You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Medication’ category.
I’m at month 9 and I feel like my brain is partially “re-wired” but somewhat confused about the ringing. I feel like my mind can almost block out the sound but sometimes the signals come through in different ways. I rarely hear an actual tone anymore, often it sounds like a hissing sound. It sometimes sounds like somebody just turned up the highest frequency on the stereo EQ to 10. I visualize this is my mind, neurons or whatever starting to just shut off the connections that create the ringing. But it’s not there yet, it’s in a half-way state.
I’ve stopped taking lipoflavinoid this week because I want to observe if it is helping or not. I’ve felt like it really did help, but also kinda wondered if that’s just a placebo effect. I’ve decided to go cold turkey for a while and see how it goes. So far I feel like since I stopped I’ve had a backslide. I’ve noticed the ringing more in the evenings than I have for a few months. But that could be just that I’m focusing on this little “experiment.” It’s only been 3 days and I feel like I should give it a few weeks. I’m still taking ginko biloba in the mornings and melatonin at night.
I feel like a pattern has started where I go a few weeks nearly forgetting all about tinnitus. Then I have 3-4 days where the ringing is more noticeable and starts to annoy me. I don’t have any fear reaction whatsoever like I did, so it’s truly just an intermittent annoyance and nothing more. I feel like those 3-4 days, though, causes my brain to have to work even harder to block out the sound. After those 3-4 days the volume goes down even more than it was before the backslide. It’s a two steps forward, one step back kinda thing.
I’ve decided to stop with the histamine injections that were prescribed by my ENT. I was given some amount which I have to inject into my leg every other day as well as drops that I use twice a day.
It could be unrelated, but I found that the histamine made me very anxious. My ENT does not believe this is true. I don’t really know what to think except that it seemed to have no real affect on the tinnitus, however I did suffer anxiety after taking the histamines. I stopped taking them for a while and restarted twice now. There seems a correlation between the histamines and the anxiety. I’ve read forum discussions to indicate that histamines and stress/anxiety are related, but nothing scientific either way.
I can find virtually nothing about histamine injections as a treatment. The only thing I have found online links back to my own ENT. I am not sure if there is an scientific basis for this treatment but he does claim to have successful results.
Of course I am disappointed because I am eager for any type of cure but this doesn’t seem to work for me. If you have different results, feel free to leave a comment.
Having my father here with me has been a huge mental help. I can’t really explain why. Maybe just having somebody to talk to all day. I am staying home all day. My hip surgery has given me a few weeks of excused absence from work so nobody really suspects that anything is unusual. I am doing a bit of work remotely, but just barely.
We all seem to be in agreement that my dark mood is mostly all drug-induced due to the roller coaster of medications that I was prescribed after my surgery. I have been chatting with the wonderful, supportive folks at www.benzo.org.uk and it was apparently not a great idea to just quit Xanax cold-turkey, even though I only took it for two weeks. It still should have been tapered a bit. I feel silly on those forums because there are people who are really struggling with benzo addition, having taking massive doses for years. I feel weak that I am having so much trouble after only two weeks and a small dosage. Yet the people on that site are very compassionate and understanding.
I’ve decided to head back out of state to go home and recover for a while. The thought is making me a little nervous. For one thing, any type of change gives me anxiety. The other is that I’m worried my parents house will be too quiet. I need noise around me at all times now to cover up the ringing sound.
Today I hit my breaking point. I have been so depressed and anxious that I can barely make it through the day. I get up each morning wondering how I will plod along through the hours. Notice I say “get up” and not “wake up” because there is very little sleeping involved for me.
I haven’t slept well in over a week. I broke down and took a Xanax over the weekend. The Ambien from last week only made things worse. The suicidal thoughts have been getting more intense – I have been thinking of different ways that I might go about it. I know I can’t go there, as bad as I feel I know it would be so selfish to leave my family like that. I have resorted to praying, begging anything that might listen for help. I feel like I am really at the end of my rope.
