Mask the noise or not?

[Petra1988]

How can we reach the state of habituation earlier? With masking the sound or shall we listen to the sound? There are different opinions about it. Joey Remenyi with her Rock Steady program says that masking is not the way "to healing". That is why I am so insecure how to deal with it. But when I don't mask the sound I just HAVE TO listen to it, I can't overhear it, but that would be my greatest wish, that I can ignore it when it's silent. How can I learn to overhear it? I am so afraid that I won't get to that place. I would be very thankful for your advices.

[Darren6]

Hi Petra, In my experience fully masking the sound is not a route to habituation but rather a pause button to give you a chance to have some time without the sound.

The theory goes (and in my case worked) that you should have other sound(s) around you to allow your brain to focus on something other than the sound of the T. This, over time, will help deprioritise the T sound. I wore a hearing aid for over 12 months that would play a noise, much like a white noise, which over time reduced my focus on the Tinnitus sound.

This is turn, reduced anxiety, in turn reduced the loudness perception of the T.

I know only hear it when i focus on it, like now, losing emotional and anxiety relationship with it. Hard to imagine you will get to this spot but you will, as others have. It just takes time and a positive attitude to get there.

[Petra1988 in reply to Darren6]

Danke, das gibt mir Hoffnung

[Ray200]

You can't rush habituation, and masking is more to do with maintaining sanity than anything else. You can't have habituation and leave sanity out.

[perlcoder]

Hello,

I can't say that I have ever managed completely to habituate, and you are certainly right to observe that the opinion of therapists varies. Darren6 has already offered good advice, but I would just add this - and believe me, I know how immensely difficult, how paradoxical this sounds, but if you are thinking about habituation often (and we all did), that will slow your path to it. One needs a consistent strategy (for some it is maskers, for others it is none, some rely on CBT, others mindfulness), but that strategy must not include an hourly assessment of the extent to which it has succeeded. People who manage to do that find that their T fades.

Best wishes.

[Petra1988 in reply to perlcoder]

Yes, but what you have experienced is my greatest fear...Not to habituate. How can you have a good life without habituating? I am so worried about that.

[perlcoder in reply to Petra1988]

I wish that I could give a nice reassuring answer to that question, yet at the same time a bleak response would be misleading and wrong.

I have had T for about 24 years now. It has affected my life, and my outlook on life. It has done those things in a more extensive way than did the Stage 4 cancer from which, with chemo, I recovered 14 years ago, or the rather spectacular bout of depression I suffered in 2017 (and from which I recovered). So, I do not mean to minimise its impact on anyone. I am, however, as you see, still here and even generally cheerful - my wife may not entirely agree, but she hasn't left me after 50 years together, so I can't be that bad.

One thing I have learned is that for many of us (there is nothing in T that affects all of us, we are all different), T will change over time, whether we follow a program of habituation or not. Partly this is because almost everyone's hearing will deteriorate over a long enough time, but our individual brains' cope with that in different ways. (Incidentally, I assume that your hearing has been tested and that you have any necessary hearing aids - they do help in the majority of cases). So, you can look forward to change in your T, and it may well settle down and improve.

Come what may though, if your T has now been present for long enough that it is not temporary thing (it happens), then you are going to have life that is different from the one you anticipated, and you might become a person who is not the one you expected to become, but it is wrong to think that it won't be a good life. Many people here will tell you that it can be. You didn't sign up for this adventure, but you are on board now 🙂

Best wishes

[Petra1988 in reply to perlcoder]

Thank you for your answers! Yes, I expected a different life and I am so sad that I can't have this

[happyrosie1]

as has been said, Petra. Habituation just happens.

Let me give an example. I bought a flat on a main road. On the first night what kept me awake? The noise of traffic (as normal background tinnitus). I’d get to sleep : Sirens and motorbikes and people coming out of the pub (like tinnitus giving different noises, or spiking). Within a week I was a wreck.

Within about six weeks though I had habituated. Because my brain realised the noise was the new normal; the primitive part of the brain realised that the noise wasn’t going to hurt me.

The way to help habituation on its way is acceptance, relaxation, maybe cognitive behaviour therapy.

If you haven’t done so lately, a read through the website of Tinnitus UK might be helpful.

