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Comment by Kenji | Hacker News Reader

> Martin’s resignation in the face of tinnitus isn’t rare, perhaps because tinnitus remains poorly understood.

No. It's because you go to the doctor and you literally get sent home without being helped in any way whatsoever. Well, he looks into your ear and maybe you get some useless medication. Just save the money and time and deal with it, that's all you can do as of today.

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My doctor told me "You have no disease. You have a symptom of a disease." Which he honestly intended as good news. Then he sent me on my way with the guidance to relax and learn to live with it.

I remembered why, after seeing this guy once years before for another ent problem, I never went back to him.

Yeah, I got the exact same experience at my doctor. I tell them it's not single sound but several and the frequencies are changing all the time. Completely ignoring that assistent then spends a few minutes figuring out the sound frequency (me trying to compare a hissing sound in my ears to a single tune...). Afterwards doctor looks into both ears for a few second and then tells me it's nothing obvious, so there is nothing that can be done about it, but I can get some cortisol for 3 days in case it helps (didn't).

I found the docs useless. I found earplugs helped a bit - they can prevent further damage and allow the body to recover.

I had been using various forms of white noise for years to help reduce external annoyances while I was working and trying to concentrate. That has led to what appears to be an early form of tinnitus. It doesn't cause me pain yet, sometimes it's really annoying and I no longer hear actual silence when I should. I've found relief by using gun shooting ear protection, as funny as that sounds. 34 to 37 db level protection. The ear protectors are dirt cheap to buy on Amazon and moderately comfortable. They would probably look stupid to wear in an office setting, but I work out of a home office, so no concerns there. A few hours here and there of wearing them and the tinnitus (or whatever it is at this point) is meaningfully reduced.

I've found some help visiting an Osteopath, but that's because mine seems to be at least somewhat related to the neck/jaw muscles or around that area. He showed me some relaxing and general exercises that do help a bit. But in the end he agreed that basically for now, you just need to find a way to deal with it.

In the UK I got sent to ENT clinic, then a cat scan to make sure it wasn't anything serious.

Then, the doc told me they couldn't do anything, but if it distressed me there was counselling available to help you learn how to deal with it.

So while your experience may have sucked, they can do something, they just can't cure it.

I had the same result (in the UK), except didn't get told anything about counselling.

How does that contradict the quote?

Maybe your doc sends you home with no help precisely because it is poorly understood and so they don't know how to help you?

Because the article makes it sound like Martin is an idiot who has a choice, he could at least try to understand it better, when really, Martin has no option other than resignating and sucking it up unless he's a brilliant doctor and neurologist and dedicates his entire life to this problem. The 'perhaps' is also completely out of place. How about some honesty: The doctors are completely clueless and can't do anything, therefore, Martin resignated.

That was not my reading at all; like greenshackle, I did not see any contradiction between what you quoted, and the point you made.

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