I've been having a bad week. It's been stressful. I started a new job a few weeks ago and it's taking some getting use to. I decided I wanted to do something useful. I could go stack shelves and get bored to the point of suicide. Or, I could go work with disabled people and feel like I had done something useful at the end of the day. So that's what I have done. My choice, and I'm glad that I've done it. It was just a bit of a shock. These people have no quality of life to speak of. They are incapable of much of the things that we take for granted. And I am appalled at the fact that there is a shortage of people to look after them. Says a lot about the society that we live in.
So what is my beef? Well, not only have I had a bad week with the little choir in my head, but I have added to that the guilt of knowing that in no way is my situation as bad as the people that I'm working with.
Cant win can you.
I have written so far about my own methods for dealing with Tinnitus. This is not to say that I have not looked into the alternatives offered by the Medical profession. There are a whole range of therapies and devices out there for your delight. The standard route is to get your GP to refer you to the Ear Nose and Throat department at your local Hospital. My GP did this when I popped last year. It didn't actually take that long and I was pleasantly surprised at the level of help offered. I was seen by a therapist a couple of times, who, was mostly concerned with my life style and the amount of stress that I was under. At the end of each session she would offer me the choice of some of the devices that they had in the cupboard. I could have something that was placed under the pillow at night. This device could be programmed to emit anything from white noise to the sound of waves on the beach, and, I have to say that I was tempted. My mother, who, up until a few years ago, would make her husband take her out in the Car to mask the rumble in her ears, has a little device that sits behind her ear. To my understanding, it emits a sound that cancels out the nose she suffers from. Great! It seems to work.
I have lots of leaflets and information that has been supplied to me. But what good does it all do me?
Some of it helps me to understand that there are many people out there who suffer from variations of the same condition. And there are lots of companies out there who manufacture Aids to masking the various types of Tinnitus.
So what! I've tried the therapy. I've tried talking about my life. I've considered having a noise machine under my pillow. I KNOW that there are other people out there who suffer from the same problem (some much worse than me). Blah Blah.
It means nothing this week. It means nothing when I go into the back garden to have a cigarette at night and stare at the stars. and my head is screaming at me. It means nothing when I get up in the morning and go downstairs to make a coffee and try and respond pleasantly to my family. It means nothing at various points of the day when all the background noise disappears and I am left with my little choir of Neurons. This week I am sick of it. I see no point in crutches. I see no point in devices that could get taken away at the moment I have just started to depend on them.
I am sick of the sympathising looks on the faces of the models in the leaflets. I'm suspicious of the need to delve into my head and find the underlying cause of my stressful life. I hate the happy, calm, content look on the faces of the models for the noise devices. I cant help thinking that someone is going to make a lot of money from a machine that I don't need. I've got a radio for god's sake!
I don't want anybody to help me with it. But I do really. I know that no one is going to come along with a miracle cure tomorrow. But I hope that they will. I don't want to make my partner and family suffer because I'm having a hard time. But part of me does. I know that I am lucky to only have this to deal with. I'm sick of convincing myself of that. I feel like screaming today. I rely on background noise to keep me sane. Pull yourself together I hear you say. Get lost! I say.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Friday, 6 March 2009
Know Your Enemy
Wow! There's a lot going on in that Big Homo Sapien Brain of yours.
Some of it you are aware of on a conscious level. But, a lot of it goes on without you even knowing about it.
Take the Ear. That big (or small) layered dish thing stuck on both sides of your head.
We have all heard that in space, no one can hear you scream. That's because sound waves have to have a medium to travel through. Space is a vacuum, so there is nothing to vibrate. The air around us provides such a medium, and most the sounds that you hear are results of vibrations in the air molecules around you. So, if by any chance you are travelling in space, I'd take a torch with you. You never know.
Apparently humans can hear sounds from around 20Hz to 20,000 Hz. 20Hz being the low end vibrations, and 20,000 being the high end. Just like the Eye sees a certain spectrum of colour's, but by no means all of them, the Ear hears a certain range of sounds, but by no means all of them. Who knows why this is. Guess we hear and see all the frequencies necessary for our survival. An expert may tell you something different.
