THE BEST TINNITUS RELIEF VIDEO EVER!!!
here are the earplugs i got i also got the connector cord for 7 bucks. this is what i bring to work with me. i have this with me at all times usually. i don't get money if you click on this link and buy, don't worry.
foam earplugs. you can get these at any drug store. these have better hearing protection than the other re-usable ones (these are also re-usable, but only like 3 times). i usually wear these to concerts.
construction earmuffs. i like to wear these in addition to foam earplugs when im at a really loud concert. it helps with the bass. although i heard that it's not completely stackable so like if the ear muffs have 25 dB protection and the foam has 30 dB protection the total protection with both would only be about 35dB. i'll take that 5dB though. again i don't get money from these links. this is an example of construction ear muffs.
if you have over 200 dollars i reccommend going to an audiologist and getting custom molds of your ears. those are the best. i don't have that kind of money rn so i use the cheaper options & you will be fine if you use the cheaper options too.
asmr channels i like:
ASMR Bombshell: soft talking, jewelry sounds, and i love the tiny screwdriver
Indigenous ASMR:i'd reccommend checking out her whole channel, but this around the world trigger is one of my all time faves. so relaxing
ASMR In Flow: i honestly go nuts for negative energy plucking. like omg thank you i needed that. this vid also has finger fluttering which i also go nuts for. and the way she talks is sooo soothing.
Luna Bloom ASMR: there is no losing with Luna Bloom ASMR. i originally got hooked on ASMR from tiktok lives, but had trouble sleeping so i looked up ASMR on youtube and she was the first one to come up (this was 2 yrs ago) and i still watch her. idk if she does it in this one cuz tbh i chose a random one, but i love when she tells me to look at the kirby (and other things) (but the kirby is such a luna classic)
Corey ASMR: the king of chaos. i found him on tiktok live and whenever i see him on there i always stop by for a couple minutes. i fucking love grooky & when he does pokemon pulls & also baby bubble bath book. he's just got such great instincts
ASMRnoa: energy rain - her original trigger. love this one. the way she says pluck
i couldn't find any for eye exam cuz tbh the best eye exams i've seen are randomly running into them on tiktok live (i literally only have tiktok downloaded to watch asmr lives. i'm so serious.) i'll update if i can find a link to one that i really enjoy.
where i wear earplugs:
how loud things are in general: decibel chart and more info. there's more that i can say personally, but i'll just say that it's important to study your ears and how sound moves through spaces and affects our ears at increasing volumes if we want to protect our hearing. i'd like to be more well spoken about this topic, but i think this link is a great place to start.
something really important to me to mention before i get into my specific case is that a lot of important fields that are often overlooked and underpaid are loud as fuck and have been giving people tinnitus and hearing damage for years. for example: construction workers, farmers, factory workers. these fields are dangerous for a lot of reasons but the fact that tinnitus is an added side effect from working these jobs that are too loud even with hearing protection, i just want to say i respect your work so much and i wish you were paid according to how much of your body you have given to building and maintaining and keeping us fed. i also want to shout out sanitation workers. i have no idea how loud that field is, but i honestly can't imagine it's quiet because machinery is involved. sanitation should be one of the most all time respected and well paid fields. the fact that the streets aren't filled to the brim with shit is because of the people working those jobs. to billionaire white collar workers: you're worth nothing without the underpaid construction workers that built the building you're working in. you're worth nothing without the person who delivers the food into your mouth. you're worth nothing without the person who keeps shit from overflowing the streets so you can drive your car that someone was underpaid to build. so what's on that spreadsheet?
and then there's working in clubs, kitchens, and event spaces - this is my area of personal expertise. these fields are also loud as shit so please wear hearing protection!! protect your hearing!!!! at least consider it :-)
my tinnitus started april 19 2024 & has lasted till present day (will update if this changes). i had a loud burst of speaker feedback go off, facing my right ear. both ears have tinnitus. both ears have a shhhHhhHhhh rushing noise, 70% in my left, 30% in my right. my right ear has 2 high pitched ringing noises (both are different pitches, but they are consistent pitches & they cut in and out). my left ear has 1 high pitch that cuts in and out.
