DiabolusInMusic
Functionless Art is Merely Tolerated Vandalism
I thought van Gogh cured tinnitus ages ago, no?
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Tinnitus is NOT incurable!
- Thread starter Joe Nerve
- Start date
Great discussion on a very serious topic!
I have a pretty big collection of ambient/nature/relaxing recordings to play at night and mask my tinnitus. I find I can't really sleep if the sounds have melody/rhythm/harmony, but if the sounds are droning/ambient, it really helps me fall asleep.
Here is one of my favorite. It's inspired by the movie Alien and can give some strange dreams!
Another good resource: Sleepbot Environmental Broadcast
I have a pretty big collection of ambient/nature/relaxing recordings to play at night and mask my tinnitus. I find I can't really sleep if the sounds have melody/rhythm/harmony, but if the sounds are droning/ambient, it really helps me fall asleep.
Here is one of my favorite. It's inspired by the movie Alien and can give some strange dreams!
Another good resource: Sleepbot Environmental Broadcast
Being one of those analytical types I read some research on it. One of the weirdest results came when some doctors tried playing the exact frequency of the perceived tinnitus into earphones. When the actual sound was produced, the "fake" one (tinnitis) went away. This is completely consistent with the idea that our brains are supplying the frequency we can't hear very well any more -- making up for the lack. Even weirder, the "silence" would continue for some time after playing the frequency. This implies if you were listening to something that emphasized your own inner sound it might have had that paradoxical canceling. Something to think about anyway.
In my own case, if nobody says the word "tinnitis" I just forget it's there most of the time. My hearing is still acute in most frequency ranges so it's not really an issue most of the time. However, I live in a quiet place so it does get noticed now and then.
In my own case, if nobody says the word "tinnitis" I just forget it's there most of the time. My hearing is still acute in most frequency ranges so it's not really an issue most of the time. However, I live in a quiet place so it does get noticed now and then.
Yes, hearing loss can be diagnosed with a simple hearing test. And yes, hearing loss is one of the correlates, and probably the strongest correlate amongst all tested correlates, of tinnitus, even though 44% of those with tinnitus reported no hearing loss (Kochkin, Tyler, and Born. 2011). And, as we know, correlation does not equal causation. Without taking this into account and using your 90% statistic, one *could* conclude that it's tinnitus that causes hearing loss!!!
i have a rather electro- mechanical reason for my tinnitus ... around age 15 i had Strep a few times in 1 year ... the last time it got into my inner ear ... it actually destroyed most of the auditory nerve , ... leaving only the center of it that carries very low tones ... so no matter how loud speech would be pumped into my left ear , i have zero discrepancy of words ... and the ever ringing / short circuit Tinnitus ...
like you say , things make that volume go up/down ... as soon as i read the Title , it got louder ( thanks- ha )
for me , i've tried to learn more about Mindfulness and Meditation ... as brain scans show , folks can find that source of pain in their brains and turn it down ... so i figured , i can search for that mystery volume control and turn it down .. !! which works for a while , until the Gremlins turn it back up .. !
Control your mind ... or it will control You ..!
like you say , things make that volume go up/down ... as soon as i read the Title , it got louder ( thanks- ha )
for me , i've tried to learn more about Mindfulness and Meditation ... as brain scans show , folks can find that source of pain in their brains and turn it down ... so i figured , i can search for that mystery volume control and turn it down .. !! which works for a while , until the Gremlins turn it back up .. !
Control your mind ... or it will control You ..!
To all who suffer from tinnitus wear ear plugs at gigs.
I do and it really helps. If it's very noisy around you do something about it.
Gigs, lawn mowers, industrial equipment, car races.
Don't end up like me and many others.
I do and it really helps. If it's very noisy around you do something about it.
Gigs, lawn mowers, industrial equipment, car races.
Don't end up like me and many others.
Would that be applied with a finger or using a funnel?
I've been fortunate so far in that mine is fairly low level and very high pitched. Like the sound of CRT high pitched. Thank god for flat screens. After many years living in hotels on the road, my sleeping ritual has always included leaving the TV on all night to mask traffic and early morning activities of the rooms around me so I could sleep after a gig. I still sleep with the TV on and I'm sure it helps mask what symptoms I do have. What's odd is that once in awhile I'll get a much lower frequency, a lot louder, that just comes out of nowhere, not externally triggered, and like a switch was flipped. It eventually just fades and everything goes back to where it was. But it would be nice to someday get rid of that high pitched whine altogether. Glad you are seeing some progress. I hope it's permanent.
...modern medicine has just not yet determined how to cure it.
