Dealing with Tinnitus spikes

[Biggy1]

How is best to react and deal with spikes in tinnitus? I get spikes in several situations. Sound therapy is not always available, for example, when out walking or at work. I often get distressing thoughts during a spike - I feel I just want to run away from the tinnitus.

Many thanks

[Happyrosie]

you sound, Biggy , as if you e been suffering from T for a little while now. I don’t know if you are familiar with the British Tinnitus Association? Their website is helpful. It particularly you could go through their “training module” called Take on Tinnitus.

Other posters might have further thoughts for you.

[TinnitusUKPat Partner]

Hi Biggy1,

To pose a contrary viewpoint, sound therapy is available in one of the surroundings that you mention.

If you are outside walking, there is a wide variety of sound stimulus around you which you can train yourself to pay attention to. Rather than using an app or a tinnitus sound machine to generate it, you're surrounded by different, ambient, naturally occurring sounds.

It might seem off-beam, but the only difference between a sound therapy app or device and the sounds around you as you walk to work is that one is a facsimile and one is the real thing.

In terms of spikes themselves, these often come about in relation to our emotional state. If your tinnitus is bothering you - and you say that you have moments when you want to run away from it - that's more of an emotional reaction than it is a response to any specific sound which you are around. Tinnitus can put us on edge - it's okay to acknowledge that and look at management techniques or approaches which acknowledge this.

[Fridays_Child_62]

My first thought is can you identify anything in these situations that causes your spike - is it triggered by noise? If so, you could try wearing ear-plugs or noise-cancelling ear-phones. In any case, you should probably remove yourself from any distressing situation as soon as possible. If that is not possible, you could look into breathing and relaxation techniques to calm yourself down. My tinnitus tends to react to sound and will often increase when exposed to the hustle and bustle of the outside world, such as traffic noise, but I know that I have to put up with this. You don't say what sort of job you do but managing your tinnitus at work would seem to be a priority.

[bournville]

After years of allowing spikes to send me into a bit of a tailspin I now usually treat inevitable spikes with little regard. I know through experience that my baseline level will eventually return and for me that was the concern that the spike was now my new normal - it never was. if you can identify & minimise triggers and aim to attach less importance to the spikes that do happen they will become less meaningful to the brain and therefore of minimal trouble emotionally. Took a few years to get to that point but it’s how I cope now.