Not to go off course here, but are you finding any good way to cope with the Tinnitus?
Not really, or rather, not in coping with it in a way that allows me to sleep well. While I hate the constant high pitched squealing tone, I hate what it's doing keeping me awake most of the night the most.
I've had tinnitus for quite a while and I figured it affected my sleep some, but there was a sudden jump up in intensity in early February. And it really shook up my world. In a matter of days, I started feeling depressed and had stomach pain and could hardly sleep. I did get some Ambien 5mg, which would help me get a few hours of sleep, but I didn't take it often because I knew it would lose its benefit with continuous use and cause dependency, and there weren't many tablets subscribed. Without it, I actually went 3 of 4 nights in a row once where I don't think I slept at all. I had never gone more than one night in my entire life without sleep.
I took Nortriptyline for several weeks but then stopped because of side effects. I don't know that it helped for the depression because that seemed to lessen before the drug could have taken effect. And through March and April, I was having more days where I was getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep without Ambien, so things were looking better. Then last Wednesday night, I started having greater trouble sleeping again. A couple nights in the last week, I resorted to Ambien 5mg to get about 4 hours sleep. THC 5 mg or 10 mg with and without CBD 1:1 were not helpful the nights I tried those. Melatonin never seems to do anything for me. The last two nights, all I took was Melatonin. I slept 1/2 hour two nights ago and 1 hour last night (best estimates) at completely different times in the night. And the depression and stomach pain has returned with it, which I thought I had kicked. I mostly feel like total **** in the morning like I'm living a nightmare after these nights of virtually no sleep, then go to work and drink a few cups of coffee, and get to feeling better as the day goes on, feeling pretty good in the evening at home (like right now, despite such little sleep). The tinnitus seems louder in recent days, so maybe it's at a threshold that it's making it more difficult to sleep, or maybe it's due to the extra anxiety and lack of sleep, with one making the other worse.
I've read countless sleeping tips over the last couple years even before this more recent development. I'm using a white noise machine, tried nature sounds like crickets/katydids, tried sleep stories, not watching TV in bedroom, wearing blueblocker amber goggles an hour before bedtime, using a weighted blanket, not eating/drinking much later in the evening, no caffeine after morning, getting exercise (but not late), keeping bedroom dark and cool. But here I am having more trouble than ever due to tinnitus.
So, that's why I'm more reluctant to get the Shingrix vaccine, now.