A busy week....

It’s been a busy week – but that’s no different to any other week. As a mum to two children, with a part-time job at the Citizens Advice Bureau and a house to run, things are always hectic here. Having said that, my ability to do my job has been seriously compromised by the cold white stuff that falls from the sky and I have enjoyed some time building snowmen over the last couple of days!

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to put my feet up with the paper over the weekend, if I manage to get some time to myself. Coping with my Tinnitus, which started in my teens, is also part of my daily routine. My Mum told me years ago to try not to think about the Tinnitus: “the more you think about it, the more it will bother you”, she said. And she definitely has a point – so I do as much as I can to distract myself from the noises in my ears, to try and train my brain to forget about it. But on the other hand, leading a busy life also means I often get tired & stressed, and like everyone else I’m particularly susceptible to colds when I’m tired – and both stress and illness make my Tinnitus worse.

So what do you do when you have Tinnitus? Try to ignore it? Grin and bear it? Demonstrate the great British Stiff Upper Lip? Or seek out help and advice on how to cope? I definitely recommend the latter – even though my ‘treatment’ consisted of just a few sessions with a hearing therapist, I do think it helped me a little. A few years ago, when my Tinnitus started lasting 24 hours a day, I thought I was going to lose my hearing as well. But tests carried out at the time showed that my hearing was above average for someone of my age, which was a huge relief.

I haven’t made great efforts to find more treatment since then, but I’ve found out a lot about the research that is going on and I have real hope that there will be a cure in the future (hopefully in my lifetime!). There are currently lots of different types of therapies out there, but you need to look hard, do your research and approach the medical profession with a determination to get the answers and the help you need.