Hi everyone, I’m very new to this journey as I started to get a strange noise in my left ear one morning about four weeks ago. I then forgot about it and realised it happened again. Since then I’ve had constant noise in my ears. I’ve been told I have no hearing loss, so it is stress induced. I’m finding it very hard at the moment and am getting very little sleep. I’m in such a negative mindset and feel I’ve lost myself.
Does anyone have advice that could help me cope with this situation and does it get better.
Many thanks
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Superbiker
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Tinnitus can be be very disturbing and mentally challenging, especially at the beginning. It will become less perturbing as your brain gets used to it - the brain will then push it to the back of your attention, like you block out background noise to concentrate on a conversation in a noisy pub. This is called habituation but how quickly this happens depends on your emotional reaction to your tinnitus - you need to give it less attention by trying not to think about and getting on with your life. Easier said than done, I know. If you're having trouble sleeping, you could try trivial mental exercises to distract you from the tinnitus until you fall asleep (I count backwards from 100) and/or use a sound machine by your bed to generate relaxing sounds to distract your brain from the internal noise. I hope that helps.
Hi,Tinnitus can change sound add a sound and go up and down in volume.
It can be hard when silence has been replaced with tinnitus.
Try to keep sound on around you and not sit in silence.
Try download natural sounds to your phone and at night connect it to a pillow speaker if you don't sleep alone as will help you sleep without effecting anyone.
Try not to tune in to your tinnitus to check its there.
Check your blood pressure is ok as that can be a cause also.
This time of year we make extra mucous if you have hay-fever and causes extra mucous in out eustation tubes so a antihistamine can help reduce it .
Try keep to what you like doing and push extra hard to keep your mental health ok as its so easy to let tinnitus cause unhappiness and lead to depression.
Take care and keep coming on here when you need support.
Thanks for the encouragement, I’m just so exhausted, It’s positive when someone says there is a way out of this and you can still live normally because at the moment I am suffering and can feel depression biting at my heels.
You're welcome Superbiker. You can definitely live okay with Tinnitus. I believe I will have mine for the rest of my life, and it is pretty loud!! When I talk on the phone to someone, I hear their voice and my Tinnitus at the same time.
Superbiker, you posted this: "I’ve been told I have no hearing loss, so it is stress induced. "
I'm not convinced that your Tinnitus is proven to be stress induced. How can that be proven? I don't think it is proven.
There are probably very many causes of Tinnitus, and we don't even know all the causes.
Don't blame yourself for your Tinnitus. It's not your fault. We have Tinnitus, but we cannot know for sure all of the factors that caused it.
My tinnitus was stress induced. If yours doesn't go away what you may find is that it will improve after a few months. You'll read on this site people saying you'll become accustomed to it, which is true, but for me anyway I've found on top of that tinnitus remains prominent in the morning, until the blood gets flowing. It will become prominent again in the evening. Never completely goes away but it is certainly less during the main waking hours. That is beyond being accustomed - it's a definite improvement.
Tinnitus came to me 10 months ago, in retirement, leaving me with plenty of time to follow this site and also do my own on line research. The condition is a big umbrella with what must be many dozens of root causes. My impression from what I now know is that if you must have tinnitus then stress is the better reason for it (if no loss of hearing). You'll have 'a better of time of it' that way, believe it or not!
Yeah, night time is tough to begin with - probably the toughest time in fact. During the day you've got a bunch of distractions around you; people, noises of life, you're doing stuff, listening to sounds, etc, then comes that moment it's just you, the dark, head on pillow and this bloody noise flooding in to your whole mind's attention. Spooking it.
I found night time was a nightmare. It was literally the time when I really believed that any minute now I would wake up and realise this whole T thing was a dream. It was the time when I most feared for my sanity. I kept imaging myself on the floor of a padded cell with my family and friends looking through the door peep hole shaking their heads sadly as the T ripped the last shreds of my sanity away from me and reduced me to a gibbering wreck. But Hey! that didn't happen. At least I don't think it did!
