Interest Organization for Hard-of-Hearing in Norway (HLF)

HLF (Hørselshemmedes Landsforbund www.hlf.no) works in many ways. One field they work with is by influencing politicians and legislators or more commonly known as lobbying. One aspect of this political work, is to help the various systems understand and see where the problems are.

They publish a magazine. Work with the membership records to keep the organizational data up-to-date. Organize meetings for volunteering hearing-aids users that want to help other people who are just starting to use hearing aids. (“likemannsarbeid” – “common fellow work”)

HLF also runs a school (Briskeby) and holds several seminars and courses for people with hearing disabilities. They also aim at being Norways center for knowledge about – and to have high competence about – hearing-disabilities.

Tinnitus and Mèniére are also in the HLF’s sphere of interests.

In short: everyone who isn’t part of the deaf community, has a home at HLF.

Link: www.hlf.no

Tinnitus, fatigue and mentality

Schorching hot days was bliss, and an experience. Up here in the northernmost part of Europe we’re not used to temperatures up to 30 – 35 centigrades. Fatigue becomes more prone, and in that persepective I learned that being more tired makes it easier to fall asleep even though the tinnitus is having a field day in my hearing-organs…

So it is a paradox; in order to feel like I sleep relatively well, I have to be really tired before going to bed. If I’m not really tired, well, then I can expect a rough night. So in the end it all becomes even… A steady state of tiredness. And that’s nmothing new to me. I’ve been really tired and never really rested and fresh the last 5 to 10 years…

This represents a challenge in itself. How do I know when my batteries are getting charged in the long term? I know being tired so well, that it has become my normal state.

I’ve spent the last months really feeling. Feeling about the tiredness, how a good night affects me, how everything affects me, even the food I eat. I would think I need to do more of that feeling in the months to come. Get to know myself.

Good thing is that the summer is here, my super girlfriend is about to complete her exams, and I can take her home and have her closer on a permanent basis. Being in a long-distance relationship has also been straining me at times, but not near as much as having a girlfriend like mine have given me more power and strenght to still endure….

This note will probably be followd by another note in july sometime if I don’t find time to file another report while being on the road… I’m going on vacation coming this monday, and wish all my readers a great summer until next time!!!  Keep reading, it encourages me!

Damned tinnitus

I’ve had it before, but never for such a long period, and never so annoying. It has gone from this rather peculiar cooing sound that pigeons and owls make, to a steady signal. (same frequency – or tone if you prefer) The damned thing also seems to be controllable in some psychological manner… I just put my head to the pillow, real tired and ready for a good nights sleep. In the second I thought, ” good thing I don’t hear the tinnitus now”, it came on full force… (the sound is there almost only when I have taken off mye hearing aids… Just a few times I hear it with normal audio-world on) 

Is the sound there to spite me? Is it imagined, am I going crazy? Is it a sympton of a certain hair-cell in my cochlea that has it’s death-angst-cries before it finally ends? What?

 I have found out, or rather decided that I won’t let that shit annoy me. If I let it annoy me, the only one to suffer the consequences is me. So I rather be like a grass in the wind, I will bend and do something else… I just tried Su Doku, to try to get my mind away from it. Didn’t help now though, ’cause I’m overtired, and the Su Doku thing is on automatic these days. I have done quite a few…. I have a whole book… Working on the “difficult” section now…. After that it is the “fiendish”  section 🙂

So I thought, nah, better write some, use my brain more creatively… And it seems to do the trick… At least the tinnitus has faded a little in strenght….  Strange stuff…. I have to read up on the subject of tinnitus… And add the weblinks I come across to this blog…

As a sidenote; I just came back from a lone-trip to our newly bought small-farm (don’t know what else to call it). No animals or anything, its just a big house, two barns with a workshop and a beautiful lake only 100 meters from the house. I just went about my small projects like fixing up a Mercury outboard engine (9,8 hp), plowing a little field (no real success, I guess I just got bigger respect for farmers), getting the ’59 Fordson Power Major tractor to start again and some creative stuff… (now the tinnitus got stronger and louder again) Point of this sidenote: it was easier to relax, and I feel the tinnitus was fainter too… Perhaps it is all about perception… When I’m tired I perceive the tinnitus as stronger and more disturbing???

Tinnitus – another symptom of loosing hearing

Recently I have become more and more disturbed by a phenomenon whom I have had on and off through the years… Tinnitus…

Tinnitus are sounds that “creates itself” in my cochlea. The tiny hair-cells that are designed to react to the vibrations of sound in the gel-filled space of the cochlea, can continue to send signals, even without the presence of soundvibrations… And these signals are almost always a symptom of that the haircells have been broken. That means they cannot receive and react to soundvibrations as they should do… Hence the reduced hearing or deafness…

Phantom sounds is as good expression of it as any….

My tinnitus comes every now and then, and always when I have taken off my hearing aids. Usually I think it appears when I have a rush of blood to my head. For example when I have a really long and good stretch combined with a huge yawn… The the blood rushes for a short moment, and the sounds report in…

I hear the cooeing of pigeons and owls… And the sounds are not consistent, they change in rythm and length and strenght. Sometimes these sounds are accompanied by thinner squealing sounds almost like electronic equipment complaining… It’s a veritable orchestra sometimes, and the orchestra can’t be shut off.

Sometimes I have to put on my hearing aids, because with real sounds, the tinnitus subside and sometimes disappear completely.