Adapting to hearing loss can be overwhelming no matter how you got here--suddenly or progressively. Hearing Loss LIVE! wants to help you take control of your hearing loss. Because we know that when you do, you will live more fully with fewer limits. We can help improve your communication obstacles in your day to day life.
Tinnitus is a brain disorder world wide and affects both those with hearing and hearing loss. We here at Hearing Loss LIVE! have learned that there is no one fix for Tinnitus but it doesn't stop the FAKE NEWS about cures.
As we recognize Tinnitus Week we thought we would share some of our thoughts here.
Adapting to hearing loss can be overwhelming no matter how you got here--suddenly or progressively. Hearing Loss LIVE! wants to help you take control of your hearing loss. Because we know that when you do, you will live more fully with fewer limits. We can help improve your communication obstacles in your day to day life.
Tinnitus is a brain disorder world wide and affects both those with hearing and hearing loss. We here at Hearing Loss LIVE! have learned that there is no one fix for Tinnitus but it doesn't stop the FAKE NEWS about cures.
As we recognize Tinnitus Week we thought we would share some of our thoughts here.
Hearing Loss LIVE! recognizes tinnitus week.
Julia: Hello, welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE! We were going through our calendar and we noticed this week is National Tinnitus Week. So we thought what a better way than to make a short and talk to you about tinnitus and our experiences with it. I personally don't have tinnitus past the occasional ringing in the ears from whatever's going on. It doesn't last long and it doesn't bother me. But interestingly, my hearing son went hunting one time and has suffered from tinnitus ever since. So whether you have a hearing loss or not, tinnitus is one of those things that and I'm sorry, I seem to have a funny little window thing going on. So tinnitus is one of those things that you may or may not experience. But most of the people I know with hearing, excuse me with tinnitus, have a hearing loss of some sort and or are deaf. And so I thought, you know, let's talk a little bit about our personal experiences and share some ideas on what Chelle and Michele, who both have tinnitus, have used in the past to kind of help habituate their their tinnitus and how they've dealt with it because it can be pretty, pretty traumatizing, I guess, is what I'll say. I want to say one more thing, and then I'm going to turn it over and let them talk to you. Be cautious of anybody who says they can cure your tinnitus. That is not true. Do your research, talk with friends, go to American Tinnitus Association. ata.org. We'll have a little link on their on our little post here and do your research. This is not us giving you advice. This is us letting you know what we have tried and found that works for our individual tinnitus. Every individual is going to approach it differently. And that's okay. The more you know, the more ways you can find out what works for you. Alright, that's my soapbox, I'm done. Who would like to go first? Chelle.
Chel;e: This Chelle. Tinnitus is individual to each person. Everybody is different. We all hear different noises. And I think we all deal with it a little differently. So again, we're coming from personal experiences, not a total recognition. I had been told I dealt with mine in the past the wrong way. But it really wasn't. So I'll explain. In 1987, I came down with tinnitus. Overnight hard, high pitched squealing and I could not sleep and I went to an ear, nose, throat doctor. And I took a hearing tet. They said I didn't have any hearing loss, but I think I had hidden hearing loss. But I had tinnitus and he said, Oh go home. Learn to live with it. There's nothing we can do. But you didn't tell me how to learn to live with it. And I was not sleeping. I was a zombie during the day so I think it was just hardcore determination on my part to get over it. I think I was standing in the bathroom one morning and I just decided I'm not going to let this ruin my life because I was I think 18 years old you know this is not gonna ruin my life. So that night I put on a Walkman. Haha, that dates me. So I put on my Walkman and I listened to music all night long. I was really thankful for one of those ones that flip the cassette side over. So I just very light music just enough to cover up the tinnitus and that's finally how I learned to deal with it and I think I slept with noise for a very long time. So I habituated early. I have now the high pitch squeal, cicadas and crickets 24/7 those noises are always going for me. It only drives me crazy in really quiet situations. Or when I'm working on something, a project that revolves around tinnitus and then I hear it all the time again, it's horrible. Otherwise, I wear my hearing aids and kind of drowns out the tinnitus. I do get a chirp when I'm overtired. It just chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp and that means I need to go to bed early that night. I, I made friends with my tinnitus which is what I was told was the wrong thing way back when. I was going through a divorce, AHA fun, and it was of course not very fun and I instead of focusing on all the issues around the divorce, I turned into my tinnitus. Okay, my cricket, my cicadas, my night noises and that kept my mind off divorce issues. So I just it became almost like my friend because it helped me focus on something else. Which later on turned into like, just background no doesn't bother me. Caffiene, salt and aspirin or said to make a difference in tinnitus. None of that has affected my tinnitus. It just it doesn't matter for me but I have known people that do watch their intake of those three things to keep their tinnitus to a minimum. Mostly my problem is being overtired and the bird is now my, bird chirping is my alerting system.
