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Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

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Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#121

Post by extr »

makmanalp wrote: post #91
extr wrote: post #5

I have mild tinnitus and the best advice I've ever read on the internet for it is: Stop reading. Don't look up information about tinnitus. Don't think about it. If you happen to notice it, try to distract yourself immediately. There maybe legitimate hearing damage but for the psychological aspect, the more you think about it the worse it becomes. I think I saw a quora answer somewhere where the doctor said "Nobody co…

> Nobody complains about tinnitus while playing Playstation As a long time sufferer, I want to support the general sentiment of this post, and I hope it helps someone who finds this that is currently suffering. My core message is that managing your psychological response to your condition matters immensely. I've noticed over the years that my perception of my tinnitus gets worse when my stress levels are high, even i…

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. FYI, this is the original quora post I'm talking about is here, the response by Vik Veer: https://www.quora.com/Has-anyone-been-successful-at-curing-t...

I can't comment on how mainstream of a scientific opinion his response is, but I know it certainly reframed the way I thought about my own tinnitus and inspired my original comment, including the Playstation bit. That was a lightbulb moment for me. "Wow, he's right, I NEVER think about tinnitus when I'm otherwise engaged mentally..."

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#123

Post by kbuchanan »

extr wrote: post #5

I have mild tinnitus and the best advice I've ever read on the internet for it is: Stop reading. Don't look up information about tinnitus. Don't think about it. If you happen to notice it, try to distract yourself immediately. There maybe legitimate hearing damage but for the psychological aspect, the more you think about it the worse it becomes. I think I saw a quora answer somewhere where the doctor said "Nobody co…

Supported by my experience too. My tinnitus is very real, but when I discovered just how much of a psychological component was there, it became more manageable. Little by little I thought I was losing my hearing until I had it checked—it was perfect. The audiologist helped me understand that my constant "tuning in" to the tinnitus was creating the perception that my hearing was being harmed by loud noises and leaving a high-frequency sound in its place. Which is there, but when ignored, it largely disappears.

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#124

Post by ipsento606 »

jader201 wrote: post #24
extr wrote: post #5

I have mild tinnitus and the best advice I've ever read on the internet for it is: Stop reading. Don't look up information about tinnitus. Don't think about it. If you happen to notice it, try to distract yourself immediately. There maybe legitimate hearing damage but for the psychological aspect, the more you think about it the worse it becomes. I think I saw a quora answer somewhere where the doctor said "Nobody co…

Or further, if you do read stuff about it and start thinking about it, don't sweat it. You'll eventually stop thinking about it, and life will go on. When I first started dealing with tinnitus, it sucked. Until I realized it didn't. Would I rather not have it? Sure. But life is not near as bad as I thought it would be at first, and I'm perfectly fine several years after it started.

When I first started experiencing tinnitus, it was a nightmare. I'm a naturally anxious, catastrophizing person. All the reading I did about it made it so, so much worse, both in terms of perceived severity of symptoms and psychological impact. It had a profound effect on my life. I genuinely had intrusive, obsessive "I'll never be happy again" type thoughts.

A few years later, it has basically zero impact on my life. I am not aware of it 99.9% of the time, and when I am aware of it, I don't go down the same psychological rabbit holes, and I quickly and reliably move out of awareness of it.

Obviously, everyone's experiences and particular symptoms are different. But I think it's really, really important to spread the message that it really can be a mild, almost inconsequential condition, for many people - even anxious, dare-I-say neurotic people.

There was no single silver-bullet treatment path for me, but a combination of very normal, mundane things like therapy, relaxation (massage, hot baths, exercise) and limited use of safe levels of white noise helped me. Perhaps the biggest thing was shrinking my time horizon from "how can I live the rest of my life like this?" to "how can I enjoy today as best as I can?"

The internet is full of horror stories from people, often written during their darkest moments, about how awful it can be. I could easily have written a hopeless, dark, scary account of my symptoms when I was at my lowest points.

Reading such accounts is of absolutely no utility to anyone. If anyone is struggling with this condition, I highly advise you to avoid reading such material at all costs. Try to maintain an awareness of the millions upon millions of people for whom tinnitus is a mild, transitory condition they almost never think about (and, as a consequence, never write about their experiences on the internet)

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#125

Post by genewitch »

OutOfHere wrote: post #76

This is anecdotal info, but if you're suffering severe tinnitus to the point where it cannot be ignored, meaning ≥8/10, a short course of memantine for a few weeks could bring it down by about 2/10, making it more tolerable. The course may have to be repeated as needed about once a year. There probably exist other milder medicines that too could help make it less severe, e.g. mild SSRIs, but their effect usually goes…

How come when i say "hey test your vit D and everyone probably needs more D supplementation" i get called out and downvoted, but this memantine comment goes unanswered?

