I GOT TINNITUS! What terrifying illness do you have!

[MiracleOfSound]

I have tinnitus, and it's fucking awful.

It never fucking stops. Never. It's gotten to the point where I just can't sit in silence. When I go to bed, I have to have something else making noise, just to distract me from the god-damn ringing. It's the same when I try to read books.

Of course, it's definitely not as bad as some of the things being listed here.

It's still pretty awful though. My heart goes out to you, know how you feel. Have had it for 3 months now and doctors say it's time to start accepting it's for life and try to habituate. It's apparently possible to ignore it most of the time but like you said, quiet rooms are, well... hell.

OT:

Genetic Long QT Syndrome, or 'Could drop down dead at any minute' syndrome. Thankfully no symptoms just yet and am on Beta Blockers.

 

[LoLife]

Since you guys are in a sharing mood I have Lymphoma was caught early will survive as long as my new year resolution involves a little bit of chemo.

Shit, good luck with chemo!

OP: I've never had anything serious really. I had a stomach ulcer when I was 14/15 but that's about it.
I'm very high risk for endometriosis but, as far as I know, I don't have that yet.

Many thanks =)

 

[solemnwar]

I have lactose intolerance.

IT'S THE MOST TERRIBLE THING TO HAPPEN TO ME EVER D: I love cheese, I love icecream, I love putting whipped cream on top of my monstrocity of a snack...

Monstrocity of a Snack:

-Toast a piece of bread
-Spread Peanut Butter
-Sprinkle over 2 parts sugar to 1 part Cinnamon
-Whipped Cream that Biatch
-Optional: To make it completely gag worthy, dribble some chocolate sauce over it.

It's delicious.

Alas, if I don't take a million lactaid pills, it causes my digestive system to revolt and cause me much grief

 

[MiracleOfSound]

After seeing the doctor they assured me that it was just because I had a head-cold and that it should cease within the next month and could take up to six months to truly disappear.

The great thing about tinnitus is that as long as it's not getting worse, it does eventually go away anyway as your brain learns to tune it out. I have chronic (permanent) tinnitus, but I'm now only aware of it when I actively concentrate on hearing it. It was terrifying when I first got it though, thinking it would be like that forever.

It's extremely encouraging hearing stuff like that. The web is full of the horror stories, you don't often hear form the people who learn to cope with it. I thought I was going to lose my mind the first week, sleeping is still tough too but most of the day is fine.

 

[kyuzo3567]

Story 1: I had severe stomach pain for a good month or so, which kept me from school for about half the time, while the rest I could barely focus.

In the last week of the month, I lost 12 lbs in 3 days, so we figured it was finally time to take me to the hospital (yeah, my parents decided then was the time, not the previous 3-4 weeks).

I wound up staying there a week, underwent a bunch of tests and got told I have Crohn's. So I had some relatively aggressive treatment to bring it down, and now I still have to go in for treatment every 8 weeks.

Oh yea Crohn's is awesome to have.... I've had it for almost 4 years now, finally started going into remission now but it wasn't a fun time. my best piece of advice? Don't plan any long trips without having easy access to bathrooms or pit stops, because that feeling of needing a bathroom can come out of nowhere and be extremely intense. Good luck to ya and PM me if you got any questions!

 

[Mr Fixit]

The worst I've ever had was Bells Palsy about a year ago, I was sitting at work one day & noticed that the right side of my lip was going numb. I thought that was odd, but I figured I was just sitting wrong & had a pinched nerve in my back or something. I wake up the next day & the entire right side of my face is paralyzed, kinda freaked me out a bit because I had never heard of Bells Palsy. So I go to the doctor & that's what the problem was. To this day I don't know what caused it, but I did a little research & anything from a virus to a blow to the head has been known to cause it. Luckily it only lasted about a month for me, but the right side of my face still twitches & hurts from time to time.

 

[Maliciouswoot]

Mate I have to add to the tinnitus testimonials...

I have had it for 3 years (after a bloody U2 concert of all things) and have pretty much got used to it. Yes, It may and probably will go away for you but PLEASE do not count on it. There is no cure for tinnitus and not likely to be one for some time. The only thing you can change about this situation is your reaction to it. Do whatever you can to not stress out about it. Distract yourself constantly, play sports, go to the beach (lifesaver for myself), go out in the wind and do not think about it!