Julia: Thank you for that insight. Actually sounds like making a year friend might help it keep from being your enemy. I don't know. Michele, what are your thoughts on your tinnitus?
Michele: I do have some thoughts. Since I started losing my hearing as a child, I don't think that I actually know what it's like not to have tinnitus. My loss was gradual and pretty severe by the end of high school. So as I lost more hearing, my tinnitus got worse. Another thing that complicates tinnitus for me is that I have severe hyperacousis, which is an intolerance of sound, everyday sound. So all my audiologist would say, okay, to get rid of the tinnitus, you need to introduce sound into your ears. And so I when I tried hearing aids that introduce sound, but because of the hyperacousis, I really couldn't tolerate the volume that I needed to get any kind of benefit or relief. So putting sound in my ears doesn't really help. My tinnitus usually is that, which I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and so back then when the TV went off the air at the end of the day, you got that static screen with that static noise. A lot of times that is what my tinnitus sounds like. Sometimes that's a shrill sound with a sharp pain. That may be due to a combination with my hyperacousis because when you have hyperacousis you get pain in your ears and sound introduces pain. So sometimes I think my tinnitus is triggered by sounds that I actually can't hear, but they irritate my hyperacusis. So it's really kind of complicated. The other sounds that I get is the chirping that Chelle mentioned, but I also get church bells. Like I'd say maybe once a year or once every two years, I'll have three or four days where I'll have a continual church bell ringing in my ear, and it sounds exactly like church bells. I'm not sure what to attribute that to. I also have migraines and usually when I have a migraine my tinnitus is really bad. I have one actually right now. And the other interesting tinnitus scenario that I get is a radio announcer. If you've seen Pretty Woman in the opening of that where you hear the radio, talk radio going on, that's kind of what it is. It's a low tone and it sounds like a man's voice on the radio and my brain actually adds some words in there so I can make sense of it. Because it tends to drive me crazy. Luckily, I don't have that very often. And as for relief, there's not a whole lot I can do about it. Again, I can't listen to music or do any of that. And sometimes I just have to go to bed and sleep it off if it's really bad. Luckily, I'm
acclimated to it. I think I am good at trying to focus on other things. I know there's a name for that. And I think Chelle mentioned it. Where you change your focus, and sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't, it depends on what environment I'm in. Sometimes when I'm kayaking by myself, there's a wilderness river by my house and it's so quiet. Everybody tells me it's just so dead quiet. And that actually makes my tinnitus worse. And I have to turn around and go back home because I can't actually enjoy being out in the wild, because my tinnitus is just raging. So for me, I've not really had any great solutions for relief. But I can live with it and the times that I can't I just pretty much go to bed and try to sleep it off.
Julia: Thank you, Michelle. I think one of our biggest takeaways is that everybody's different, right? So if you haven't joined a support group about tinnitus, maybe look into one, whether online or through American Tinnitus Association, maybe through your health and welfare division, they might have some more information or guideposts and just know there is support and there's all sorts of ideas. I think Neosensory band who we talked about quite a bit has, the word Michele was looking for, a habituation band, computer program for tinnitus, that may or may not help you. And keep an open mind. Try different things. You never know what what can help you. And if it does, it's not the wrong thing. Okay. You need to look into solutions for yourself. So we hope you have a good week. It is Tinnitus Recognition Week. So look for articles. I'm going to guess there's going to be a bunch worldwide, maybe on WHO, World Health Organization, they seem to publish a lot of stuff there. We'll have that link down here in the corner too. We hope you have a good week and thanks for listening today. See ya.
Links for today's short podcast can always be found at hearinglosslive.com, look in the upper right corner and click "glossary" and any link we list will be there. Thanks for joining.