Tinnitus who suffers from it

[tres]

Is there any sign they’re going to be able to cure this in the near future? I’ve not seen any studies or news articles on it for a while now.

Mine isn’t horrific but it would be nice to have true silence again.

Tinnitus is a symptom not a condition. It's like hoping pain will be cured.
It can be caused by a number of things - Menierre's, trauma, infections, vascular issues, tumours, acoustic neuromas, TMJ disorder, medications, ear wax, stress, noise induced, age related changes etc etc.
At the moment though, it's all about avoiding and managing, or treating the underlying cause.

 

[Ayahuasca]

Tinnitus is a symptom not a condition. It's like hoping pain will be cured.
It can be caused by a number of things - Menierre's, trauma, infections, vascular issues, tumours, acoustic neuromas, TMJ disorder, medications, ear wax, stress, noise induced, age related changes etc etc.
At the moment though, it's all about avoiding and managing, or treating the underlying cause.

I wasn’t talking about a fix all cure, just anything on the horizon that looks promising for some sufferers. I’m aware that it can be caused by a number of things so didn’t really need the brief lecture…

 

[darael]

I have never experienced this, in fact the opposite. I have worked in ENT.

It could just be me being prickly then. As I said, it's just a feeling. The nurses are quite happy to discuss things with me and a lot of it helps, so I suppose I could ask myself what more can they do.

 

[PaulM]

Tinnitus is a symptom not a condition. It's like hoping pain will be cured.
It can be caused by a number of things - Menierre's, trauma, infections, vascular issues, tumours, acoustic neuromas, TMJ disorder, medications, ear wax, stress, noise induced, age related changes etc etc.
At the moment though, it's all about avoiding and managing, or treating the underlying cause.

As someone who's worked in ENT have you ever heard about anyone with TMJ disorder completely resolving their tinnitus through TMJ treatment? I've got semi-bad TMJ dysfunction which luckily so far causes minimal pain apart from when chewing something crunchy... but jaw deviates to the side on opening & pops/clicks in multiple places every single time I open my mouth, had locked jaw a couple of times too, it's been like this for 20+ years. I've had unilateral tinnitus for 8 years on the side where the TMJ is the worst, and recently I've been speaking (not had an appointment yet) with a TMD physiotherapist who claims to have significantly reduced and in some cases cured peoples tinnitus.

I've yet to see a single anecdote online where someone has actually had their tinnitus completely disappear due to TMJ treatment though so I'm sceptical. Since I have minimal pain I don't want to risk making it worse for no reason, but at the same time I'd love to experience silence again

 

[Bassmansam]

I don't think it's medically advised to wear earphones or headphones. But if you need a distraction from the tinnitus and you don't want to bother others, sometimes they're the only answer. The hard part is actually trying not to drown the tinnitus out from whatever you're listening to - keep the volume just below your tinnitus. This helps to ignore the tinnitus long term, rather than drown it out and risk more damage that might make it worse.

@Dreadi
First off, go and see and doctor and let them know you're suffering from what you think is tinnitus. Odds are it is, as it sounds similar to my own tinnitus. The sooner you try to accept the tinnitus and get on with your life as normal as possible, the better. The more you fixate on it, the worse it can become as your anxiety levels increase. Relaxation can help, such as slow breathing techniques or even Yoga classes.

What irks me a little, is that there seems to be two tiers of tinnitus suffers - those who wear hearing aids and those who don't. I almost feel like doctors don't treat you seriously unless you need to wear hearing aids. This isn't the fault of those that suffer from tinnitus, as at the end of the day they have tinnitus just like me and others. It's just that I feel like people who wear hearing aids are treat more seriously than those don't.

Those that need hearing aids need to be treated more seriously though as they have significant hearing loss. You can have tinnitus with minimal hearing loss as well and still hear mostly fine unaided. Its such a weird condition, sometimes im at a 1-3/10. Other days it can be 5-7/10. When i'm excerising and eating healthily its usually lower.

 

[Dreadi]

@Dreadi
First off, go and see and doctor and let them know you're suffering from what you think is tinnitus. Odds are it is, as it sounds similar to my own tinnitus. The sooner you try to accept the tinnitus and get on with your life as normal as possible, the better. The more you fixate on it, the worse it can become as your anxiety levels increase. Relaxation can help, such as slow breathing techniques or even Yoga classes.

What irks me a little, is that there seems to be two tiers of tinnitus suffers - those who wear hearing aids and those who don't. I almost feel like doctors don't treat you seriously unless you need to wear hearing aids. This isn't the fault of those that suffer from tinnitus, as at the end of the day they have tinnitus just like me and others. It's just that I feel like people who wear hearing aids are treat more seriously than those don't.

I have already accepted the fact that I've got it because i always notice it whenever it's quiet. It's not bothering me too much at the moment to be honest as the only time my house is ever quiet is when I'm in bed but I will try and make an appointment just to see what they have to say about it.

It doesn't seem to have affected my hearing in any way as I asked my wife the other night if she could hear a noise when we were lying in bed and she asked if it was my ears as she couldn't hear anything....got out of bed and looked underneath to find the cat asleep under the bed, beet lightly snoring and she couldn't hear it ..

 

[Tephnos]

I wasn’t talking about a fix all cure, just anything on the horizon that looks promising for some sufferers. I’m aware that it can be caused by a number of things so didn’t really need the brief lecture…

Yes, there is. Look up the Susan Shore device.

 

[Tephnos]

As someone who's worked in ENT have you ever heard about anyone with TMJ disorder completely resolving their tinnitus through TMJ treatment? I've got semi-bad TMJ dysfunction which luckily so far causes minimal pain apart from when chewing something crunchy... but jaw deviates to the side on opening & pops/clicks in multiple places every single time I open my mouth, had locked jaw a couple of times too, it's been like this for 20+ years. I've had unilateral tinnitus for 8 years on the side where the TMJ is the worst, and recently I've been speaking (not had an appointment yet) with a TMD physiotherapist who claims to have significantly reduced and in some cases cured peoples tinnitus.

I've yet to see a single anecdote online where someone has actually had their tinnitus completely disappear due to TMJ treatment though so I'm sceptical. Since I have minimal pain I don't want to risk making it worse for no reason, but at the same time I'd love to experience silence again

I've seen a couple of anecdotes of it being cured, one did it via a night guard. Another via surgery I think in this very thread. I've got TMJ induced tinnitus as well, although mine was from clenching my jaw way too hard one time back in 2016 and it just permanently gave me tinnitus. I have no idea what the possible mechanism for that is, really. How the hell did clenching my jaw too hard give me permanent tinnitus in one side? I know I have more tension in that side of my jaw, so maybe something like botox to weaken the muscles would help over time.

Aside from that, unfortunately, my first covid infection last late July also gave me tinnitus in my left ear. Instead of a high-pitched ringing sound, this one was more like a low-pitched rumble, probably because the infection gave me ETD (I couldn't pop my ears for a day or two). After a few months of this I got irritated and self-medicated on Prednisone (GP refused to prescribe it saying it didn't work compared to the nose sprays. I called bull and was proven right, as the spray did nothing, but a few weeks of high strength Pred brought the rumbling down in volume by a fair bit). Over a year later and while it is still there and sometimes spikes for no reason, it's virtually undetectable unless I'm trying to listen to it in an utterly dead silent room. From what I can see, it is slowly going away. Long covid seems to last around 18–24 months on average, so hoping by next year it'll fully be gone.