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I think I've invented a cure for titannus?

#21
There are natural remedies that claim to reduce or eliminate tinnitus. I do know that lowering caffeine and salt intake also affects it.

Mine is fairly constant (frickin' loud guitar players) but when we were away on a long weekend Holiday, it nearly went away - I am still trying to figure that one out.

Regarding the suggested device - my feeling is that it will not work. The reason is that there is no mechanical sound to cancel, as tinnitus is in the nerves themselves. A clever thought, though.

WEAR EARPLUGS!!!!!!
 
#22
Won't work. Noise canceling devices need to detect the noise they are counteracting in order to match frequency and phase, and since the sensed tone in tinnitus is not actually being produced anywhere, there is nothing for your theoretical device to detect and lock to.
 
#23
Electricblue said:
Had a thought, I would hate to end up with titannus but this may solve something?

How about a device you shove in your ear(s) that creates a sine wave which is 180* out of phase with the screeching that you hear when you suffer from it?

That might cancel it out, but I'm not sure.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

GOOD IDEA! BUT IT ALREADY EXISTS!!

I hate to be the one to rob you of your potential of a patent, but the device you are referring to already exists and has for many years.

The poster above who said noise cancelling devices need to hear the source sound to generate a cancelling wave is correct. I used to fly Cessnas and I wore noise cancelling headsets. It responded to the source sound and generated a 180 degree out of phase sine wave. It worked great. But the devices that I am referring to in response to your post do not rely on the source sound. This device does generate a 180 degree out of phase sine wave (just like noise cancelling headsets), and that is how it cancels out the noise you are hearing. But the gizmo does not rely on hearing the source sound. The source sound is detected a different way....in the office of an audiologist. Here is the process:

You make an appointment with an audiologist (get your wallet out). They use their highly sensitive equipment to detect the pitch of your tinnitus in each ear, and it identifies the pesky frequency for each ear. They then craft a small, battery-operated insert for each ear (very much like a hearing aid) that generates the out of phase sine wave for each ear. Bingo! And as long as your tinnitus stays at the same wavelength in each ear (which for most people, it does), then the gizmo works.

How much does it cost, you may ask? Well, I recall the price being somewhere in the $1000 range. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for.

How do I know about all of this?? I'm a civil engineer, and I was overseeing the construction of a flood control project ten years ago, and one of the properties that we needed to deal with was owned and operated by an audiologist. I ended up having discussions with her about tinnitus as I was curious about it.

So there ya go.
 
#27
ggunn said:
Won't work. Noise canceling devices need to detect the noise they are counteracting in order to match frequency and phase, and since the sensed tone in tinnitus is not actually being produced anywhere, there is nothing for your theoretical device to detect and lock to.
Click to expand...

Wrong!!! As already posted a such device already exist. All you need to do is to adjust the noise canceling devise until it cancels the note of the tinnitus. As it's chronic and it's a constant note it's fully possible.

(By the way OP, I think Titannus is a Marvel character ;))
 
#28
NoiseNinja said:
Wrong!!! As already posted a such device already exist. All you need to do is to adjust the noise canceling devise until it cancels the note of the tinnitus. As it's chronic and it's a constant note it's fully possible.

(By the way OP, I think Titannus is a Marvel character ;))
Click to expand...
Color me skeptical. I can buy that the frequency of a ringing in the ears can be determined from an audiologist's gear, but just as important as frequency is phase. If it is tuned correctly but doesn't have the correct time delay (1/2f), then it could just as easily be doubling the SPL of the ringing as canceling it out. Even if you could get the phase matched, I don't see how it would stay matched without some kind of monitoring of the tone it's supposed to cancel.
 
#29
ggunn said:
Color me skeptical. I can buy that the frequency of a ringing in the ears can be determined from an audiologist's gear, but just as important as frequency is phase. If it is tuned correctly but doesn't have the correct time delay (1/2f), then it could just as easily be doubling the SPL of the ringing as canceling it out. Even if you could get the phase matched, I don't see how it would stay matched without some kind of monitoring of the tone it's supposed to cancel.
Click to expand...

ggunn: Nothing wrong with being skeptical. Contact an audiologist. They will give you the facts.
 
#31
NoiseNinja said:
Wrong!!! As already posted a such device already exist. All you need to do is to adjust the noise canceling devise until it cancels the note of the tinnitus. As it's chronic and it's a constant note it's fully possible.
Click to expand...

Really??? So you think tinnitus is caused by something in your ear ringing at a certain pitch? And if you introduce an out-of-phase sound externally it will counter the internal ring? :rollno:

No. Tinnitus is not a little ring in your ear. It is damage to your nervous system that the brain perceives as "ringing." In order to make the OP's idea work, you would need to do Nobel-prize-winning work in neuroscience.
 
#33
BassmanSBK said:
Really??? So you think tinnitus is caused by something in your ear ringing at a certain pitch? And if you introduce an out-of-phase sound externally it will counter the internal ring? :rollno:

No. Tinnitus is not a little ring in your ear. It is damage to your nervous system that the brain perceives as "ringing." In order to make the OP's idea work, you would need to do Nobel-prize-winning work in neuroscience.
Click to expand...

Then explain how it comes it seems to work?
A sound is a sound no matter where it comes from. Of cause phasing it out is an illusion too, the sound still exists. You just can't hear it.
In fact what you hear isn't sound waves either but electrical impulses in your brain interpreted, so in a way all hearing is an illusion.

Then again I'm not an engineer or something, I just heard about it before, ask SactoBass who actually is an engineer in fact, he seems to know more about it.
 
#34
Good lord...

I have tinnitus, it's not something that anyone can hear or measure, it's in the brain, not the ear (unless you have a rare type called pulsatile tinnitus, but that's typically caused by a vascular problem).

My audiologist is a specialist in tinnitus and works at UT Southwestern in Dallas, and trust me, if she could just hook people up to a machine to determine the pitch, she would. As it is, she plays tones and asks the patient to match the tone they hear to the tone in their head.

Also, my tinnitus has changed in pitch as time has gone on. It started out at about 12.5 kHz, and now it's around 4-5 kHz. I use devices that look like hearing aids for tinnitus retraining therapy. Basically, it's broadband white and pink noise that is designed to help you habituate to the tinnitus over 18-24 months. They work well, I'm about 14 months into the program, and most of the time, I forget I have tinnitus. When I'm done, I won't wear them at all, and should be able to go through life without thinking about the ringing in my ears, as it will have become a background noise like the AC or your refrigerator running.

Now, the devices aren't cheap (GHI Tranquility devices cost about $1,800 for the set) but they are well worth it, IMO. They also have another device that supposedly takes around 6 months to habituate you to the tinnitus, but it sounds like out of key music with a slippery tempo, and my audiologist told me musicians hate them, which is why I took the longer therapy.
 

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