One night, I heard a dripping tap. I asked my husband to check all the taps – upstairs bathroom, downstairs toilet, the kitchen. He assured me there were no dripping taps. He refused to check again. We argued. I checked. I desperately wanted to find the source of the noise. Nothing. What was that sound? Where was it coming from? I tried to ignore it. Then I was told.
My husband, a GP, explained – calmly, with all the understanding he could muster – that I had tinnitus, like Lara Williams (A moment that changed me: on the day of my first book deal, a mysterious hum overcame me, 6 August). How did I get it? Where had it come from? He couldn’t tell me. “It just comes,” he said. I hated him. I didn’t sleep at all that night, nor the night after. The noise was unbearable.
On the third night, I remember standing on the landing, crying. I was filled with rage. Then my son, David, came to the rescue. He put his headphones on my head, and a beautiful sound replaced the racket in my ears. It was How Deep Is Your Love by the Bee Gees. Tears still streamed down, but I began to feel a sense of calm. I stopped hearing the awful noise. I listened to the Bee Gees, Puccini and Chopin.
I listened myself to sleep. I taught myself relaxation techniques. But when the noise becomes unbearable, then I need all my techniques – music, poetry etc – to calm down and ignore the falling bombs, the dripping tap, the loud drums. It’s hard. But I can do it. And I want to tell people who suffer from this terrible condition: accept it. Forget the anger. Don’t ask why. Don’t think you’ve been punished. You haven’t. Just learn to cope with it as best as you can.
Maria Ursi Amesbury
Bristol
I have suffered with tinnitus for nearly 10 years, following an incident of uncontrolled loud music in a badly run venue. The resulting damage ended my musical performance and teaching career, and left me in a state of grief that will be with me until the day I die. While it is true to say that habituation does occur in time, it is no substitute for not damaging one’s hearing in the first place. Even though I am as habituated as I can ever expect to be, the tinnitus still dominates my life and activities. It impairs my sleep, and makes socialising difficult and listening to or making music impossible. I urge gig-goers, venues and musicians to take great care, because to wake up one day and realise that irreparable damage has been done to such a precious part of being…
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We 5guruayurveda.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on. For any glitch kindly connect at 5guruayurveda.com
