mp3 players)
Hello, I hope I can get some help here because it's close to impossible to get any help anywhere. I'm from Sweden as you might have figured out, I've been trying to get an appointment with audiologists but they have not yet responded. The local physicians just nod their head and basically tell me to get over it. Tinnitus support seems to be very bad here so I'm turning to you.
Background story:
I was born with hearing disability in my left-ear, never received any explanation but it seemed to just be one of those random disabilities some have. I am currently 30 year old but when I was around age 15, in 2005-ish, it was the first time I acquired permanent tinnitus. Most likely from rowdy classrooms and way too loud and way too frequent use of MP3 players, mostly metal. Anyways, I habituated quickly after a couple of months and lived a perfectly normal life for 15 years basically never thinking about my tinnitus ever.
Current situation:
Now suddenly one Saturday in late January I woke up and suddenly noticed my tinnitus again. I do admit that I was up late watching YouTube the night before, but I never noticed any ear pain or tinnitus when I went to bed.
Anyways it started to drive me mad and make me extremely scared, it's like confronting a horror villain again after you think you've finally killed him. It's been about two weeks now with my awareness of tinnitus again and I can't seem to get back into habituation. What's worse is that I can't even tell if my hearing is worse or not. I'm going in spirals feeling like I need to blame myself and I'm stressing out about any tiny sound, can't judge what's too loud or not.
I was getting slightly better this week, reading up about all the success stories and remembering how I did habituate myself, reading up on methods of therapy for habituating etc. But I have this problem where I randomly wake up at night with my tinnitus spiked, hard to get straight sessions of sleep.
Now I woke up today and my tinnitus was spiking hard, usually I'm able to sleep again and it's soothed, but not this time, today on Friday it's pinged hard and I can't relax to come down. And It's driving me into desperation, I'm so broken because I was feeling like I was getting better again and now I'm crushed. My family is afraid because they don't understand and they don't know what to do and that is stressing me out even more.
I need advice, asap, because I feel like I'm being pulled apart by anxiety.
Other conditions:
I had COVID-19 in December, got healthy from it in early January. My ears get stuffy whenever I'm sick and I get wax blockage, same with COVID-19 but this time I kept having a wet feeling and "lids" over my ears. Just some week before this I kept having sinus pains. Ear drums feels slightly sticky and not really "right". But doctors said my ears looked fine, no clue what's going on. Don't know if it's just a coincidence.
I need your advice and help. I know it's possible to beat this, but I need help.
Thanks.
Edit:
I also want to note that I have several times at night woken up from my tinnitus flaring up randomly. Thought first it was my snoring but nobody in family have reported snoring in extreme volumes. I even took to wearing one of those nose expander things, and it seems to work since I haven't experienced any dry mouths. Usually the ringing goes away if I fall asleep again. Most of the times this week I have woken up with very faint tinnitus and it gets worse when I start thinking about it again. But not today. Today I woke up with blaring ringing and couldn't get it to simmer down.
Is this a normal phenomena? Tinnitus spiking at night?
I can't tell any longer if my tinnitus is actually worse because of hearing damage or it's worse because of my stress and depression.
Background story:
I was born with hearing disability in my left-ear, never received any explanation but it seemed to just be one of those random disabilities some have. I am currently 30 year old but when I was around age 15, in 2005-ish, it was the first time I acquired permanent tinnitus. Most likely from rowdy classrooms and way too loud and way too frequent use of MP3 players, mostly metal. Anyways, I habituated quickly after a couple of months and lived a perfectly normal life for 15 years basically never thinking about my tinnitus ever.
Current situation:
Now suddenly one Saturday in late January I woke up and suddenly noticed my tinnitus again. I do admit that I was up late watching YouTube the night before, but I never noticed any ear pain or tinnitus when I went to bed.
Anyways it started to drive me mad and make me extremely scared, it's like confronting a horror villain again after you think you've finally killed him. It's been about two weeks now with my awareness of tinnitus again and I can't seem to get back into habituation. What's worse is that I can't even tell if my hearing is worse or not. I'm going in spirals feeling like I need to blame myself and I'm stressing out about any tiny sound, can't judge what's too loud or not.
I was getting slightly better this week, reading up about all the success stories and remembering how I did habituate myself, reading up on methods of therapy for habituating etc. But I have this problem where I randomly wake up at night with my tinnitus spiked, hard to get straight sessions of sleep.
Now I woke up today and my tinnitus was spiking hard, usually I'm able to sleep again and it's soothed, but not this time, today on Friday it's pinged hard and I can't relax to come down. And It's driving me into desperation, I'm so broken because I was feeling like I was getting better again and now I'm crushed. My family is afraid because they don't understand and they don't know what to do and that is stressing me out even more.
I need advice, asap, because I feel like I'm being pulled apart by anxiety.
Other conditions:
I had COVID-19 in December, got healthy from it in early January. My ears get stuffy whenever I'm sick and I get wax blockage, same with COVID-19 but this time I kept having a wet feeling and "lids" over my ears. Just some week before this I kept having sinus pains. Ear drums feels slightly sticky and not really "right". But doctors said my ears looked fine, no clue what's going on. Don't know if it's just a coincidence.
I need your advice and help. I know it's possible to beat this, but I need help.
Thanks.
Edit:
I also want to note that I have several times at night woken up from my tinnitus flaring up randomly. Thought first it was my snoring but nobody in family have reported snoring in extreme volumes. I even took to wearing one of those nose expander things, and it seems to work since I haven't experienced any dry mouths. Usually the ringing goes away if I fall asleep again. Most of the times this week I have woken up with very faint tinnitus and it gets worse when I start thinking about it again. But not today. Today I woke up with blaring ringing and couldn't get it to simmer down.
Is this a normal phenomena? Tinnitus spiking at night?
I can't tell any longer if my tinnitus is actually worse because of hearing damage or it's worse because of my stress and depression.
