The AudioNotch Tinnitus Treatment Blog

Eddy-Temple Morris, a prominent British musician, has written an <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/eddy-templemorris/-tinnitus-and-how-we-get-it-on-the-agenda_b_2472889.html” rel=”nofollow” target=”_blank”>excellent long form article</a> at the Huffington Post about advocating for patients with tinnitus. Particularly heartbreaking is his story of Mark, a friend of his who developed tinnitus:
<blockquote>Mark got tinnitus when he was 24 years old. Some of us get it worse than others, and Mark got it bad. He wasn’t aware of the BTA and he, like most men, didn’t really like talking about how he felt to those around him. He wasn’t one of the hundreds of kids that call, text, tweet, or email me via Facebook for advice. Mark’s first and only line of defence was his local doctor.

When in his GP’s surgery, Mark told his doctor what had happened. The GP turned his back on him and silently reached for a large, dusty medical book on the upper shelf behind his desk. He thumbed through the pages until he arrived at the letter to and read the paragraph a man had written decades ago, explaining what he, at the time, thought tinnitus was.

Then Mark’s GP told him that it was probably permanent, that he should “deal with it like an adult” as there was nothing he could do. He then suggested a private audiologist, adding that Mark shouldn’t waste NHS resources, and that he was very busy and needed to see the next patient.

One week later, Mark went back to his GP. He had the manic stare of a man who had been awake for most of that week, with thick black circles under his eyes. Between thousand yard stares, Mark said he couldn’t deal with it any more and that he wanted to be referred to a surgeon. He wanted to have his auditory nerve severed. Mark had decided he’d rather be deaf than have tinnitus.

His GP – astonishingly – obliged, and a surgeon – even more astonishingly – was ignorant enough to go through with the procedure. Mark had himself unnecessarily mutilated, and became deaf, BUT… with tinnitus.

Two days later, Mark’s flatmate, Ben, found him hanging above a pool of his own blood, in his bedroom.

My involvement with the BTA is a journey, a quest to understand, come to terms with, and make up for Mark’s story. And the others like Mark.</blockquote>
<a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/eddy-templemorris/-tinnitus-and-how-we-get-it-on-the-agenda_b_2472889.html” rel=”nofollow” target=”_blank”>Read the entire thing.</a>

Best,
<a href=”http://www.audionotch.com” target=”_blank”> AudioNotch</a>