The noise is unimportant and if you don't care about it, your brain will "tune" it out like an air conditioner or noisy traffic. It scared the hell out of me at first and I did not think I could get used to it but I was wrong. I also count myself lucky that the noise appears to be at it's "quietest" during dead silence.

Good luck old boy!

 

[Jowe]

My teeth get cold sometimes when I eat ice cream...

but wow seriously I didn't even know some of these illnesses existed, and feel for you guys.

 

[direkiller]

<permnat tinnitus sence i was a kid
my scene of smell is almost completely gone
both from the same sinus infection(it was a bad one)


I also have a heart condition and a scar from the surgery but it's nothing now

 

[Bob Thenecromancer]

I got bird flu once IT WAS NOT FUN!!

 

[an annoyed writer]

I got Bell's Paulsey back in February 2011. Partial Paralysis Of the face. Not fun. Spent a month slurring like a drunk and drooling like a dog. Had to manually close my right eye to keep it wet. What opened me up to this kind of ailment? Mono. I didn't get it the fun way, either. That was painful as fuck. I couldn't eat for a week, and I couldn't sleep for longer. The worst part is that some of the meds only made things worse.

Oh, and I have kidney stones. Those formed because I drank WAY too much soda as a kid. So kids, if you want to know pain that many will say is worse than giving birth, drink all of the soda in the world. If you're not a masochist and don't want to risk addiction to Oxycontin, limit your soda drinking, for your own sake.

Aaaarghh, kidney stones, I've been suffering from those since last friday, it was my first time having 'em. Jesus, I thought I was going to die!

Bless modern medicine and all the painkillers they produced.

I need to go back to the Doc tomorrow because having those little assholes for a week straight is a not healthy thing. Though, there's kidney failure running in the family, so, I'm seriously hoping it's got nothing to do with that.

Unfortunately it is somewhat historical (My dad had kidney and gall bladder stones) so the best advice I can give is to ease up on the soda and salty stuff. Luckily by doing so you'll also prevent unwanted weight gain.

 

[thegamermn]

I caught pneumonia this last year. It compounded my dislike of hospitals.
I went into the hospital with a cough and an ear infection. And the infection somehow turned into pneumonia. Which promptly scarred my lungs and gave me Asthma. This was very light asthma, mind. But it's still annoying breaking into coughing fits when I laugh too hard, exercise in the cold, or have heavy problems with allergies.

 

[Seagoon]

So yesterday I woke up with an annoying ringing in my left ear that would not go away. It stopped me from sleeping and caused me to have my first ever real panic attack as after looking on the internet I was convinced that it may be permanent. After seeing the doctor they assured me that it was just because I had a head-cold and that it should cease within the next month and could take up to six months to truly disappear. This is probably the scariest thing that's ever happened to me, at least in how I personally reacted to it. Have any of you folks had any similar experiences, Anything that truly scared the shit out of you like this. ITS STORY TIME

I'm sure you heard about Miracle of Sound's Gav? He also has started to suffer from Tinnitus and I'm sure he'll be glad to know how many escapees have his condition, including myself.

x

 

[soren7550]

Thanks to my hypochondria and hearing about the Potatohead's tinnitus, I'm pretty certain that I have it as well. The ringing I hear *could* just be a result of hearing a bunch of electronics running/the lack of noise when it gets quiet, but it seems that it's not very likely.

For things I know I have, I have allergies, don't hear or see very well, slow to learn and adapt to new things, have sudden, sharp pains across various parts of my body at random intervals (the worst are the ones I get in the heart and lungs), manic depressive, Asperger's Syndrome, annnnd... I can't seem to gain any weight (seriously, for the past yesr or so I've been eating a lot more than I ever had, I'm still maintaining the same damn weight. Hell, I might have actually lost weight recently (but that could very well be due to the stress and depression).

 

[NoOne852]

I'm fairly sure I've been dealing with SAD for quite some time now based on a few articles I read from psychological books, but I've not been offically diagnosed so take from that what you will. I've gotten better and am able to deal with situations better thanks to a friend that has been helping me through it. The worst of it comes from remembering things I've done in the past. No matter how small it may have seemed to others around me then, I just have a hell of a time dealing with it now. When I think about it, it can get as bad as me locking up entirely. Unable to focus on anything else, I blush pretty hard, I sweat, even experience chest pains and sometimes shortness of breath. My speech becomes very obsure, barely able to formulate sentences to those trying to talk to me, often making me feel worse.