The ability to detect and distinguish sounds varies from person to person. Some people are acutely aware of slight changes in frequencies, and some aren't. In other words, I may pick up the fact that a singer is flat, and you may not. Guess that is down to a lot of different factors. Do you like the music that is playing? Are you listening to it? Have you got perfect pitch? Are you musically trained? Can you actually hear it? Does it bother you? Do you actually care? etc etc etc.
It is also well known that our ability to detect different frequencies will deteriorate as we get older, which is why I get away with "pardon" a lot more now than I use to! Our ability to detect the frequencies at the extreme ends of the normal hearing range disappears. A fact illustrated by the recent invention of deterrents, used to disperse teenagers in public places, that emit a high pitched whistle at the extreme end of the human hearing range. This frequency cant be heard by people above the age of about 20, I think.
In your inner Ear is a thing called a Basilar Membrane. On this membrane are hair cells that are what is called frequency specific (or selective). Each hair cell will only respond to a certain frequency. So, if you hear a Piano play a note of middle C, then only the hairs corresponding to the frequencies generated by that particular piano key will react.
You think that's complicated? That's the simple bit. That piano key has generated a series of different frequencies by making a hammer hit a string. That string, as it vibrates, generates a whole series of different frequencies, and your Basilar Membrane responds to them all.
Ok! Now. I am not a Neuroscientist, so I am not going to pretend to be one. But........
From what I understand, the hair cells on the Basilar Membrane are all connected to the Auditory Cortex, which contains a rather large amount of Neurons (amongst other things). Certain groups of Neurons respond to certain Hair cells on the Basilar Membrane, and if they receive a message from the Hair Cells, they fire up to tell you that you are hearing a certain frequency. So, in essence, the Neurons in the Auditory Cortex are laid out to correspond to the Hair Cells on the Basilar Membrane.
(I don't know how many Neurons are involved. But according to the books, there are around 100,000,000000 (100 Billion) Neurons in the Brain of a healthy person. That is about the same as the estimates of how many stars there are in our Galaxy, and, how many observable Galaxies there are in our Universe! Quite a lot going on in your head then.)
I'm not even going to bother to go into how many different parts of the brain are set into motion when you are listening to a favourite piece of music. I'm not even sure that Neuroscientists have quite got on top of that one yet. And imagine how much more complicated that becomes if you are the one playing it? The fact of the matter is that the ability to perceive sound and process it into something coherent and useful is truly a miracle of evolution. (All you Creationists out there. Don't jump on that one, cos' I'm not going to bite. I'm keeping an open mind thanks.)
Right. As the title says. Know your Enemy. Somewhere in my Auditory Cortex there is a group of Neurons that are fired up all day. They never take a rest. They cant take a rest. They don't seem to want to take a rest. Taking a break does not seem to be a concept that they are aware of. But they are just doing what they are told. It's not their fault. Some of the Hair Cells on my Basilar Membrane are damaged. And, as a result, are constantly putting out a false signal, telling this little bunch of Neurons that they are hearing a sound. A very high pitched frequency. This damage could have been caused by anything, a knock to the head, a sudden loud noise, watching too much Battlestar Galactica. Anything. (How can you watch too much BSG i hear a certain amount of you cry?)
The reason that I'm glad I know this is the following. As much as it hacks me off every day. As much as I sometimes wake up in the morning praying to the Lords of Kobol to take away my hearing for half an hour so that I can have some peace and quiet, or sort me out so that I can hear the TV without having to turn it up too loud, or hear the frequencies that I need to hear to make a decent mix of the music that I have just created on my Computer. I now know that there are still around a 100,000,000,000 or so Neurons in my brain that are working pretty much as they should. I can walk, talk, sit, eat, create, remember, imagine, calculate, and Lord knows how many other amazing things without any noticeable problems. I don't have a serious mental illness, a disability, or any kind of major psychological defects that I know of. I have no twisted desire to go to war, or steal anything, or hurt anybody else. And I live in a time where other people are able to make some sense of what is going on in my head, and not stick me in an asylum cos' they think I am hearing voices from the dark side! I think that I'm pretty lucky in the great scheme of things.
