44-year-old with severe Tinnitus

[okus_]

Lost most of the hearing in right ear 6 years ago, manageable tinnitus. This April, lost 60% hearing in left ear and now have severe tinnitus. I have hearing aids from the audiologist. I feel anxious, tired, depressed. I can't escape the tinnitus.

[Happyrosie]

hello okus and welcome.

If you go down this page a bit and read the post headed “My Story” and the replies you might get a sense of what others have thought about tinnitus.

Additionally, the website of Tinnitus UK is very helpful.

When you’ve read these, do come back here with any specific points that you may have.

[TinnitusUKPat Partner]

Hello Okus.

It's a very difficult situation to be in - hearing loss affects a lot of people and tinnitus can be one of the key symptoms which folks can struggle with. The hearing aids are certainly there to help you in terms of augmenting the hearing that you have and hopefully making things like communication and daily life less difficult.

Your anxiety and fatigue may be related to one of the issues you raise - a sense of needing to escape tinnitus. As it is there, perhaps as a consequence of the hearing issues you have, escaping it might be a big challenge.

We have a section on our website which talks about tinnitus and stress which may be worth looking at - if it were possible to think about tinnitus in a different way, not as being something which needs to be escaped from but rather as something which is a component of hearing issues, would that make it seem like less of a burden?

tinnitus.org.uk/understandi...

[Tal-r789T]

Hi Okus, sorry to hear of your struggles. I'm 48 and coming out of lockdown I started to hear the T and started to struggle to hear people. It got bad for me as I also suffered as you are, because I couldn't hear people around me and the T was filling my hearing and focus. So I was prescribed HA for 40% loss in both ears.

I found getting the HA helped me gradually focus less on the T by being able to hear people speaking again. This helped me - it hasn't made T go away but being able to have conversations again and hear people was good.

This eased my anxiety and helped me cope with the T. The T hasn't gone and I have good and bad days. As the anxiety lessened I found I was sleeping again. It took me some time and I had to accept the HA and get used to them, hard to say how long but it was only about 6 months or so.

As I say things still spike, but I've learned to accept the T but not habituate (yet).

I take it you've been to see ent consultant (usual route) and they have done MRI etc checks? You'll see from this forum this usually shows nothing which is good in some respects.

I am sure your journey will not be the same, but I did find a reduction in anxiety/stress and ability to sleep again. I wish you the best in navigating the path and sure you will.

As others have pointed out there is the tinnitus UK site, you could try CBt and maskers to help as well. I use a masker occasionally, which I brought off Amazon, but only at night.

[Terence1955]

I know how you feel, is there a tinnitus support group near you, that would be useful. Also the tinnitus uk help line

[Saveourplanet]

I am so sorry to hear this, I too have had severe T with H for almost three years now, my hearing in my right ear has gone worse with the T being so loud in that ear. My Audiologist did a hearing test and said my hearing has not changed at all (I don’t believe her!) then why am I struggling to hear conversations at arm’s length now without my aids? I do hope there is light at the end of the tunnel for you.

Have you tried neck excercises? where you tilt your head on one side and try to stretch those neck muscles? I find if I do these in the morning they tend to help somehow. Good luck.