The Ambien that I took last night did the trick of knocking me flat out. Unfortunately the sleep lasted for 3 hours and I woke up like a bolt of lightning had struck me in a mild panic. What is that about?!
I was totally wired and there is no way I would be sleeping so I took the remaining half of the pill. It did the trick again and I was out for another 3 hours, only to wake up again totally wired.
I would not describe the sleep from Ambien as restful at all. The only way I can describe it is that I was laying in bed feeling the usual insomnia and wondering if I would sleep. I started feeling a little woozy and then sat up only to discover that 3 hours had passed! It wasn’t like I had slept, though, it was more like somebody had just moved the clock ahead 3 hours. I felt just as awful, if not worse.
I am starting to have a rough time and feeling like there is something really wrong with me. I signed up for a site about Benzo addiction at http://www.benzo.org.uk/ and it is somewhat of a relief to know that my symptoms are fairly classic and as such, likely to go away when the Xanax gets out of my system. Still, the feelings are very real to me and I am scared and anxious almost all of the time.
I called my regular doctor again and told him the situation and pretty much begged him to prescribe me some type of sleeping pill since I don’t want Xanax. He gave me a 7 day prescription of Ambien. I did some reading on it and the potential side-effects are a little alarming. They involve people doing crazy things in their sleep like cooking, driving and getting arrested! I’m really most worried that I will just try to walk around on my hip without crutches. I will try one tonight and my wife has been instructed to stop me from doing anything crazy and make sure I’m not sleep walking. We’ll see how it goes…
I went to the ENT specialist today and they gave me some hearing tests which show that I do not have any significant hearing loss. He did make me feel a little better in that the ringing “has no teeth” to quote him. The audio technician also told me that she has tinnitus herself, but rarely notices it despite having to talk about it all day with patients.
He has prescribed me Histamine injections which I will need to come back on Friday to get trained on how to do. Did I mention that I hate needles? I’m not really looking forward to that but I will try anything to get rid of the ringing. I cannot seem to find too much information about this on any of the tinnitus forums or anywhere really.
The grim part was that the doctor told me that sleep is an important part of getting better and I was relieved to hear him say that because I desperately need some sleep. I was feeling hopeful until he prescribed me… wait for it… Xanax! I didn’t bother getting the prescription filled.
Yesterday was my last day of taking Xanax. Although it is known to be an addictive drug, neither me nor my doctor thought it would be an issue taking it for two weeks. I haven’t even made it two weeks but I can feel what it is doing to me and I have to quit. I need to get this crap out of my system.
I feel like I am in a constant state of panic. I don’t know what to do. I have been having suicidal thoughts, though I don’t want to admit it to anybody. I know I won’t act on them but it scares me. I have not had a good nights sleep in a while and that is starting to wear out my nerves as well.
My ENT appointment is tomorrow so I hope to receive some good news.
The Xanax is working pretty well at calming my nerves however I am starting to notice some things that disturb me. For one, I am starting to count the hours down until it is time for the next Xanax. I have become acutely aware of when the pill starts to wear off. When I wake up in the morning in particular I really feel down in the dumps.
I know I only have a two week supply so it will end and that makes me a bit nervous. I am getting to the point where I carry around the prescription bottle with me wherever, which is admittedly not too many places on my crutches. It feels like the beginning of addiction to me and I don’t like it. I am considering discontinuing the medication.
As far as the ringing, it is still there and it’s been about two weeks. I’m starting to do a lot of reading about tinnitus and I don’t like what I find. I made an appointment with an ENT specialist for next week. I am hoping that I have an ear infection, which seems possible since I was so sick before my surgery.
I have been in physical therapy now for two sessions. I have not been feeling mentally well at all. I feel in an almost constant state of anxiety. The ear ringing may be a source of it or just coming down from the post-surgery pain meds. I talked to my regular doctor and he seems to think that I didn’t tolerate the meds well.
He prescribed me some additional Xanax since I seem to be tolerating it well and it helps to calm me down. I have a two week supply now, he recommended taking it twice a day.
Eternal Beep 