i can hear my tinnitus over quiet sounds, but it's way less noticable outside. unless i'm listening to something loud enough, i can hear it a lot of the time. i used to really need silence to calm down so when my tinnitus started, all my old coping mechanisms went out the window. i tried deep breathing, but all i could think about was the sound. i would notice myself not breathing so i could hear the sound better at times. it drove me to a new level of insanity. it's all i could think about, all hours of the day. it felt like there was no reprieve at the start. the tinnitus is still here, but i feel way better mentally now.
timeline:
before my tinnitus started i would listen to music every night on my mp3 player with my headphones on. i stopped doing that after The Incident. (the speaker feedback will be called The Incident going forward). i stopped listening to music in general. maybe once every week i'd try listening to a song with my speakers, but it would just remind me that sound didn't sound pure anymore. it just sounded like sound + tinnitus. i'm lucky that my tinnitus has quieted down to a level where i can listen to music at a safe volume and not hear my tinnitus. i still don't listen to music with headphones on often, but i'm not as scared of it anymore :)
i used to sit in silence a lot and do deep breathing as i learned that breathing really deep then releasing for at least 6 seconds activates the vegus nerve that helps calm you down. i tried to do that to calm myself down when i first got tinnitus, but my brain just used that time i spent breathing to keep concentrating on the tinnitus. so it kinda freaked me out more.
i used to listen to asmr like every day to calm myself down & relax. it didn't hit the same after i got tinnitus. it would just call attention to tinnitus. i used to have super sensitive hearing & was always aware of that. (my sensitive hearing is why asmr literally gives me the asmr response) in general i always listened to everything super quietly, just cause i could and i wanted to protect my hearing. after tinnitus, i kept listening to things quietly to protect my hearing, but at the beginning it would just remind me of the tinnitus. i was truly heartbroken. i've started listening to asmr again lately (october/nov 2024) and even though i notice my tinnitus, i'm able to concentrate on the asmr more :)
i used to dance every day. i honestly just had lost all motivation to move my body after tinnitus. honestly dancing did help, but it reminded me that i might not be able to dance in clubs the same way. i might not be able to see live shows the same way. i might not be able to perform the same way. everything felt so different and i didn't know how to come to terms with that. it's just a sound. it's just in my head. but all that didn't matter because it was always there. no matter where, no matter when, it's always there. ringing nonstop. i lost motivation to eat. i used to at least be able to get up in the mornings to make myself a coffee, but even that lost its taste. i felt completely empty. being able to hear pure sound was so important to me. it used to be my everything. i was always protecting my hearing, hoping to be able to protect myself from tinnitus. but then this random event happened. was it the universe trying to stop me from becoming a musician? the ringing sounds so much like angels trying to communicate with me sometimes. or maybe i've just let myself imagine there's more meaning to the random events that make up our lives. truly, it doesn't matter either way. i have the ringing. and i have to live with it. there is no other choice. so i let myself fall into misery. i let myself suffer. but it had to come to an end.
from july-august i went on a trip to visit hungary (where both of my parents are from). i went to study the language. i applied to this program to get a scholarship to study (i'm fluent but i love studying hungarian & i can always be better). i applied in march, before my tinnitus started. i was super excited for this & i was so hopeful that my tinnitus would be gone by then. it wasn't. such is life sometimes. but i wasn't going to let my tinnitus ruin it all for me.
i used to love listening to music while traveling. it was something i was really looking forward to doing. so i brought some nice quality headphones i have (open back because those are the best for your hearing) and i experimented with listening to music with headphones on while also having my earplugs in. so i'd turn my headphones up to like 70%, but i'd have earplugs. i have no idea if this was a good idea or not. but the music sounded better than just having the headphones on at a lower volume with no earplugs soooo... i'm gonna say it worked out.
going to hungary changed me in a lot of ways. i was lucky to be able to go on such a life changing trip while suffering with tinnitus. it reminded me why i wanted to perform in the first place. it reminded me what being marcika means to me. i'm still trying to figure out how to put that into words, but there really is more to life than tinnitus. our bodies are changing every day from the moment we're born to when we die. it's a bit hard to come to terms with a change like that, that impacts you every second, but living with tinnitus and talking about it all the time has made me realize how many people i know also suffer from tinnitus. how many of us are constantly holding on by a thread, always ready to be taken in by the ringing.
