[deleted]
Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
151–160 of 402 posts
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
#152I’ve had tinnitus for about one year now. There is no permanent relief or treatment. Lots of snake oil. My hearing was tested by an Audiologist and my hearing was normal. The “sound” I observe is high pitched. Using a tone generator I matched it to around 16,500 Hz. Interestingly, if I play that tone I get temporary relief on the order of 2-10 minutes. As far as I understand my tinnitus is the result of something goi…
There is no permanent relief or treatment. Lots of snake oil.
That's not what this recent book [1] says, at all. In Ducth, but [2] is a translation of the main point in an interview. As far as I'm aware, this guy is rather far away from snake oil. What is true though is that not all audiologists are caught up yet. Which is a bit weird because I already read about multidisciplinary approach working a couple of years ago IIRC. Which does obviously not mean it works for everyone, but also not 'there is no permanent relief'.
[1] Bart Vinck: Tinnitus, een schaduw van geluid
[2] Can tinnitus disappear completely?
"Absolutely, it happens very often. It's to say: we all hear sounds in our heads, only we don't experience them consciously. After all, the brain forgets sounds that are not relevant, just like I don't feel the glasses I'm wearing now.
"Our brain does nothing but sort out stimuli: this is important, that is not important. Logical too, otherwise we would go crazy with all the stimuli constantly coming in.
"My message is not to learn to live with that beep, but to train your brain to classify that sound as harmless, allowing you to forget about it. Feel free to call it an auditory reset of your brain." What does such a treatment look like?
"It has been proven that a multidisciplinary approach works well. Through an intense therapy bath, we try to reset the brain so that that beep or squawk is no longer threatening: patients receive 20 hours of therapy over four days.
"You also have to find other ways to vent tension and take care of yourself. Physiotherapists and osteopaths additionally work on the physical problems. Our patients often suffer from other psychosomatic complaints: they clench their jaws or have tense neck and shoulder muscles.
"Some 96 percent of our patients report afterwards that the impact of the tinnitus has been greatly reduced. Unfortunately, psychotherapy is barely reimbursed."
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Phase is a physical property of sound waves that cannot influence a signal originating from the brain or cochlea.
It's fun to test what happens when you play the same wave through your headphones but one channel is inverted. Funny enough lots of stereo widening magic relies on a physical property of sound not existing when it's in your head.
If you ever wire a loudspeaker channel the wrong way around, it feels very weird as a lot (but not all for a stereo mix) of the sound will cancel with the other channel in the middle of the speakers and you can move your head through this dead zone.
I've never tried it with headphones, but I suppose even though destructive addition isn't going to happen it might affect things like intended spatial perception.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, but he proposed shifting the phase of the physical signal (16.5khz) which supposedly matches the frequency of the imaginary signal. I still think it's unlikely to work.
I understand, and there could very well be some psychoacoustic cancellation when stimulating with a matching tone. But any effect will be regardless of the phase of the signal, because phase cancellation is a physical effect of sound waves that occurs before they are converted to neural activity (where tinnitus originates from). In simpler terms: tinnitus does not have phase, at least not in the same way a sound wave…
Neutral activity itself definitely takes phase into account somehow, since you can hear the phase difference of two same-frequency tones being played independently into each ear, without any kind of sufficiently strong mechanical connection that would explain it.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
#155I had a concussion about ten years ago (lost consciousness and fell on the floor). This gave me amnesia, which lasted for a few hours, and a tinnitus that lasted for about three months. The tinnitus was high pitched and on a specific frequency (don't recall any more details). It made it difficult to focus.
Based on some Internet search I found that other people were helped by listening to (coloured) noise. I started self medicating by keeping headphones on during the work day, and quite a bit outside work as well. White noise sounded annoying, pink noise sounded soothing, but both masked the tinnitus and helped focus. I mentioned this to my GP, who didn't think it would treat it, but also that it would not hurt, either.
About three months in, basically a daily dose of six to ten hours of pink noise and the tinnitus was gone. Of course, it might have healed all by itself, and listening to the noise worked only as a temporary relief.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
#156The only resource on the internet to read/discuss it.
http://tinnitustalk.com
Everything else is full of people saying they are going to go crazy.
My opinion is to approach it that it cannot be cured and is a part of life. I got it around 2016, unknown reasons why, at the time my hearing tested normal for my age. Have seen doctors over the years and while I know its potentially a symptom of something else, I don't know what that something else is.
The first few years were brutal, reading online does not help as people talking about going crazy. The best approach is to ignore all that and just accept it. Mine not be that terrible, but it is always there but it no longer bothers me. Sometimes I do get some weird flare ups where it pulsates but overall its just part of my life. The sooner you accept that the better.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
#157I've had it since I can remember. One of my earliest memories, I was 1 or 2 years old, was "playing" with it while falling asleep at night: I'd focus on it and made the ringing grow louder and louder till it was the only sound in my ears, then it steadily grew quiter till I fell asleep. Nowadays, I'm 27 years old, my brain filters it out, but I can still hear it when it's quite. Perhaps it's one of the reasons I alwa…
Also had it as long as I remember, at least since I was about 7 or so, which makes me think it's not related to high level noise exposure. I know that because I have clear memories of asking other kids whether in times of silence they could hear anything. It surprised me that they couldn't. My tinnitus is a kind of hissing, predominantly at a very high pitch. I'm in my mid 40's so grew up around CRT TVs. I think it's…
Huh. I’ve also had it for as long as I can remember, and now you mention it mine is also almost identical in pitch and sound to CRT whine. I’m only 30, but I didn’t get my first LCD TV until I was a teenager.
My hearing in general is fine, although I have always struggled a little with understanding people unless they’re facing me. I can hear them just fine, I just can’t always parse what they’re saying. Maybe related, maybe not.
I should be thankful at least because mine never bothers me. Like GP I thought this was something everyone experienced.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
#158I've got some by completing the advice of a tinnitus awareness group I went to on the NHS.
Basically acknowledging it as part of the background noise let me stop concentrating on it as much.
On the other side I worked out what makes it worse - lack of sleep being one, if I stay up too many days watching Netflix then I'll get bad tinnitus, same for hangovers.
It's meant to be linked to inflammation so being more healthy, getting more sleep and putting yourself under less stress all help.
It's hard though - rn I have terrible tinnitus, and of course any reminder of it can bring it back, it'll fade until I scroll past this article again.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
#159I have!
... but not through any conscious method or effort. In fact, this post just "reminded" me of the fact that I had regular and occasionally severe tinnitus over the course of many years. Mine started in high school and persisted well into adulthood. Possibly rooted in a couple of concussions I suffered in reasonably quick succession, possibly too much time under headphones too loud.
Right now, I have to think hard to even recall the sensation, which I take as a pretty strong sign that I haven't suffered it for quite some time. Anecdotally, I can say that I haven't used headphones to listen to music in probably 15 years, and I'm gentler in general with the volume knob now than when I was 15-25. Nothing else jumps out as a possible contributor.
Hopefully this reminder about the condition's existence doesn't trigger a relapse. I'm terribly prone to suggestion.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
#160I had tinnitus as a post stress reaction after my thesis. Its well known in my family and so I was extremly woried. I got a shake of different supplements, just to rule this out, did not help. After a week I accepted this as permanent and after two weeks it did not matter to me anymore.
I notice it every second month or so and see it as a stress indicator and friendly reminder to go for a walk. But I can easily imagine that this does not work for everyone.