One of the side effects is aggression. here i'll try this, anecdotally my neighbor was prescribed 5mg (20mg is max dose) for short term memory issues, and he said "it's a good thing i wasn't prescribed more, i would have killed my wife." This was so out of character for him, i've never heard him raise his voice or say anything in anger in the 10 years i've known him. He and his wife are a normal happily married (like 4 decades!) couple of awesome people.

So, yeah. I'm starting to notice a bit of a double standard on this site with more things than "google bad."

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#126

Post by zackmorris »

Random question for someone with tinnitus: do you hear the sound if you hum?

Supposedly the mind doesn't think while humming, at least the inner monologue tends to cease, similar to meditation, and both can be used simultaneously:

https://www.livestrong.com/article/13771650-bhramari-benefit...

I find that even the act of beginning to hum, by tensing my throat without making a sound, quiets my thoughts.

Some other things you might try:

* tapping practice of the fingertips on temples, eyebrows, shoulders, etc for anxiety relief.

* consciousness brain hemisphere shifting (don't know the name), where you cross your eyes slightly to look at two different images, then concentrate on bringing one image to your attention and then the other, causing focus to move between hemispheres. doing this while meditating on difficult thoughts can help the non-dominant hemisphere solve the problem.

* head to toe relaxation: start with the top of your head and scan down your body, identifying any tense muscles and relaxing them, until fully relaxed. so real the forehead, drop the tongue from the top of the mouth, relax into the chair, etc.

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#127

Post by genewitch »

extr wrote: post #5

I have mild tinnitus and the best advice I've ever read on the internet for it is: Stop reading. Don't look up information about tinnitus. Don't think about it. If you happen to notice it, try to distract yourself immediately. There maybe legitimate hearing damage but for the psychological aspect, the more you think about it the worse it becomes. I think I saw a quora answer somewhere where the doctor said "Nobody co…

In this thread (and probably others): People who either aren't aware or don't care that some people actually suffer from tinnitus. Occasionally i get a burst of it where it is physically painful, and i wince, tears come to my eyes. [0]

"just don't think about it, bro"

lol - they prescribe opiates for this condition.

noise machines are linked to making it worse. Humans may not be used to "silence" or whatever people are claiming in here, but we're also not used to broad-spectrum noise, either. Nature doesn't sound like a fan, or any other sort of "noise" except for, possibly, a few dBa around the floor of all noise due to echoes and reflections. Do you all ever go outside of the cities?

[0] i consider mine mild, i always know when i'm gunna suffer after a noise, my brain just knows the SPL that will trigger it in a few hours, so i generally try to be asleep before it kicks in. I do get the waves of tinnitus that i think most people say is "mild", it comes and goes; and yeah, that is easy to "ignore". I have friends with it that avoid certain foods and drinks (like red wine and whisky), where a bout of tinnitus escalates into a migraine headache, or worse, a cluster headache.

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#128

Post by lalalandland »

tartrate wrote: post #81
lalalandland wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I suffer from this. My theory: There are muscles in the ear canal that try to modulate the sound and those muscles tense up and cause issues. I also have sore muscles that get a lot better from use of magnesium supplements and the tinnitus also get slightly better from this use. (It get a lot worse if I stop taking it)

how quickly does magnesium work, and how quickly does it get worse if you don't take it?

About a week both to start working and weening off

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#129

Post by lalalandland »

umpalumpaaa wrote: post #84
lalalandland wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I suffer from this. My theory: There are muscles in the ear canal that try to modulate the sound and those muscles tense up and cause issues. I also have sore muscles that get a lot better from use of magnesium supplements and the tinnitus also get slightly better from this use. (It get a lot worse if I stop taking it)

The theory of my ENT is that the brain tries to make up noises when certain frequencies are not properly "used" because your hearing is bad. My hearing in the higher frequency spectrum is really bad – thus I hear high pitches sounds (tinnitus) when I am not wearing that hearing aid. I think it is pretty common that tinnitus gets better with any kind of hearing aid however some devices & hearing loss combinations tend…

I must go and get my hearing checked

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#130

Post by zackmorris »

casenmgreen wrote: post #34

I had tinnitus as an adult, and it was cured. It turned out to be caused by an improperly filled root canal; some root material remained inside the tooth, the flesh above and around the tooth was inflamed and this was applying pressure inside the skull and bringing tissues which would otherwise not have been into contact, or firmer contact. I had the root canal re-made, and the tinnitus ended.

I had very slight intermittent tinnitus that went away after being treated with an ALF appliance for TMJ and sleep apnea. I think my jaw joint was pressing on a nerve by my ear somehow. My bite was fixed by tilting it slightly back to horizontal to open up the joint and allow the teeth to erupt a bit until they met again.
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