Living with Tinnitus
What is Tinnitus? Well, it’s a noise that is in your head, you either hear it in both ears or just the one. The noise consists of a buzzing, hissing or a high pitch shriek.
I am typing this blog as I am one of many who suffer with Tinnitus, I haven’t had it long. But let me tell you it drives you insane some days! My Tinnitus is a high pitch shriek in one ear. At first, I thought it was earwax build up which can cause T, but it wasn’t that... I honestly can’t tell you what has caused it, could be where I had an ear op when I was younger but I’m not certain.
Living with T can be difficult some days or even nights, people who don’t have it don’t seem to understand the struggle of hearing such an annoying noise 24/7. Which in a way, why would they understand? For me some days it makes me feel depressed, knowing that there isn’t a cure, as far as I’m aware I have it for life and it is something I will have to live with which I am doing. But it still can be a struggle, even typing this has my mind focused on it. It’s funny because people say “Silence is the loudest noise” well they clearly haven’t had T then! I would give anything to never hear such an annoying noise ever again, I am sure a lot of people would say the same.
I remember months ago I went to my GP surgery and got them to have a look into my ears as one of them was blocked with earwax as I mentioned earlier. He also told me “You’re only 22 so you’re too young for Tinnitus” so he referred me to a Ear Nose and Throat specialist, I came out of the doctors feeling hopeful that the noise will go once the earwax has been removed. Well, two months later I finally got my appointment! Got the earwax removed, no different… So, I decided to give it a couple of weeks to see if it’d ease off, which it did, a bit but it was still there, so I didn’t know what else to do but to just deal with it. And it made me feel upset that I had this and I felt I had no one to talk to, doctors can’t help, others can’t help because they don’t understand.
Silence is the enemy, never used to be the case. I always used to take myself off into my room and just do nothing, no sound from Tv’s, Phones or even laptops. Just pure silence and yes it was golden! Now? Not so much, I always worry about when it comes to going to bed in case I can’t sleep properly, because everything is off, everybody is asleep, no noise from anything but your Tinnitus, unless you sleep next to someone who snores, then well count that as a blessing, I guess…
I get told that feeling anxious and stressed makes it worse. Well, I have always been an anxious person with anything that I do and yes, it does make it worse, even unbearable some days because of it and it can make me feel dizzy or unbalanced. I sometimes if I can try and avoid anxious and stressful situations, but in life you can’t do that forever right? People just think you use it as an excuse to get out of doing things, you know what I say to those people, “Try living with it for a week and see how you get on” because I bet they’d find it just as hard. Anyway… enough of me moaning, I just wanted this to make people see they aren’t alone and to make others understand.
Thank you for reading!
