Shakey Mo's thread of misery

HELL YEAH YOU ARE

https://vondoviak.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/roadwarrior.jpg

took 2 trazadone and half an ambien to go to sleep last night. woke up at like 3:30 - took another half an ambien but it didn't seem to do anything so I just lay there sort of half-asleep until finally dozing off again around 5:00. I understand why the psych nurse has been telling me to cut down the ambien, but this high a dose of trazadone seems to be giving me some weird side effects, maybe I should cut back on that too argh

what kind of side effects are u having

still a bit jittery, albeit not as bad as before. but also since I've started taking two a night I've noticed my vision is sort of weird - not blurry exactly, but more sensitive to light

I guess on the upside they're not as *bad* as before, but still. hopefully you'll eventually get to a new kind of normal once you find the right mix of drugs

for a little bit last night while I was in bed I was not aware of the tinnitus, it had merged with the cricket sounds of the noise machine I had and I could let my mind wander about various things, which seemed good even if I wasn't sleeping. and when I was asleep I had dreams, which has not been the case for awhile. so that seems like a positive.

that's progress!

so here's a weird thing that happened last night. I was going down the stairs and I noticed that when I put weight down on the balls of my feet and cocked my head to the right, I heard this weird balloon-rubbing sort of sound in my left ear (the one with the tinnitus). It didn't change the tinnitus, but it did it with every step I took. It felt like some weird circulation/pressure thing trying to work itself out. So then I went up and down the stairs a bunch of times, hopped around in the kitchen etc for like 10 minutes.

wtf body

also fuck you tinnitus

today has been Merle Haggard pretty much all day

merle's good company

that's kinda weird what you said about that pressure feeling in yr ear. no idea what it means though, lol

~it is a mystery~

once i had this crackling in my ear for like a week, every time i moved my head or swallowed. i had an appointment with an audiologist anyway (for ear plugs) and it turns out i had a hair stuck right against my ear drum, so it was acting like a piece of paper against a speaker. she went in with her little camera and tweezers and i was all good.

wow

when I put weight down on the balls of my feet and cocked my head to the right, I heard this weird balloon-rubbing sort of sound in my left ear (the one with the tinnitus). It didn't change the tinnitus, but it did it with every step I took. It felt like some weird circulation/pressure thing trying to work itself out.

That definitely sounds like something physical going on maybe in the eustachean tubes. Almost like whenm you get water in the ears after swimming! I assume all that's been investigated already though? (like in-ear obstructions and etc?)

I know what you mean by it tho - i often get odd noises of all kinds in my head from pressure changes/pops/head tilts/jaw cracks. I guess Ive got used to having a noisy head! :|

Like for eg if I tip myself upside down (say if I did a handstand or bent over) my head FILLS with a high pressure swooshing, noisy blood-moving-round noise.

yeah ENT's checked me out twice, as has an audiologist and they've said my ears are fine - no fluid, blockages, infections, etc. (I am still waiting to get an MRI)

I do have a history of weird sinus things and the physical aspect of this has really mystified me. like if it was just my brain/hearing problems, why does my ear physically feel different? who knows

fwiw I noticed a very subtle similar creaking/balloon-rubbing sort of sound several times in my left ear that corresponded to my walking gait a couple months prior to this happening

maybe it's not related, I dunno

u shd start documenting them and give yr notes to the doctor for yr next appointment, in case there's any pattern

there are sinuses they can only see on MRI so maybe something is going on in one of them. would be sort of unlikely but this whole thing has been so strange

when I told the ENT about feeling like my left ear's pressure was off/unbalanced he was pretty much just "eh, we don't really understand how these nerves work exactly, could be psychosomatic" etc.

