Tinnitus is not my friend
It's 1:30am and I can't sleep because I have tinnitus. Ringing in the ears. Both ears. Loudly. I've had it for 20+ years but it has been mostly in the background. Just this low-pitch ringing that sometimes I would notice. But not now. About a month ago, the background noise became front and center, loud loud ringing with ear pain and pressure, headaches, brain fog, and, to be honest, anger about having to go through this.
And there's no cure. Lots of online searching for some kind of relief. There are all sorts of ear-related exercises I can do. Some may work, or maybe not -- I've just begun to explore this avenue. There's the one exercise where you place your hands on the back of your head near the neck and you snap your index finger over the middle finger 20 times; this is supposed to bring relief, and it did for a few minutes. But like the YouTube physician presenter said, you have to keep doing it because, like any exercise, the more you do it, the easier it becomes, and hopefully it will bring permanent relief. Not a cure, just relief, as in lower the volume. I'll take it!
There are also people purporting to have invented concoctions that will bring relief. I watched an infomercial about Cortexi that should sell for $580 a bottle but because the inventor wants to help people without making a huge profit off their pain, he's offering it for $69 but you have to order within the next six hours (or whatever). You know how it goes. There's another concoction that's supposed to be better -- Ultra Ear or something like that -- but I don't want to spend money on pipe dreams. Maybe these things work, maybe they don't.
There's also a list of things you're not supposed to eat or drink that aggravates tinnitus, like little or no alcohol, caffeine, salt, sugar, saturated fats, processed foods, refined carbohydrates, vegetable oils, MSG -- all of which sounds like what people should be doing anyway to stay healthy. I'm still going to eat dark chocolate, however; it settles my world. Other sites say alcohol actually helps with tinnitus, which is what I'm experimenting with right now. Rum is my best friend! And exercise. Yes, exercise is supposed to help. I guess I'll have to start exercising to see if this is true.
Tinnitus is apparently not a misfunction of the ear canal itself; it's caused by a damaged area in the brain called the auditory cortex. And since the auditory cortex communicates with other parts of the brain, such as those that control attention and emotions, some people with tinnitus have changes in these nonauditory brain regions as well. Tinnitus can cause hearing loss, fatigue (definitely), stress from the constant 24/7 noise in the ears, sleeping problems (for sure), difficulty concentrating (oh yeah), memory issues (too true), depression (yes - I've heard of people killing themselves to stop the noise), headaches (yep), and -- are you ready for this? -- dementia.
Tinnitus can be caused by all sorts of issues such as aging, living/working with loud noise for an extended period of time, ear injury/infection, head or neck injuries, medications like chemotherapy, TMJ (jaw joint), Meniere's disease, blood vessel disorders, diabetes, kidney issues, and autoimmune disorders.
I just want the noise to stop, stop, stop. I'll even take a lower level of noise that sits in the background of my life the way it used to be. I'm pretty sure that a high level of stress lately caused my tinnitus to up the volume. And it seems it was compounded by a sinus infection, which I'm working on alleviating. But it has definitely affected how my brain works. I find it difficult to function on a professional level. I'm supposed to be training for an online tutoring job, but I just can't seem to get through the fog strangling my brain. And I think another problem is I have too many things being directed to me, like information from rescue organizations, political parties, writing gurus, job sites, bank/credit card notices, general news around the country and world, etc. So, I've decided to stand back and let it all go, and just concentrate on trying to regain my mental health with tinnitus.
Like probably everyone with tinnitus (the internet says there are 20-30 million of us in the US alone), I wish I didn't have this disorder. I wish I was normal. I wish I didn't have to live with constant ringing in my ears (even though, apparently, it's really my brain). I wish I could sleep. That would be nice . . . .
Comments