Tinnitus and hearing loss

[swisssa]

Hi All,

My tests came and they are saying i have hearing loss which is causing my T.

Frustrating.. as it seems permanent now.

Since few weeks my anxiety is increased a lot. I am still not able to accept my T. It makes me more anxious thinking i have T for life.

When I get work stress T is super high. Sometime i feel to leave work and never come back.

Is it good idea to even get sick off for few weeks and try and find a way to accept T?

Does doctor writes up a sick note to employer for this?

[Happyrosie]

Hello swisssa. I'm sorry your tinnitus is causing you problems. As you have hearing loss, I expect you are to see an audiologist to prescribe hearing aids on the NHS? They are free (in England, I don't know about anywhere else) and I find they certainly help - it makes the tinnitus less prominent as the real world is louder.

As far as stress is concerned, it would be a good idea to see your doctor.

Nearly three years ago doctors were given fresh advice on how to deal with their patients who presented themselves with Tinnitus. As Covid then came along, some doctors may not be aware of this fresh advice. The guidance for doctors is contained in the website of NICE (National Institute for Clinical Evidence) which, though it's a website for doctors, is available to anyone to read. It's not entirely easy for a non-medical person and the summary that they used to supply is no longer available. But you could have a look at it and then discuss with the doctor.

Whether he or she supplies a sick note is up to them.

[surreycccfan]

Hi, sorry to hear you are having a tough time. As Happyrosie says I think its important to see your GP to get a audiology referral plus I would suggest you may want to talk to them about the increased anxiety as something like CBT may help (although you can self refer for CBT at nhs.uk/mental-health/talkin... ).

How you are feeling is not unusual and I know I felt like this, I think having a good understanding of your T and to start building in some management techniques into day to day life (not just when you are potentially off sick) would be good, a good place to start if one of the BTA resources tinnitus.org.uk/takeontinnitus

When I first experienced the condition I was signed off work (the GP initially put tinnitus on the fit for work note but the concurrent extensions were 'stress and anxiety' as this is what my T was causing) and for me my clinicians were more focused on my mental health than my T. For me I know it good while for me to accept my T, as the techniques I learnt through the BTA take time to shift how my brain perceived this phantom sound (brain plasticity). One thing to consider is that not everyone can accept their T but it is possible to live well with it, like you I wanted to try and accept it but after an audiologist gave me the above advice I shifted my thinking and techniques to try and live well with it, one good thing is once I felt I was doing this it allowed me to accept it.

One thing to think about it, is what are the techniques you may want to use. I would say we are all unique and each of our T is unique therefore some evidence based techniques to manage your T work for some and not for others, I know for me i tried a few things and I worked out what worked for me. Whatever techniques you use (I used a combination of distraction and cognitive techniques) you will probably have to use them for some time to help shift how your brain perceives your T (brain plasticity) and the effect it has on you nervous system (fight/flight).

You talk about work stress and one thing I did was to understand my indicators of stress (I learnt this through CBT) and made sure I had coping techniques for this as I realised if I was stress my T would seem worse and then make me feel more stressed. Also, once I had my T diagnosed by an ENT I spoke to my work occupational health to make them aware of my T which for me was considered a hidden disability and they helped me make adjustments to reduce stress and triggers at work.

I hope this helps in some small way, stay safe

[Threeminuteboy]

Hi Swissa

One thing to remember is the medical profession have no way of proving the cause of tinnitus in any one person and they have no treatment for it . Because of this and the fact that a lot of people with hearing loss also have tinnitus they will jump to the conclusion that "If you have hearing loss and you have T it must be the hearing loss that is causing the T" . But there are also millions of people with hearing loss that don't have T . Whatever the causes of tinnitus are until there is a cure , there is no point in stressing over what is causing it . Stress is the feeder of T , as you said yourself yours gets louder when you are stressed (as mine does) so your hearing loss apart , there is your cause or potential cause , you can't control the noise - but in time you can learn to control your brains reaction to it , its a mind game but it can take a long time to master it . I cut down working when mine began two years ago because i was sleep deprived and couldn't handle work pressure , but once at home with nothing much to do apart from thinking about the tinnitus in my head it got worse , so if you do take time off work make sure you fill that time with things to do that distract you or that you enjoyed doing before you had the tinnitus . The worst thing to do with T is think about it and talk about it the whole time , seems impossible i know but you will get there in time .