Living with Tinnitus and Hyperacusis: Odile Amblard’s Journey to Find Peace

2024-04-26 16:30:02

“You have to put up with Madame”: This is what Odile Amblard has heard too often from some of the doctors she consulted for her tinnitus. Without ever being satisfied with such an answer. And comes out of the meetings even more demoralized. At 44, the Charentaise native, who has lived in Quimper for a year, talks openly regarding his “medical obstacle course”. A journey, started two and a half years ago.

“After clubbing”

By then, tinnitus had been part of his life for a long time. “I’ve had it since I was very young,” she confirms. They appear around 18-19 years old, “most of the time, following going to clubs or bars”. Whistling noises that only disappear following a few hours. “I didn’t worry regarding it at the time. I regret it today. Because it got worse little by little, she notes. For several years the crackling sounds have not left her side.

I didn’t worry regarding it at the time. I regret today. Because it got worse little by little

Over time, Odile almost got used to it. But now she also has to learn to live with normal pounding hissing sounds, which appear following a busy or noisy day. And with this second sound: like a friction known in the ears, “to the rhythm of the heartbeat”. So many intoxicating sounds. Deafening. “Absolute silence does not exist,” confides Odile. For two years she has also struggled with hyperacusis. “The worst,” she said. This increased sensitivity to noise is once more insidious. Because invisible. But so debilitating. The discomfort, the pain even, is real. Insomnia increases. Fatigue, physical and moral, accumulates.

Drawing a line under “a profession of passion”

To get by, the forty-year-old had to reinvent his life. At the expense of painful sacrifices. In November, she first resigned herself to stopping kizomba, an African couple dance that she had trained in for four years. “It was a passion that helped me get out of grief. It was also where I met my partner.” During the sessions, Odile uses molded earplugs. But they are no longer enough. “A profession of passion” she has to leave. The barking, the noise from the equipment, the discussions in the waiting room have become “unbearable” for him.Despite noise-cancelling headphones.

The most annoying thing is the noise from the cutlery. But for now I can hold on, because it’s my last trip

While he waits to find a job “that I can do in peace”, Odile takes refuge in reading, soprology, yoga. Also in the drawing, there is a rare moment where “I don’t hear the whistles”. And in the longe-côte “because I tolerate the noise from the sea well”. Together with her partner, she also allows herself a couple of meals in restaurants. Traffic jams are never far away. “The most annoying thing is the noise from the cutlery. But for now I can hold on, because it’s my last trip.”

To note

Odile Amblard has just created a Facebook group entitled “ Quimper: social life with tinnitus and hyperacusis “. “It is open to all people who have hearing hypersensitivity or who want to be in peace,” explains the woman who wants to offer activities away from noise, outdoors or for example in a restaurant or bar “who will accept that ‘we come together from time to time during an evening without music…’.

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