[Petra1988 in reply to happyrosie1]

That is my problem, I just can't accept it. And I cannot focus away from the noise. My brain is there every minute

[Untold in reply to Petra1988]

I'm with you Petra, this torture is with me every second, resonating through my skull. I can't habituate to this because I don't know what's coming next. Apart from the baseline ringing/hissing I get loads of other noises, I never know what is coming or when, so I know habituation is never going to happen.I mask it with a snooze band and have a 15khz masking sound louder than the tinnitus background baseline. It's the only way I get anywhere near coping.

The NHS had me talking to a psychologist last year. He had been dealing with people suffering with T for over 20 years. Habituation was something he mentioned regularly, although it seemed to me that all the people who had managed to habituate had either hearing loss induced tinnitus or tinnitus lite, not the life wrecking somatic T that some of us have.

I guess we all have to find our own way as we search for a way to cope.

Good luck to you.

[robtheprint in reply to happyrosie1]

What excellent advice, well worth remembering.

[Positivechangeplease]

hello, have you tried yoga to try and calm yourself? It’s all about being in a neutral place to tell yourself you’re okay with the sound. It’s more about being very relaxed when it happens. The more you adopt this, the sooner the sound will dissipate and you’ll learn to ignore it.

[Petra1988 in reply to Positivechangeplease]

Thank you for this advice. My problem is that - no matter what I am doing - I never feel fine with my noise. It just is disturbing me all the time and I don't know how to switch into positive thinking about my T

[Petra1988 in reply to Petra1988]

How do you manage this?

[Positivechangeplease in reply to Petra1988]

I had to tell my brain to ignore it and focus on something entirely different. It mostly disturbed me at night and often woke me up. It’s not gone entirely it’s just less and I’m used to it. But if it wakes me up again I have to tell myself it’s okay. I’m okay with it ignore it… and sooner than I would used to I’d fall asleep. It’s brain training and hard but it does help

[Ray200 in reply to Petra1988]

There is no positive thinking about tinnitus. Perhaps trying to defy this truth is where your grief is mainly coming from. There is acceptance of it, just like with any other chronic medical condition. The English phrase is 'go with the flow'. We get carried along in life most of the time, the options available to us are not nearly as numerous as we like to think. Hope this helps.

[MAC0811]

It is easier said than done trying to ignore tinnitus especially if you have the more louder intrusive variety and like me have hyperacusis to contend with too! As try as you might you can’t ignore it!? I’ve been round the track countless times trying everything; CBT, ACT, mindfulness, acupuncture, been on nearly every pill out there, and exhausted some pills to the point that they no longer work for me? I even go to the gym (in my garage) 2-4 times a week, eat a reasonably healthy diet, Meanwhile this has all got worse (or is it just the perception??) so no idea what I do from here!? lol!! As I’ve seemingly just been kicked into the long grass basically by the medical World in the UK, only a few weeks ago I saw an ENT Specialist who said basically this “Sorry but there’s nothing I can do for you!” And I sat there and thought - Wow here we are in the 21st century and you can’t even give me a pill or perhaps an injection somewhere in the head that would just bring it down even a tad? Not even asking for a cure!! 😆 But No, all we’ve got is talking therapy and this seemingly only works on those with low to moderate tinnitus and hyperacusis or/and have a diff type of brain perhaps which lets them get past it? Well I don’t have that type of brain either - if it exists?

[Petra1988 in reply to MAC0811]

Ja wir sind ziemlich auf uns alleine gestellt, im Endeffekt muss jeder selber damit klar kommen. Mein t. ist nicht einmal sehr laut, eher leise bis mittel, trotzdem belastet er mich und auch die Psychotherapie hat mir da wenig geholfen

[MAC0811 in reply to Petra1988]

Have translated that. Yes we are pretty much on our own!

[GrimGraze]

I see no point in masking. You don't want to hear this noise and instead you just... put another noise? I just let it as it is.

How long has it been since you had it?

[Petra1988 in reply to GrimGraze]

15 months

[WildIris]

My tinnitus is too loud to mask now, after many years, tho my hearing itself seems fine. I used to hate it, which is a common reaction among people who post here. Now, the sound just reminds me that I made a decision to be positive about all of life, the good and the awful, all the things we don't get to choose. A person is worse off giving way to hate than just seeing (hearing) what's real and doing what can be done, and accepting it when nothing can be done. I'm in the U.S. and that's my attitude about Trump too.

[Petra1988 in reply to WildIris]

❤️