Some of it you are aware of on a conscious level. But, a lot of it goes on without you even knowing about it.
Take the Ear. That big (or small) layered dish thing stuck on both sides of your head.
We have all heard that in space, no one can hear you scream. That's because sound waves have to have a medium to travel through. Space is a vacuum, so there is nothing to vibrate. The air around us provides such a medium, and most the sounds that you hear are results of vibrations in the air molecules around you. So, if by any chance you are travelling in space, I'd take a torch with you. You never know.
Apparently humans can hear sounds from around 20Hz to 20,000 Hz. 20Hz being the low end vibrations, and 20,000 being the high end. Just like the Eye sees a certain spectrum of colour's, but by no means all of them, the Ear hears a certain range of sounds, but by no means all of them. Who knows why this is. Guess we hear and see all the frequencies necessary for our survival. An expert may tell you something different.
The ability to detect and distinguish sounds varies from person to person. Some people are acutely aware of slight changes in frequencies, and some aren't. In other words, I may pick up the fact that a singer is flat, and you may not. Guess that is down to a lot of different factors. Do you like the music that is playing? Are you listening to it? Have you got perfect pitch? Are you musically trained? Can you actually hear it? Does it bother you? Do you actually care? etc etc etc.
It is also well known that our ability to detect different frequencies will deteriorate as we get older, which is why I get away with "pardon" a lot more now than I use to! Our ability to detect the frequencies at the extreme ends of the normal hearing range disappears. A fact illustrated by the recent invention of deterrents, used to disperse teenagers in public places, that emit a high pitched whistle at the extreme end of the human hearing range. This frequency cant be heard by people above the age of about 20, I think.
In your inner Ear is a thing called a Basilar Membrane. On this membrane are hair cells that are what is called frequency specific (or selective). Each hair cell will only respond to a certain frequency. So, if you hear a Piano play a note of middle C, then only the hairs corresponding to the frequencies generated by that particular piano key will react.
You think that's complicated? That's the simple bit. That piano key has generated a series of different frequencies by making a hammer hit a string. That string, as it vibrates, generates a whole series of different frequencies, and your Basilar Membrane responds to them all.
Ok! Now. I am not a Neuroscientist, so I am not going to pretend to be one. But........
From what I understand, the hair cells on the Basilar Membrane are all connected to the Auditory Cortex, which contains a rather large amount of Neurons (amongst other things). Certain groups of Neurons respond to certain Hair cells on the Basilar Membrane, and if they receive a message from the Hair Cells, they fire up to tell you that you are hearing a certain frequency. So, in essence, the Neurons in the Auditory Cortex are laid out to correspond to the Hair Cells on the Basilar Membrane.
(I don't know how many Neurons are involved. But according to the books, there are around 100,000,000000 (100 Billion) Neurons in the Brain of a healthy person. That is about the same as the estimates of how many stars there are in our Galaxy, and, how many observable Galaxies there are in our Universe! Quite a lot going on in your head then.)
I'm not even going to bother to go into how many different parts of the brain are set into motion when you are listening to a favourite piece of music. I'm not even sure that Neuroscientists have quite got on top of that one yet. And imagine how much more complicated that becomes if you are the one playing it? The fact of the matter is that the ability to perceive sound and process it into something coherent and useful is truly a miracle of evolution. (All you Creationists out there. Don't jump on that one, cos' I'm not going to bite. I'm keeping an open mind thanks.)
Right. As the title says. Know your Enemy. Somewhere in my Auditory Cortex there is a group of Neurons that are fired up all day. They never take a rest. They cant take a rest. They don't seem to want to take a rest. Taking a break does not seem to be a concept that they are aware of. But they are just doing what they are told. It's not their fault. Some of the Hair Cells on my Basilar Membrane are damaged. And, as a result, are constantly putting out a false signal, telling this little bunch of Neurons that they are hearing a sound. A very high pitched frequency. This damage could have been caused by anything, a knock to the head, a sudden loud noise, watching too much Battlestar Galactica. Anything. (How can you watch too much BSG i hear a certain amount of you cry?)