Here's the thing about T they don't tell you and that you can only learn from living with this most unwelcome squatter; The mind is an incredible thing - yours, mine, everybodys, really quite extraordinary in it's complexity, focus and reasoning abilities but, you know, it's also a bit of a dumbo when it comes to looking after it's own wellfare. It's biggest blind spot is it's own self-perception.
When it's you alone, evening time, heading towards bed time, and the T is roaring at you, and your thoughts are in melt-down mode imaging the worst, ask yourself this: "Is this killing me?" - No. "Is this shortening my life span?" - No. Do I need to be afraid medically about this? - No."
Then, turn in on yourself and tell your mind that. Now it takes a little mental gymnastics to do this but just imagine yourself standing outside of you and observing the you suffering with the T and be a spectator of that you. Tell that "you's" mind that it doesn't need to be afraid of this wierd noise. It's a common affliction. Millions upon millions of peole have it. It's the kind of a club that none of us would want to be a member of but there it is; we are and we're all still here. Calm your mind with these simple facts. Don't allow your mind to wander in to the realms of imagining awful things that the T may be signalling to you - because it isn't. It's just noise. Like rain, like wind, like your bike, etc.
If you need a little help as you work on these new mind dissociation techniques you could take an OTC (over the counter) sleep aid for a short while such as Phenergen - just to help you get good sleep as you come to terms with this (Always seek medical advice directly from your Dr/ Consultant/ do you own research before doing so).
In all, I know it's hard to begin with but take heart form this; We all started from within this nightmare and pretty much all of us have emerged in to a way of living that makes life good. You will too - honestly, you will.
as well as my other post i recommend the app NatureSpace which you can play at night to help you sleep, or any sleeping meditation YT videos before you sleep, they have really helped me,
Hi - have you been seen by ENT etc..please check out Julian Cowan Hill on You Tube or he has an app 'Quieten' free month trial, he explains all about Tinnitus and the nervous system, i have had T since September no doubt triggered by stress and muscular tension, i know exactly how stressful T is and i still have bad days, but am slowly learning what i need to do, i heartily recommend Julian as he had T for a very long time but eventually discovered what could help him, he is a genuine man and no longer has T - he went on to help others as he could see that there is far too much negativity around T - it is a stress response of the body so its likely if you can reduce your stress it will go, all the very best to you.
Hello! I am still a recent tinniter (that’s my word for it). Know that you will be ok. You will learn what makes it worse and makes it better.
Worsening for me: alcohol if more than a small glass, long stressful situations, lack of sleep and noisy environments (large meeting, train, plane, concert).
If I get a few days where I can manage all the 4 above, progressively I hear fainter noises but it’s not very often.
I would say the investigating part and understanding cause and effect has kept me sane. I had a period of feeling sorry for my condition but it needed to stop as didn’t go anywhere or resolved anything.
Feel proud when you’ve managed to untangle a bit of what’s going on (maybe you’ve understood a trigger, or you’ve forgotten about it for a second)
Hi. Tinnitus can be extremely frustrating! It's now medically known that it's brain related, not ear. It can also relate to many conditions. You can get hearing aids for Tinnitus, not hearing part, which give out a noise designed to overspend. For me never worked. Some say they just get used to it.Definitely avoid loud noises when you can, maybe wear earplugs in noisey areas.
If its very bad see your gp who can refer you to the hearing department.
One thing that I don't think has been mentioned is tinnitus as a side-effect of medication. Many medicines are ototoxic (damaging to the ear). So, if you are on any medication, it is worth checking whether it can cause tinnitus (lists of ototoxic drugs exist). Also, be careful what medication you take in the future - for example, paracetamol is a preferable pain-killer to asprin and inbuprofen for tinnitus sufferers.
Please read my own T post where I describe that I needed benzos to get to sleep for many years.
All because of the very high rating I gave the T. That is, I was thinking (totally self absorbed) only about my T, nothing else.
Then, realising this was not good long term, I helicoptered up, and saw that others have (far worse) problems and, slowly, the rating I gave T dropped to Zero and, no benzos for 5 years now.
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