This is going to be a long one, but I can't do it any other way.
I'll start with a brief history and the reason I'm writing this. I've had tinnitus for at least 30 years. For 20 of those years I dealt with it, considered it an occupational hazard, and didn't feel it was a huge deal. It was there every minute of every day, but I could live with it. Didn't understand those who complained like crazy. My thought was, "Just shut up and deal with it."
I started wearing ear plugs to further protect my hearing, but one day at a show at the Bitter End about 10 years ago, I left them home. I said screw it, and played without any protection. That night was life altering. My tinnitus went from what seemed like a 3 right up to 11! And it stayed that way for days, slowly lowering itself to about a 7 or 8. Suddenly, I understood how people went into massive depressions over this. How they even killed themselves. The screaming in my ears was unbearable. No noise machines, air conditioners, or any other background noise could relieve it. I lived with it for about 5 years at that level, and then started doing things that made it a little more bearable.
While it was at that level, a car horn could send me back to 11 with a 3 second beep. A cymbal crash without earplugs in, any kind of music that hit certain frequencies at any volume whatsoever. I went to a friends clarinet concert once and literally almost started crying. Stayed out of respect, but would never repeat that.
Point of this all being, I know full well what tinnitus is. And I know full well the levels it can go to. I even purchased $4000 hearing aids in hopes that it would help. It did absolutely nothing, and I had to take a $400 hit (restocking fee) when I returned them after 90 days.
Two days ago I was driving, with music down low in my car and it occurred to me that I heard no ringing. I shut my stereo, pulled the car over and heard dead silence except for a few birds!
My eyes got teary, I took a deep breath, and just got super grateful. I hadn't experienced that in years! I know this is reading like an infomercial, but I promise I'm not selling anything. Only trying to help anyone if I can. The fact that I experienced that tells me I'm capable of getting rid of tinnitus altogether. I'll say also, that right now it's only returned to the barely noticeable level, and it comes and goes. It's not bothering me at all.
So now the bad news - I don't know HOW to stop or cure it, but I know I did. And I'm about to list everything I did that I believe helped it to end. It could be just one of these things that worked, or it could have been a combination of any number of them. All I know is that it worked, and if you suffer from this the way I did you'll probably be willing to try anything.
My help with this came from a mix of psychological, physical, and spiritual things I applied:
1. I refused to believe tinnitus was incurable. I somehow knew and completely believed nobody has yet figured it out.
2. I was willing to try ANYTHING, and very open minded about healing it
.
3. I DID in fact try many things that had absolutely no effect, including expensive vitamins that did sheit.
4. I had a talk with a guy one day that really stuck with me. He was an intellectual, scientific type of dude who did his dabbling with LSD back in the day - but he told me he had tinnitus pretty bad and he "willed" it away. Said the he did a lot of reading on it, and realized he could focus differently and at first minimize the ringing, then eventually eliminate it. I tried and tried and tried, and think it may have had a cumulative effect. What really resonated with me though was that I believed him, as his conviction was strong. This helped to give me hope.
The crazier stuff:
5. I read somewhere that raw honey and cinnamon cured tinnitus. I didn't believe it, but I know raw honey and cinnamon are both very good for you anyway so I said what the hell. Did a teaspoon of each, every day for about 4 months straight, and I don't know if it was a placebo effect or the real thing, but it brought that above mentioned 7-8 volume down to 4-6. The tinnitus from that point on would only hit the unbearable mark if I had some sort of auditory assault.
Over the past 2 years I've made a few more changes:
6. I was always using the highest noise reducing earplugs for every show I did. Just recently started using IEMs, thinking they were actually going to make things worse, but I think the noise cancelling qualities of them are working wonders. I was playing only once or twice a month the past few years. Now I'm playing 2 or 3X a week, and despite that I'm in much better shape.
7. I learned to do this ear cupping thing, and now do it religiously after every show. I cup my hands tightly on my ears with my fingers on the back of my head. I tap the back bottom of my skull to get a "boing" sound, and do that about 20 times. I then squeeze my ears as hard as I can, which intensifies the ringing, hold it a few seconds, and let it go. I might repeat the process if I feel necessary. IT WORKS!!!! It's a temporary reduction, but it lasts 10-15 minutes. I do it again when I get home or before I go to bed.