The reason that I'm glad I know this is the following. As much as it hacks me off every day. As much as I sometimes wake up in the morning praying to the Lords of Kobol to take away my hearing for half an hour so that I can have some peace and quiet, or sort me out so that I can hear the TV without having to turn it up too loud, or hear the frequencies that I need to hear to make a decent mix of the music that I have just created on my Computer. I now know that there are still around a 100,000,000,000 or so Neurons in my brain that are working pretty much as they should. I can walk, talk, sit, eat, create, remember, imagine, calculate, and Lord knows how many other amazing things without any noticeable problems. I don't have a serious mental illness, a disability, or any kind of major psychological defects that I know of. I have no twisted desire to go to war, or steal anything, or hurt anybody else. And I live in a time where other people are able to make some sense of what is going on in my head, and not stick me in an asylum cos' they think I am hearing voices from the dark side! I think that I'm pretty lucky in the great scheme of things.
Monday, 2 March 2009
Little boxes of stress!
"Tough! Get on with it!"
"Pardon?"
"It's tough. You have to get on with it."
That was the response I got from a Tinnitus helpline about 15 years ago, when I first noticed a ringing in my ears that would not go away. I was a little taken aback I have to say. I went to the Doctor because I was starting to panic. I got the hearing test and got told that I had typical hearing loss at and around the frequency expected for a Guitar player.
I looked at the chart and the line crawled quite happily upwards until it got to about 4000 Hz, I think. Hard to remember the frequency now. Was a bit of a shock. The line just dropped away at a steep angle to the red and shot back up again.
OK. Not only have I got a permanent ring. But I cant hear much at the frequency I need to judge my sound. What am I going to do?
That's about as far as I got with the medical side of things. I just took the advice of the man on the phone and tried to get on with it. I wore Earplugs at rehearsals and, luckily, living in London at the time, there was usually some background noise to distract me from the ringing.
Earplugs don't work. At least they didn't for me. You cant hear the subtleties required for playing lead Guitar (not that I could hear that well anyway!) They just dumbed everything down and I got more and more frustrated, to the point where I just stopped wearing them.
Eventually I stopped playing in bands and got on with something else. Guess it was time to move on, and I did.
When I sat down to start writing this blog, I thought to myself that it might help me, and maybe others, to write about it. Wasn't thinking it through, Duh! My brain immediately started to focus on the noise again. And I have spent the last week trying to fight it off and get back to where I was. Well, that's no good. I'm damned if I am going to let it get to me for that reason. It affects so much already, I'm not adding another one to the list.
I did get on with it. Managed for about 13 or so years. Don't know how now.But last year I just popped. Second child just been born, a new house, a wonderful partner, and a son who was growing up into quite the little artist. Anybody would have been grateful for that, and I was. My daughter was doing fine, and I had just taken 2 weeks Paternity leave to help my partner out. A very lucky man.
But. I popped. Why?
Stress. I could not handle stress AND Tinnitus. I ended up at the Doctors and got referred to the local hospital. He gave me some mild Anti-depressants to keep me a little more stable, and I had 2 weeks off work to try and get back some semblance of sanity. Luckily my bosses wife was involved with Tinnitus at work (a very lucky coincidence!) and he was very understanding. But, he still questioned my ability to do what, was a very stressful job, when I eventually returned.
What do you do to cope with Tinnitus? How do you live your day to day life with a noise that never goes away, and impinges on every minute of the day?
Well, you cope. In a way, the man on the phone was right, although I didn't think so at the time! You have to cope. You have no choice. You find a way and you get on with it.
I visualise the Tinnitus as a man with a very loud electric Guitar. I've put him away in a little room, somewhere in a dark corner of my brain. He is happy there, playing away, and I'm happy for him to do it. Trouble is, that's where I store all of my stress too. In little boxes. So. The more stress that I have, the more little boxes, and the smaller his little room gets.He doesn't like this. So he kicks back. He turns up the Amplifier, and starts kicking at the walls. He wants to be noticed. And he is going to make damn sure that I know it. I'm cramping his style. His room is full of boxes and there are more arriving all the time.
Why do I do this? I love my Guitar. Why associate it with something so negative?