God I hate specialists. They can be so dismissive. Mine was dreadful, he told me off for mispronouncing "tinnitus", he was brusque and spoke way too fast and acted like it was NBD to go over complicated surgery discussions. He might do it every day but I bloody dont! Waste of $300 if you ask me. (tho having a fibreoptic camera run up my nose and down my throat and seeing it in full colour on TV was awesome).

he was sympathetic to my sufferin, but I think he was dismissive of anything he couldn't actually see

but yeah I feel you

I'm gonna be better one day goddammit

I got your back dude. It'll happen.

had a weird night's sleep - only took one trazadone and half an ambien (the smallest amt of drugs I've taken to sleep in maybe a month). I know I slept cuz I had dreams but seemed like I was waking up every hour or two

Waylon Jennings today. stuff with a background of clean acoustic guitar strumming seems good lately.

i approve of yr tinnitus playlist so far

I listened to Dolly's two recent bluegrass albums a shit-ton this week. more stuff that sounds like that needed, I guess

another day with this bullshit

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/living-with-a-sound-you-can%E2%80%99t-turn-off/

yeah I saw that. Kaiser not really offering me anything like that, unfortunately altho were I Dutch I would be seeking that guy's team out...

I feel at least psychologically I'm coping a little better. sleep is fitful but I feel like I'm on a semi-regular routine and def much better off the zoloft. yesterday I went to a craft fair with my mom and the wife and daughter and being in in a crowded space like that with a lot of low-level background noise was helpful for distracting me from the tinnitus ... unfortunately the stress of the tinnitus has resulted in me having random shoulder pain and sinus headaches so there was still that to contend with. I am, uh, getting a lot of backrubs at least.

I was thinking about how I require constant activity/distractions now and was like, well, nothing more distracting/requiring constant attention than a baby right lol

also so yeah bluegrass and country seem to be where it's at for me sonically. shiny, well-recorded stuff (not that I don't appreciate Hank Williams or the Carter Family or a bunch of pre-1950s recordings but they contain a sonic harshness/flatness that I can't really handle right now). If anyone (Aimless?) can recommend more records that sound like Flatt & Scruggs Sing Songs of the Famous Carter Family or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken I would much appreciate it thx

New Grass Revival?

Mr. Jaq suggests: Early Allison Krauss (anything on Rounder) or The Kentucky Colonels for a start.

gah woke up every couple hours last night, so irritating

Porter Wagoner today

when do you start the talk therapy, Shakey, or has that already begun?

I have a talking-therapy appt this Thursday - but it's just a regular therapist, not anyone that's specifically familiar with treating tinnitus. I honestly don't know what I'm going to talk about, beyond how irritating the tinnitus is. I am not someone who feels like I have a lot of issues to work out or anything tbh.

my appt with UCSF's tinnitus clinic is not until mid-January, right when the baby is due. so the odds of that being doable/helpful are a bit slim.

Kaiser basically has no support program for dealing with tinnitus. the last time I saw the audiologist it was basically "you will either get used to it, or it will go away. try not to think about it!"

thanks dude

what a bro

feel like the most sympathetic Kaiser doc I've seen has been the ENT. altho there were limits to his sympathy too. the others have all been eh what can ya do?

but I guess you don't go to doctors for sympathy right

seems worse today, probably the lack of sleep. feel like the yesterday I was coping a little better, that it wasn't as intrusive.

That's infuriating about the audiologist.

Really hope this clears up soon for you.

Whenever you go into one of those offices with a problem that ruins your quality of life but doesn't have a ready prescription you are in for some tough love. I just googled "acupuncture tinnitus" and came up with this fwiw http://dremilykane.com/2002/05/10/top-five-remedies-for-tinnitus/

I'm already gagging at the description of Eustacian Tube Drainage

"put your hand in your mouth. further. now, reach further. good. now further. if you can feel your lungs you've gone too far."

Using those Walkman-type devices with little earphones that go into the canal are particularly dangerous.

This frustrates me when I read warnings like this. Do they mean even at low volumes? Because the implication is that they'll cause damage no matter what.

I asked the audiologist about dangers of wearing my ipod in-ear headphones for like 6+ hrs a day and he said "eh as long as it's not too high a volume and you rest your ears in between a bit, not a problem"