Tinnitus: Isolation

There are 12 million people with chronic severe auditory system damage known as tinnitus. As the tinnitus increases, many of us have to fight against a sudden desire to isolate ourselves from family, friends, and co-workers. Why does this happen?

I think that the reason that it happens is because we do not want our tinnitus to get worse. We have experienced times where we were placed in situations that we cannot escape from without some social reprisal or ridicule if we leave. So, we stay and suffer and the tinnitus gets worse. Examples include birthday parties, crowded restaurants or bars, weddings, all-staff work meetings. We also have to explain why we are leaving the event so soon. We do a lot of explaining. Living with chronic severe tinnitus is exhausting.

When the tinnitus reaches a point where it is so loud that we can no longer handle any noise that might cause a flare up we decide that we will avoid social events and people altogether. I think this happens subconsciously. It simply starts to happen and I found it hard to articulate it to other people while it would happen.

We also get tired of explaining. We seek out places that we know will not cause a flare up and that is usually at home, a walk, perhaps a trip to a quiet retail store. The main thing is that you protect your ears from getting worse. Secondary to that is to keep your relationships intact.

If you have chronic severe tinnitus you do have to balance home life and interaction outside of home. I use a system to enable myself to be able to control noise pollution and I'd have to say that it is very effective for me so far. I could attend a wedding, fly, and go to a movie with NPRS. However, I couldn't attend an air show, a rock concert, music festivals or car racing events with the system. I field tested it at a music festival. I paid the price of louder ringing and no sleep.

My system, depicted below, is called the Noise Pollution Reduction System (NPRS) and you can purchase the pieces on your own. I do not sell the system or the components. I use Bose QuietComfort 15, a Zoom H2n Recorder with a wind screen, and Resound Live TS hearing aids. The headphones reduce the noise. The recorder allows me to moderate noise before it becomes sound. Hearing aids mask the ringing a bit (not completely).

This is not a cure for tinnitus. It will not help you to fall asleep. NPRS may help you to reduce the chances of your tinnitus getting worse or flaring up due to environmental noise. As a result, it may improve your ability to socialize again. This can result in improving your quality of life and possibly reduce your level of depression. That is my theory.  

It has its limitations because noise generates vibrations that can affect the auditory center of your brain. There have been studies that show that certain frequencies cause behavioral disorders and depression. You may have protected your ears but the noise is so powerful that the vibrations cause problems in the brain's auditory center.  Since you may be hypersensitive to certain sounds you may be triggering a natural depressive response, in your brain, to noise frequencies from your environment. Therefore you have to control your environment.