Tinnitus: Advice for Family Members and Friends of Sufferers

Tinnitus is real. Your relative is not making it up or inventing a story. Tinnitus is not insanity. Tinnitus is a combination of ear damage and brain function. The damage is in the ears. The ringing or buzzing is how the brain interprets the damaged cells or missing hairs in the auditory system. It is hard for people to understand or empathize with tinnitus sufferers because most family members and friends have never suffered from it.

People try to relate tinnitus to their own mild ringing that they experience from time to time. NO! Tinnitus is not that. Severe tinnitus is like having a high-pitched bull-horn going off in your ear 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year. It is exhausting.

When hearing loss begins as a result of tinnitus, that can be even more exhausting because the sufferer has to fight to not talk too loudly over the tinnitus and hearing loss. That is hard to learn. Keeping the voice at an even tone is exhausting. Friends and family, my best advice to you is to be sympathetic and try not to add unnecessary stress to the sufferer. Stress can kick off the tinnitus and make it even worse.

One way to tell if your friend or family member has tinnitus is to listen for vocal pitch and tone. If the sufferer insists that he or she is talking at a normal pitch when it sounds like yelling to you then that person is likely suffering from a tinnitus flare up.

Tinnitus: A Candle in The Dark

If you are experiencing ringing in your ears then it is either acute or chronic tinnitus. Sometimes acute becomes chronic with age (as in my case). What is tinnitus like. Imagine that tinnitus is like a candle in the dark. The darker the room is the brighter the candle burns. For tinnitus sufferers, the quieter the room, the louder the ringing or buzzing or clicking sound in the ears. So, masking may help to reduce some of the annoyance but, if it is chronic, it never completely goes away. This is why insomnia is the most horrific side-effect of tinnitus. When it is quiet, the tinnitus sufferer cannot sleep.

Tinnitus: Relaxation Exercises

I went to a psychologist who thought perhaps relaxation deep breathing exercises would work for me. The idea is that I breath in deeply for 10 seconds, hold my breath for four seconds, and exhale for 10 seconds.

This method did help to relax me physically but didn't help the tinnitus at all. The problem is not one of relaxation. The tiny hairs that are supposed to be in my ears to help buffer noise are dying. The brain interprets their absence the same way that it interprets pain in a missing limb. It is a phantom pain or in the case of tinnitus, phantom ringing.

The sound of ringing is the brain's way of saying that something is wrong. Like a blown fuse light indicator. The indicator light (ringing) is telling me that a fuse (tiny hairs) are no longer working in my ears.

Needless to say that deep breathing didn't help me. It actually made the ringing seem louder. Like the candle in the dark analogy. The darker the room the brighter the candle. In the case of tinnitus, the quieter and more relaxed I am the louder my tinnitus becomes. But hey, it was worth trying. I'm up for almost anything as long as there is no risk that it could make the tinnitus worse.

Tinnitus sufferers need to live in balance, somewhere between totally relaxed and not too stressed.

Tinnitus: New Doctor with New Ideas

First I should tell you that my tinnitus has now reached the point of what is called "catastrophic." That is when it begins to directly interfere with my quality of life.

I now only get sleep when I'm completely exhausted or when I take a sleeping pill (Lunesta). Here's the catch 22: Lunesta gives me burning migraines to where I can't even function the next day. Some nights, when I do fall asleep, I wake up at 4 AM and can't fall back to sleep because of the tinnitus. At that point it is way too late in the morning to take a sleeping aid.

I have a brand new audiologist who is fresh out of University of Kentucky and she is up to speed on the latest treatments.