I also have started developing dark spots on my body that I need to keep getting removed because they've come up precurisors to cancer. So there is that too.

 

[lacktheknack]

I have Tourette's Syndrome, which means I have a lovely array of classic mental issues (ADHD and OCD, mainly), as well as massive compulsions to repeat certain actions over and over. In some people, this can be swearing (coprolalia), loud screams or massive body-spasms. I had laliophilia as a kid (I had to repeat words over and over and over and over and over and over and over until they "sounded right"). It is utterly terrifying to anyone who doesn't have it, it is just mildly annoying to me (especially since it's calmed right down).

I had mild psoriasis on my scalp, but that went away after a couple years of scaling.

Also, my mother got Bell's Palsy after a root canal gone bad, and had it for three months. That was fun. Basically, half her face was paralyzed. She also says that she once sneezed while driving, and it was "the loudest thing [she] could imagine hearing", nearly scared her right off the road. So apparently, Bell's Palsy also messes with your hearing.

 

[burningdragoon]

I can't actually remember how long it's been since my ears starting ringing on (what appears to be) a permanent basis. Just one day I was like "wait... are my ears still ringing? Um... ok." It's not too bad though. Only bothers me some of the time.

 

[chadachada123]

After seeing the doctor they assured me that it was just because I had a head-cold and that it should cease within the next month and could take up to six months to truly disappear. This is probably the scariest thing that's ever happened to me, at least in how I personally reacted to it. Have any of you folks had any similar experiences, Anything that truly scared the shit out of you like this. ITS STORY TIME

So, recently, my body decided that merely having Stage 3 hemorrhoids wasn't enough, and further decided that I needed to shit blood and have extreme pain to accompany it. After visiting the hospital and setting up an appointment, my doctor and I decided that surgery would be the best fix.

Now, the surgery recovery is reportedly one of the most painful things in existence, which I can personally attest to (easily the worst pain I have ever felt, period), and because of this, I was given a large number of drugs to help me along, including Valium. On the positive end, one of the side effects of Valium is the inability to create long-term memories, meaning that I have absolutely no recollection of most of the recovery period.

On the negative end, one of the possible side effects of Valium is a worsened memory and lowered mental faculties, a side effect that can, possibly, be permanent, but can take at least six months to start returning to normal. Since my intellect is my absolute best quality, and the quality that I pride myself on the most, this was a massive blow to my self-esteem, something that I'm very worried about. I'm still not fully accepting of this possibility, to be honest.

I can actually *feel* the difference between how my mind worked before my surgery and after. It's as if my mind is permanently clouded, like I just don't have the mental strength to remember stuff like I used to.

In that sense, I feel ya, OP. It sucks not knowing if something is going to be permanent or not.

Edit: OH, right, tinnitus. I've been to a pretty fair number of live concerts, almost always pushing my way to the front row, so I've gotten used to the constant ringing in my ears whenever it's too quiet. It really isn't that bad xD

 

[Irridium]

Got a Cluster Headache when I was 16. Was one of the worst things I've ever experienced. It's even earned itself a little nickname, "suicide headaches." Thankfully mine only lasted about 40 minutes, but holy fuck it was the worst 40 minutes of my entire life. I've heard they can last up to 3, just the thought of that... ugh.

Also a few months ago I lost my hearing in my left ear. In the end it turned out to be wax, but it was still pretty terrifying.

After seeing the doctor they assured me that it was just because I had a head-cold and that it should cease within the next month and could take up to six months to truly disappear.

The great thing about tinnitus is that as long as it's not getting worse, it does eventually go away anyway as your brain learns to tune it out. I have chronic (permanent) tinnitus, but I'm now only aware of it when I actively concentrate on hearing it. It was terrifying when I first got it though, thinking it would be like that forever.

It's extremely encouraging hearing stuff like that. The web is full of the horror stories, you don't often hear form the people who learn to cope with it. I thought I was going to lose my mind the first week, sleeping is still tough too but most of the day is fine.

I'd suggest getting a fan or something to generate some white noise. Should at least give you something to focus on and help drown out the ringing.