now: i'm able to enjoy music again. i'm able to enjoy dancing & moving my body. i'm able to go to work without coming home and breaking down in my car. i've habituated in many ways. i still get sad, and i often wish for a day where i can hear silence again, but i try my best to focus on the beauty of what i can hear. i'm so so so glad i can hear. i'm so so so glad i can sing & play music. a lot has changed, but i feel like now i know just how important my hearing is to me. i wouldn't have freaked out this much if i didn't care about it. so all i can do now is try not to regret, try not to be angry at myself or the world, and just try to find the beauty in life again. this is so much easier said than done. but i'm saying it as proof that it can be done. when i first got tinnitus i really didn't think i could ever calm down. i didn't think i could get used to the ringing. i wouldn't say i'm completely used to it, it does annoy me. but i've tried to make friends with it.
more specifically, i tried to seduce it.. or maybe it tried to seduce me. i tried to find familiarity with the tones, study them like they were a part of me. because they kind of are? they are noises my ear or brain are making (i still am unsure which part makes the tinitus happen). either way, it's kind of like a mutal obsession between us. my tinnitus won't leave me alone and i just can't stop listening. what does all this mean? it means that i'm an extremely high strung control freak who needs to do shit like this to regain enough sanity to function in society so i can pay my bills and not throw away everything i've worked towards in my 26 year of life over a noise. but PHEW that noise is a lot to handle. kinda like me ;)
for those wondering why i didn't go see a doctor - i tried. going to an ENT (ears nose throat specialist) without insurance is 300-400 for just an intake. so i tried getting my insurance to cover it. i needed to get a referral from a primary care doctor. so i got an appointment 2 months out (the soonest i could get one) and right when i got to that appointment, i found out that my insurance was going to change the following week and there was nothing i could do about it. so that referral was useless. then i tried getting another primary care doctor but they were all booked out under that other insurance. i felt like there was really no point in even continuing cause after researching for months and going to the emergency room, it made me feel like maybe there wouldn't be a cure even if i went to a doctor. but when i was in hungary i decided to go see a doctor there. she just put a tuning fork to each ear and asked me if they sounded about the same and i was like um.. yeah.. i guess. and she was like ok your hearing seems fine then. come back in 6 months if you wanna get your hearing tested, bye. LOL. recently my dad has been obsessed with hypnotism. he told he found a hypnotist that could help me. and i was like ok cool. then he was like yeah she just needs a primary care doctor to reccommend hypnotism. now how the fuck am i gonna get that. so i've kind of given up on concentrating on all that 'cause it seems like it might be more trouble than it's worth. what are they gonna say anyways? "yup, you have tinnitus, protect your hearing 'cause what's gone is gone!" that seems to be the general concensus on the internet. let me know if there's something big i've missed.
anyways as im sitting here, typing this now, in silence. i'm like fuck!! i can hear my tinnitus!! fuck!!! i miss silence!!! but i was actually able to concentrate and type out all of this, which 6 months ago, i was not able to do. i was too busy driving myself to insanity. so i'll take that as a win :D
i needed to fully drown myself in my tinnitus. sometimes the only way out is through. i just want to encourage anyone going through this to keep believing in a day where you can find joy again. i know sometimes it feels like this is eternal suffering. i genuinely thought to myself "this might be hell". but it's not, it's just reality. there is birth and there is death. sometimes part of us die. whether that's internal or just some fucking ear hair follicles that then send fake signals to our brain that drive us up the wall. but regardless or what as been lost, there is so much more to feel. there is so much more to live. if you can't feel that way today, believe in a day where you can feel that way. i am believing for you, reader. it's part of why i wrote all this. about two months in, i was able to hear leaves rustling while sitting under a tree. i tried to listen for my tinnitus, but the leaves were just too pleasant. i wish for a moment like that for you. a moment of a joy. a moment to remind you that next to suffering, there will always be joy. there has to be, or else.