A slight day's delay for this post, as I wanted to see how yesterday's worsening of my tinnitus would affect my night.
There's three things I find that make my tinnitus worse. 1) Sustained loud noises (music being the most obvious one) 2) Alcohol 3) Exercise.
Numbers 1 and 2 weren't part of my day yesterday, but as the snow had thawed a little, I was able to get out on my bike and go for a nice 50 mile cycle through the Scottish hills.
Now, there's two reasons why my tinnitus gets worse when I cycle. The first is simply the sound of the wind rushing past my ears. This alone is enough to really amplify my tinnitus. I've read a couple of articles on bike-forums where people have asked if there's a link between the two - normally in terms of creating tinnitus, and the result is normally an unknown - but it does, for sure, amplify existing tinnitus.
I've got little wind-catchers on my bike helmet which are meant to deflect the sound of the air rushing past (though they're not great) and I have considered popping in some light ear-plugs to stop the sound, while still maintaining the sound of surrounding traffic - but the increase in my tinnitus is one side of my enjoyable cycles which can get quite frustrating.
However, I also find that just 'simple' aerobic exercise also makes things worse. It needs to be something that really gets the heart-rate up to near maximum (in my case, around 170-180bpm) - but I always find that after a run for example, the ringing in my ears is a lot worse (I don't run with an iPod by the way). In my days of playing league squash, it would get worse too - but I always put that down to the sound of the court (or my opponent's shouting!).
The thing is, there isn't really a way to deal with this. It's the catch-22 situation. Do I exercise and have ringing in my ears, and maybe even make it permanently worse? Or do I do nothing, become sedentary and unhealthy - and not live my life? I certainly choose the former, as it's in my nature, but the compromise does worry me sometimes.
For the purposes of this blog, I've been trying to add numeric values to the level of tinnitus I have. With 5 being my normal constant level, to give me latitude for increase or decrease.
Well, I left for my cycle at 3pm yesterday, and I was a 5. I came home, showered, lay in bed in the quiet, and can honestly say it was at least 7.5 - dropping to about 6 by the time I finally went to bed at 11pm. When I woke up this morning, all the various ringing tones in my ears were back to their normal '5' setting - so at least yesterday's run didn't do any lasting damage.
Purely for scientific reasons, I'll have some wine with dinner, either tonight or tomorrow - and report on that.... hic....
Thursday 12 February 2009
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So many different experiences of the thing we call by a common name!
ReplyDelete1) I find short bursts of lound noise equally troublesome. Traffic noise usually masks my tinnitus but a large truck thundering past is enough to set it off!
2) Fortunately I am spared any alcohol dependent tinnitus effects!
3) Tinnitus recedes when exercising but returns at increased level for a couple of hours afterwards.
My experience is the opposite. When I bicycle, the wind in my ears masks my tinnitus (which is otherwise 24/7) quite nicely.
ReplyDeleteHi there,
ReplyDeleteI've had T for about a year and have gone from seriously thinking about suicide and not believing that life could be worth living again to hearing T about 50% of the time and just finding it mildly irritating to very irritating dependng on my state of mind/health. The biggest improvement for me was realising and fully accepting that it is just the perfectly normal sounds of the brain which are amplified because the body is full of adrenaline due to stress. Most people who work for the NHS are unfortunately totally inept at dealing with and treating anyone who has this condition and make things far worse by telling patients (very wrongly) that there is nothing that can be done. This is the worse thing to say to a person with tinnitus as it immediately increases the stress levels and therefore the volume (or perception of brain sounds) increases. Most doctors look in your ear when they may as well look at your big toe. The sound is your brin and is perfectly normal; yo are just listening to it because your body has gone into survival or fight or flight mode and is much more aware of every sensation, especially sound. I took antidepressants and tranquilizers and had difficulty stopping them but was told by a very kind pharmacist to see a kinesiologist as that is the only way to safely stop such strong drugs. I didn't even know what a kinesiologist was but boy am I grateful to that man! You get all the answers you need from your subconcious mind, that knows you better than anyone so you are told exactly when to stop the drgs and howlso I was given lots of help with coping with the temperory condition of being aware of the music of the brain. When you understand it fully you can ignore it and the volume decreases. It takes time. It can be difficult but is worth every second of effort. Avoid silence,live life to the full in spite of T and apart from avoiding sound of any kind that is too loud (which everyone should do) do not listen to it to see if it is louder! The fact that you are listening to it alerts your body when you react to the sound and the volume increases. Difficult, I know, but don't give it attention it will only demand more. You CAN be T free. All the best. Alice.
There might be something in what Alice says. Ive had T for many years, I remember having some sort of T noise on and off throughought my childhood but I didn't think of it as T. In 2007 after suffering acute stress and some depresion my T suddenly became really loud, at one point it was so loud I couldn't sit with noise or hold a conversation whithout hearing T above everything. I decided soon after that if I had it I had to find a way to live with it, so to start off I used ear plugs all day while driving my fridge articulated lorry, this ment hearing my T all day every day I worked and on my days off I'd have two days rest. For that year I started to visualise volume controls in my head and on a night time I would concentrait hard on turning this control down. I've had some success with this method but I don't believe the visualisation helped, it was the concentration that did it. I still have T though. Rick
ReplyDelete