8. And this is as crazy as it gets. Gotta put it in here because who knows - maybe this is the one key to all, but I don't think so. I was taught to perform Reiki (an energy healing technique) many years ago. When I do the above ear cupping thing, I also rub my hands together first, draw the Reiki symbol on my palms, and apply the healing technique. Don't know how or why this works, and I'm still skeptical, but I've been doing anything and everything possible. It might have something to do with the heat in my hands from rubbing them, a placebo affect again, or maybe there truly is a healing force in the universe that I've been taught to tap into. If so, I believe prayer would have the same effect.
9. I eat well, exercise and work at having a positive attitude always. I believe that to has aided in my healing.
That's all I've really. I'll reiterate that I'm crazy freaking happy my life is pretty much back to normal now. It's been over 10 years of torture. Hope this helps someone, and I hope other add what they did that helped. I now know we can beat this, and if not, at least make it completely bearable.
Share your thoughts, tips and ideas. I'm done for now.
You are right. Science marches forward.
Our drummer finally sold this for a DW wood snare. One of the happiest days of my life.
D
Please keep us updated, DirtDog. I can take the meds, and can probably reduce the salt. As a dedicated and passionate home brewer, the alcohol part would be tough.
I'm probably about 5 on the scale, and best I can determine, my tinnitus is wailing at about 12.5k. I put headphones on and ran a tone generator up until it matched my tinnitus and I could not tell tone from tinnitus. I also have learned to somewhat ignore it, but at times it's hard. One a summers night, I can't tell if the crickets and frogs are singing or it's just my tinnitus. It doesn't keep me up much, my cpap fan tends to help cover it.
D
Did you have any hearing loss that accompanied the departure of the tinnitus, or did it just go away?
D
That does it, I'm getting some Rogaine ear drops, or maybe Grecian formula for men and putting it in my ear! Then I'm joining the ear hair club for men.
There is some Doctor on the internet hawking a CD that retrains your brain into resetting itself and shutting off the tinnitus. I was going to send away for it, but it sounded a little fishy, like so many of those "I'll tell you about it in a minute, I'm not doing this to make money, here are some testimonials from satisfied patients, free money back guarantee..." infomercials. Maybe there is something to the concept of this being more brain (receptor) than ear related. Has anyone tried the reprogramming?
Wow, that's terrific, congrats, Joe! Hope it holds out (and hope it happens to me someday!)
My own tinnitus was not caused by playing loud music (my last regular band was in 1982, had my hearing checked afterwards and it was fine), but, I'm pretty sure, by a bad cold I had in December of 2013. It happened at the same time I had a real bad reaction to a cortisone shot in my knee (sleeplessness, anxiety, loss of appetite - lost 25lbs in a couple of months!), so I thought the tinnitus was another part of that, but months later (yes, MONTHS, I kid you not!) when the last of the effects of that wretched shot wore off, the tinnitus remained and is still with me. It's only in my left ear, in which I also have noticeable hearing loss. At first, while I was suffering from that cortisone shot, the tinnitus just added to the mix and I was an emotional mess a great deal of the time, fearful of having to deal with it for the rest of my life. Now that it's all that's left, I handle it well - I often go for most of the day without even being aware of it, and even when i am, i just shrug it off or ignore it. It's plenty loud, there normal daily noises, even crowds or street noise do not mask it, but when my mind is occupied, it just gets tuned out.
I don't drink a lot of caffeine, but I really so need to just stop altogether, and I only drink a beer or glass of wine 2-3 times a month (and often the beer is non-alcoholic!). I may try the honey cinnamon, it's worth a shot.
I do wear ear protection when using power tools. The band I'm in only gigs once or twice a year, and never practices, but I do want to eventually get some good ear plugs. We don't play terribly loud, but the tinnitus IS louder after a gig, but only for a short time. I even notice when I practice my bass at home, even though I only play at a typical home music-listening level, that the tinnitus gets slightly worse afterwards.
My dad was always concerned about hearing loss when I first expressed an interest in playing rock&roll, but, typically, I just blew him off. I dodged the bullet from playing music, but I realize now he really was a lot smarter than I was!
My own tinnitus was not caused by playing loud music (my last regular band was in 1982, had my hearing checked afterwards and it was fine), but, I'm pretty sure, by a bad cold I had in December of 2013. It happened at the same time I had a real bad reaction to a cortisone shot in my knee (sleeplessness, anxiety, loss of appetite - lost 25lbs in a couple of months!), so I thought the tinnitus was another part of that, but months later (yes, MONTHS, I kid you not!) when the last of the effects of that wretched shot wore off, the tinnitus remained and is still with me. It's only in my left ear, in which I also have noticeable hearing loss. At first, while I was suffering from that cortisone shot, the tinnitus just added to the mix and I was an emotional mess a great deal of the time, fearful of having to deal with it for the rest of my life. Now that it's all that's left, I handle it well - I often go for most of the day without even being aware of it, and even when i am, i just shrug it off or ignore it. It's plenty loud, there normal daily noises, even crowds or street noise do not mask it, but when my mind is occupied, it just gets tuned out.
