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Tinnitus awareness week 2022

It is Tinnitus awareness week 2022 this week and the theme is the sound of science! We are going to talk about why and I will tell you my journey with this condition.

tinnitus awareness week 2022
Photo by Elyas Pasban on Unsplash
[IMG] picture shows a punky looking woman with her eyes closed and her hands over her ears[IMG]

I often share my journey with my chronic illnesses here on the blog, but I don’t think I have ever spoken about my Tinnitus. I have had whistles, and a ‘white noise’ sound for most of my life but have never seen anybody about it.

Hearing problems do run in my family with my Great Grandfather, my Grandmother and my cousin being deaf and many of us in the family with hearing issues. However, whenever I have mentioned my hearing to a GP they will put it down to the fact that I naturally have a lot of wax.

I used to have my ears syringed every 6months or so for most of my life, but as the NHS no longer offers this I did try getting my ears ‘hoovered’ out but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Ever since, I have been using ear drops most nights to try and keep my ears clear but I am not sure of the long term effects of this.

As for looking further into the tinnitus, that is never looked into and kind of gets shrugged off as if it isn’t a big deal. However, anyone else who deals with this condition will say it is a big deal, continuous whistling and buzzing is tiring and sometimes even painful.

So how do I cope?

  • Rely on sound: Drowning out the buzzing is my goal most of the time, at night I sleep listening to podcasts, in the day there is usually music playing.
  • Meditation: Taking time to sit with the sound can be healing and does help me to accept the buzzing and whistling.
  • Ear drops: I try to keep my earwax under control with drops, but as my GP says some people just create more wax they don’t know why or how to help.

Tinnitus awareness week 2022

Which brings me to why this years theme of the week is THE SOUND OF SCIENCE, the British Tinnitus Association wants to call for the establishment of a tinnitus biobank.

“Biobanking refers to the process by which samples of bodily fluid or tissue are collected for research use to improve our understanding of health and disease Other information, such as height, weight and questions about things that may have a bearing on health may also be recorded at the same time, to provide the context for the samples.”

healthtalk.org

This would make it easier for research to be done from larger samples and hopefully come up with more strategies and understanding of this complex condition. This would be so useful and would give hope to people like me who long ago just accepted this was life!

Raising awareness and understanding within the NHS as well as the general public would do wonders to stop people being overlooked or ignored. So head over to tinnitus.org.uk to get involved in raising awareness and maybe getting the NHS to invest in a tinnitus biobank.

Thank you xx

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2 Comments

  • Despite Pain

    I also have tinnitus. It’s annoying rather than a big problem. Like you, I try to drown it out with noise and have kind of got used to living with it. I was referred to ENT at one point because I developed pulsatile tinnitus which had to be checked out. While at the clinic, I was also told I had slight hearing loss which was probably causing the tinnitus.

    • BeverleyButterfly

      I have never been offered any kind of referral or look into my hearing, I think we are going to look into going to an optitian that offers it to see what can be done. It’s just an annoying sound all the time

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