Well, it turns it into a positive for me. I can relate to it. I can visualise him playing what I want to hear, and I can relate to the desire to WANT to play. It's just that my little boxes of stress really hack him off, and that's when he wont play what I like to hear.
My head is full of Guitar all of the time. It's what I have done for over 35 years. It's part of my make up. Even though I don't get to play as much as I would want to now, it cant be switched off.
I don't want it to switch off! I want the little scream in my ear to switch off. But that wont either, so I will drown it.
There are lot's of options out there now. Tinnitus is taken very seriously. It IS a valid condition. It can completely destroy your life. You have to find a way to cope. But, you have to accept it too. If you fight it, it will bring you down. Somehow, you have got to incorporate it into your life, whilst, at the same time, finding ways to deal with it. Nag your Doctor. Get yourself referred to a specialist. These people can help you. There are numerous solutions out there, and you have got to find the one that will help you. But you wont find it if you don't look.
Don't think that you have to cope on your own. You don't.
But my thoughts always come back to the man on the phone 15 or so years ago.
"Tough! Deal with it!"
Thursday, 26 February 2009
My little scream and me.
I live in a small picturesque town in the heart of the English countryside. My house is on the side of a 9 mile range of hills, and it is a beautiful place. The hills rise up out of the ground and dominate the view for miles around. When I was driving all over the country for a living, it was a great antidote to the white line fever, induced by 15 hours or so of looking at the road! I knew I was nearly home.
Whenever possible, we take our 2 kid's walking to the top of the beacon. If we have visitor's, a trip up the hills is always a requirement. To the west, the Tolkeinesque hills of Wales. And to the East, the Cotswolds.
Friends are always inclined to make the classic comment, "Gosh. It's so peaceful up here." Who can blame them. It is! I will always agree, and smile in that knowing way.
The trouble is that I don't really know what they are talking about. It's not peaceful at all. Yes, it's beautiful and the view is stunning on a clear day. But peaceful? Can we go down now?
All I can hear is a whistle, a little scream. It's in my right Ear, just a little outside and above where you would put your little walkman headphone. It does'nt go away. It's always there. And it complements the permanent post-gig ringing that I seem to have in the middle of my head.
In the mornings it can be particularly viscious. I often wake up and spend the first hour or so trying to be nice to everyone and tune it out with a strong Coffee, Radio 4 and a Cigarette. (Good God! I hear you scream. That's exactly what not to do. Well I'm sorry. I've been listening to Radio 4 all my adult life and I'm not about to give up now!)
I am going to write about it and my day to day life dealing with IT, my partner, my kid's, and the balance that has to be struck to win the war with Tinnitus and stress. I don't know who is going to read this blog, and it may be that nobody reads it at all. If I ever write one sentence that is of any help to someone else dealing with the same condition, then I have done something useful. It's just that it might make me feel better too.
Whenever possible, we take our 2 kid's walking to the top of the beacon. If we have visitor's, a trip up the hills is always a requirement. To the west, the Tolkeinesque hills of Wales. And to the East, the Cotswolds.
Friends are always inclined to make the classic comment, "Gosh. It's so peaceful up here." Who can blame them. It is! I will always agree, and smile in that knowing way.
The trouble is that I don't really know what they are talking about. It's not peaceful at all. Yes, it's beautiful and the view is stunning on a clear day. But peaceful? Can we go down now?
All I can hear is a whistle, a little scream. It's in my right Ear, just a little outside and above where you would put your little walkman headphone. It does'nt go away. It's always there. And it complements the permanent post-gig ringing that I seem to have in the middle of my head.
In the mornings it can be particularly viscious. I often wake up and spend the first hour or so trying to be nice to everyone and tune it out with a strong Coffee, Radio 4 and a Cigarette. (Good God! I hear you scream. That's exactly what not to do. Well I'm sorry. I've been listening to Radio 4 all my adult life and I'm not about to give up now!)
I am going to write about it and my day to day life dealing with IT, my partner, my kid's, and the balance that has to be struck to win the war with Tinnitus and stress. I don't know who is going to read this blog, and it may be that nobody reads it at all. If I ever write one sentence that is of any help to someone else dealing with the same condition, then I have done something useful. It's just that it might make me feel better too.
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