Up until 5 years ago I believed there was nothing I could do about living with Tinnitus.
Are you fighting your internal sound?
Most days I try and believe that the tinnitus I hear shouldn’t affect my day. I've been living with tinnitus for over 30 years now. It was the result of a meningitis scare, an almost end-of-life experience. I had believed these sounds would always be there so I've basically habitualized or ignored them both in my normal work routine and social settings. I'm now in my 60's and questioning if this is a good strategy for my quality of life. Maybe like you, I feel embarrassed talking about it with friends or worried if you mention it at work, it will be used against you in some way.
Is your social and work life suffering?
This is not to say I haven't had times when I've been frustrated having to think and communicate over the tinnitus. Especially when work is stressful it can be a burden and possibly interrupt communication with work colleagues. Could tinnitus contribute to lack of success in professional lives? While I'm grateful for all that my mind does, the more I focus my days on wellness, especially meditation, the more I'm starting to believe a busy mind can't be used as a distraction from calming the tinnitus. I feel, perhaps like you there is a reason the tinnitus is there and by making changes in my life, including some of the treatments being developed, ultimately the tinnitus need not be heard.
Importance of sharing
I've become confident there will be a treatment to remove or quieten these sounds. There are many causes and many treatments being offered for tinnitus. Finding treatments that work for you and getting support on this journey, need not be all consuming. For me it’s not just about the minor hearing loss in my left ear. Like you maybe, I feel solving this problem is about my quality of life. What would living with internal silence be like? What journey and treatments would get us there? Would reducing stress, especially from work and enjoying things that are important to us, be an integral part of this journey? While understanding and getting the tinnitus silenced in our bodies is a solo process, being part of a group may well be the key to celebrating what comes after.
Are you fighting your internal sound?
Most days I try and believe that the tinnitus I hear, mostly in my left ear shouldn’t affect my day. I've been living with tinnitus for over 30 years now. It was the result of a meningitis scare, an almost end-of-life experience. The first morning I was discharged from hospital I looked in the mirror and the left side of my face didn’t seem to move. I had a palsy and while movement and my ability to smile returned with treatments, I was left with a ringing – well not a ringing in the left ear but quite a loud droning which at the time, I likened to the flyby of a fleet of empire warships in Star Wars.
Is your social and work life suffering?
But the tinnitus has stayed with me. Occasionally I have got frustrated with it, especially during work activities when I choose to think of it as an extra burden to overcome to be able to do my job well. I used to tell myself ‘I got off lightly’ considering the damage meningitis could have caused. Could tinnitus have contributed to lack of a successful career though? I have never been an extrovert and issues about my sexuality likely caused a lot of flight rather than fight responses in my early 20’s. I have also believed since that age using yoga and wellness just to keep me work-ready was a disservice to myself. Better to remove the stress if you can, than patch-up the resulting wounds. Perhaps you have also reached middle age and regardless of what events triggered tinnitus for you, you feel you aren't living your best life, and tinnitus is the internal background noise to this.
Have I found a treatment that helps?
A common question most people who suffer from tinnitus ask – will it last for ever? There is no ‘one size fits all’ answer; there are many variables. Who knows there may be a tinnitus treatment just around the corner. However, this treatment would have to have a high success rate for your type of tinnitus, be affordable and be relatively easily incorporate into your daily routine. We have a lot of expectations for health treatments today, but the good news is a lot of researched based work and more funding is being directed to solving tinnitus. Tinnitus Quest is an example.
Diagnosis of your tinnitus type
Like for many health conditions, a prerequisite to treatment is to establish what type of tinnitus condition you have and understand what impacts it and how. Finding words to describe the phantom sounds is also important. For example, classifications such as tonal, tea kettle, buzzing, screeching, roaring can be a great help in describing it others. This can also be done with a brain imagining. See Bionics Institute
A Holistic Approach
The commonality of most existing successful treatment claims is the need to take a holistic approach. I have found using sound therapy, meditation and counselling the most useful activities in reducing and managing it.
Sound Therapy
Sound therapy is interesting because it shows us how much agency we have over our living space and daily routines. Do you have the time, space and if not access to nature, the technology to listen to music and enjoy natural environmental sounds? Perhaps for you, sound especially in social settings has always been important and a key part of your identity. For me the visual has been more important but there are mysteries with sound that I’ve never understood. Like the times when I'm outside at the beach or when walking in the mountains the tinnitus can just pause and restart from a different direction. If this can happen, why does the sound need to be there at all, I wonder. Another example we have all experienced is, the perception of sound being very loud at night, but the same noise, at the same volume during the day, we barely notice.
Work- Life Balance
I see managing my tinnitus as part of my challenge to be WELL for participating at work and feeling included socially. Perhaps like you, being an older person in the work force can be stressful both for finding opportunities to use your experience and skills and because of less job security. I meditate, exercise and spend a short time learning languages every day. I carve out time less often to do art work. Making small changes to your routine means there is a place to grow bigger interventions further down the track. An example is some days I’m in a rush and I'm thinking more about getting to a place rather than, am I in a good place. You might be surprised how useful acknowledging how you feel can make it easier to drop into the place you are heading to. Changing the internal monologue from the negative comes from recognising how your body is holding on to an emotional state. Dr Rebecca Ray's book 'Believe' gives some great strategies to do this.
I don't use noise cancelling devices and I don't listen to music enroute to places. I ride a push bike so I can hear the environment; the wind, the birds and sometime the sound therapy I would have played at home will replay at some point during the day. Perhaps like me you find, controlling the playback tunes in your mind is preferable to unwanted ear worm tunes.
Finding Support and Staying Positive about Living with Tinnitus.
The internet is full of promises of treatments and support for tinnitus. It can be over-whelming in deciding which treatments to try or if the treatment is legit. Tinnitus Talk is an online community which accommodates a vast range of needs from research to just looking for support when the tinnitus has flared. The exciting development is the organisation now has funding to support research work. See TINNITUS QUEST
My strategy probably hasn’t been too systematic. It is an emotional problem, because I only talk about it with a few people. Some of the useful sites where I have got information and potential support from have been:
University of Auckland Audiology Clinic
I have found a big help to reduce the internal sound, is to not let negative emotions be my motivating driver. Listening to Brene Brown's podcasts has helped, as a researched based link of emotions to behaviour is something I can relate to.
Keeping active and by attending workshops / embodiment retreats has made me think more about body energy. I’ve known about yoga and chakras since being a teenager in the 1970’s. I have revisited a lot of it in the last ten years as yoga and wellness are now global markets; it’s not an uncool thing for guys to do now.
Contact
Please check out my website and leave your email details if any of this resonates with you.
I intend to post about this journey and send out invitations to opportunities to improve your quality of life through solving shared problems related to tinnitus. It will be great to find ways we can support each other living our best lives as older persons with lots to offer.