Tinnitus tires me out

[Anonymous]

I have expensive hearing aids that were thankfully covered entirely by my Kaiser insurance (aids were $8,000 together). As someone mentioned upthread, you can retrain your brain. I have a tinnitus program as one of the options, and it's been helpful. My tinnitus is terrible and constant, but the white noise helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not directly what you are asking OP but I wanted to suggest trying hyperbaric oxygen chamber for tinnitus. I had some sudden hearing loss years ago and developed horrible tinnitus. I did some hyperbaric oxygen as part of hearing loss treatment and while it didn't help the hearing loss, it helped the tinnitus tremendously. I would say noise went down by 90%. Worth a shot if you are desperate and especially if your tinnitus is fairly recent. There seems to be some academic literature supporting this.

Op here. Thank you so much! I will look into it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have expensive hearing aids that were thankfully covered entirely by my Kaiser insurance (aids were $8,000 together). As someone mentioned upthread, you can retrain your brain. I have a tinnitus program as one of the options, and it's been helpful. My tinnitus is terrible and constant, but the white noise helps.

What kind of hearing aids do you have? I plan to get one this year and one next year, and need to decide on the brand. Hearing loss is in both ears and this is a borderline case to get aids, audiologist said…

[Anonymous]

There is a new FDA approved treatment called Lenire. It is not covered by insurance, but appears to be beneficial to people with severe tinnitus. I looked into it, but was told I'm not a good candidate because my tinnitus doesn't bother me enough.

[Anonymous]

I had hearing loss in middle ear. Diagnosed as otosclerosis. The surgery to replace the hardened middle ear bone also caused my tinnitus to go away. It was a side effect. A good side effect in my case because they warned me the tinnitus could get worse too. Just fyi.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your suggestions. I really appreciate it. This is really overwhelming; last weeks were tough and I’m preoccupied thinking that I should ask my job for leave without pay for sometime. I need space to sort out issues at home.

[Anonymous]

And space to figure out / get used to new hearing aids, get started with Lenire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have expensive hearing aids that were thankfully covered entirely by my Kaiser insurance (aids were $8,000 together). As someone mentioned upthread, you can retrain your brain. I have a tinnitus program as one of the options, and it's been helpful. My tinnitus is terrible and constant, but the white noise helps.

What brand aids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have expensive hearing aids that were thankfully covered entirely by my Kaiser insurance (aids were $8,000 together). As someone mentioned upthread, you can retrain your brain. I have a tinnitus program as one of the options, and it's been helpful. My tinnitus is terrible and constant, but the white noise helps.

Do you mind sharing the brand of your hearing aids? Thanks in advance

[Anonymous]

NP. My hearing aids that were in the same 8k range before insurance are Oticon ones, adjusted by an audiologist. They have made a massively positive difference in my ability to deal with my tinnitus of 5 years. In part that’s because hearing all the sounds I wasn’t able to before is as annoying as it is wonderful, but I’m incredibly thankful. I suspect that most hearing aids for people with moderate to severe hearing loss would have a similarly positive effect on people’s tinnitus suffering.

[Anonymous]

This may be unusual but when I increased my thyroid meds (keeping TSH under 2) the noise mostly went away. No Dr ever suggested a connection but I started having memory issues, which I eventually figured out were worse with TSH on the high side. The improvement in my ears was a welcome surprise.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, NP! Glad to hear they helped!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. My hearing aids that were in the same 8k range before insurance are Oticon ones, adjusted by an audiologist. They have made a massively positive difference in my ability to deal with my tinnitus of 5 years. In part that’s because hearing all the sounds I wasn’t able to before is as annoying as it is wonderful, but I’m incredibly thankful. I suspect that most hearing aids for people with moderate to severe hearing loss would have a similarly positive effect on people’s tinnitus suffering.

This is op again. My audiologist also recommended Oticon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have expensive hearing aids that were thankfully covered entirely by my Kaiser insurance (aids were $8,000 together). As someone mentioned upthread, you can retrain your brain. I have a tinnitus program as one of the options, and it's been helpful. My tinnitus is terrible and constant, but the white noise helps.

Do you mind sharing the brand of your hearing aids? Thanks in advance

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this! My hearing aids are Oticon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have expensive hearing aids that were thankfully covered entirely by my Kaiser insurance (aids were $8,000 together). As someone mentioned upthread, you can retrain your brain. I have a tinnitus program as one of the options, and it's been helpful. My tinnitus is terrible and constant, but the white noise helps.

Do you mind sharing the brand of your hearing aids? Thanks in advance

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this! My hearing aids are Oticon.

No worries! It’s hard to keep track of all trails.
Thanks so much for coming back with the reply.

And also to others struggling with tinnitus: you probably know it but stress is a HUGE contributor. Just four days of getaway from trigger and this thing is not so loud…. Whatever the stressors, you have to get those under some control first, or take breaks to recharge. Sorry if it’s banality…