I don't drink a lot of caffeine, but I really so need to just stop altogether, and I only drink a beer or glass of wine 2-3 times a month (and often the beer is non-alcoholic!). I may try the honey cinnamon, it's worth a shot.
I do wear ear protection when using power tools. The band I'm in only gigs once or twice a year, and never practices, but I do want to eventually get some good ear plugs. We don't play terribly loud, but the tinnitus IS louder after a gig, but only for a short time. I even notice when I practice my bass at home, even though I only play at a typical home music-listening level, that the tinnitus gets slightly worse afterwards.
My dad was always concerned about hearing loss when I first expressed an interest in playing rock&roll, but, typically, I just blew him off. I dodged the bullet from playing music, but I realize now he really was a lot smarter than I was!
Mr. Tin here comes and goes.
I had a break from bands from 1989 to 2006 AND work at a petrochem facility where 35 dB NRR foam plugs are REQUIRED anywhere inside the plant boundaries plus years of all the safety videos/training. NO ear ringing at all in spite of playing in metal bands in the 70's/80's so it does/can reverse and go away.
Back to bands in 2006. OK, it leaves by the next day.
In 2010 or so, we add a member who was in a road band of a very famous country star BUT the talented guy has major hearing damage and is stationed to my right. One night in a small club, he dials up his "11" on the volume and it nails the "equilibrium interference" point in my right ear....instant pain. On the way home after the gig, any music or sounds through that ear sound distorted(??!!!). NEVER had this before. Currently the right ear is about 3 to 6 dB lower sounding than my left from this guy, now I use earplugs especially in my right ear, and am looking at IEM's as the FOH guys I talk with understand and appreciate my position(especially after they hear an "11" show up on their stage one night). They'll feed me my own mix via an AUX send.
Tinnitus?
The right ear has been granted a lower sensitivity to sound, seems to be not improving.
Mr. Tin comes and goes but is also influenced(here) by the amount of sleep I get and some OTC meds(aspirin can increase the tin level and some others do also). Tin level as I type this in a quiet office at my desk is about 0.001 in the left ear and 0.00001 in the right/less sensitive ear.
Sub'ed to this thread and IF a proven "help" or fix is found, will reply back and put it in here.
I had a break from bands from 1989 to 2006 AND work at a petrochem facility where 35 dB NRR foam plugs are REQUIRED anywhere inside the plant boundaries plus years of all the safety videos/training. NO ear ringing at all in spite of playing in metal bands in the 70's/80's so it does/can reverse and go away.
Back to bands in 2006. OK, it leaves by the next day.
In 2010 or so, we add a member who was in a road band of a very famous country star BUT the talented guy has major hearing damage and is stationed to my right. One night in a small club, he dials up his "11" on the volume and it nails the "equilibrium interference" point in my right ear....instant pain. On the way home after the gig, any music or sounds through that ear sound distorted(??!!!). NEVER had this before. Currently the right ear is about 3 to 6 dB lower sounding than my left from this guy, now I use earplugs especially in my right ear, and am looking at IEM's as the FOH guys I talk with understand and appreciate my position(especially after they hear an "11" show up on their stage one night). They'll feed me my own mix via an AUX send.
Tinnitus?
The right ear has been granted a lower sensitivity to sound, seems to be not improving.
Mr. Tin comes and goes but is also influenced(here) by the amount of sleep I get and some OTC meds(aspirin can increase the tin level and some others do also). Tin level as I type this in a quiet office at my desk is about 0.001 in the left ear and 0.00001 in the right/less sensitive ear.
Sub'ed to this thread and IF a proven "help" or fix is found, will reply back and put it in here.
D
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I've had a continuous whistle in my ears at around 14KHz since the 28th Feb 2004, following an uncontrolled feedback incident courtesy of the dumbass singer who was running the PA... probably most of the damage was already done and that was just the final straw but anyway that was the last day I heard silence. Since then I've studied acoustics with some basic audiology included and have some understanding of the problem which although it doesn't make it go away does make it easier to live with. If only I'd known what tinnitus was a few decades back I might have kept the volume down a little in the various bands I've played in!
Btw I tried Joe's No 7 thing a few weeks back and it does indeed work, for a while anyway...
Btw I tried Joe's No 7 thing a few weeks back and it does indeed work, for a while anyway...
