Retuning the brain may cure tinnitus, finds study

Saw this in the news last week and I'm hopeful but not holding my breath. Just over a year ago I was taking my daughter to school and my right ear just turned off on me. The next morning I was on a flight to Texas - no choice - and by the time I landed in San Antonio I was hearing nothing but chirps and breaking branches. A few days later I flew back, and went to an ENT specialist. By this time I could hear 'normally' again except I had the emergency broadcast system tone squealing in my head non-stop. They tested my hearing and found nothing but the same high frequency notch that was there ten years ago - the result of lots of trap shooting w/o protection when I was a kid (still get pissed at my dad when I think about it), plus job-related industrial exposure and also playing in a band in my twenties. No new damage related to noise exposure so other causes were explored. They MRI'd my head. Nothing. Pressure test on the eardrums, nothing. Then he noticed the sore spot behind my right earlobe and I explained I had a boil there that ruptured in my sleep several weeks before. His best guess based on that was infection from the boil spread to my inner ear causing otitis, which was exacerbated by the flying. I was put on steorids and antitbiotics, which eliminated 90% of the ringing over time. For a few months I was in hell. Hell. I've read that William Shatner considered suicide due to tinnitus once and I would never have understood if I hadn't lived with a severe case for about 4 months. Anyway, what I've got now is a permanent shhhhhhhhhhh in the background. I don't notice it except when I'm in bed, or if I pay attention and listen for it. But put on closed headphones or IEM's and there it is. It's not enough to ruin my enjoyment of music, but it's like they raised the noise floor on everything I hear.

I'm sure plenty of head-fi'ers have tinnitus issues. Not everyone might want to admit it. But no matter how bad you might have it, don't give up on the music.

Ears are priceless...

I sure wish I could cure my tinnitus - it's awful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict 

I sure wish I could cure my tinnitus - it's awful.

Guys, any tip on how to prevent ourselves from having tinnitus?

I have this aswell. It doesn't really bother me unless i'm in a really quiet room. However, it does annoy the hell out of me when i'm trying to sleep .

I have had a very mild case of tinnitus for as long as I can remember. it's only a very quiet buzzing sound when I try to get to sleep

Being a performing electronic musician & mastering engineer my awareness of my auditory health is critical.

One thing I've noticed about the lightweight {short term} tinnitus I sometimes experience is that breathing exercises, yoga and meditation allow me to "tune it off". 

In my case, If I focus on the sound, control my breathing and meditate the whine fades and i'm left with silence. Because it's a conscious and controllable act I developed a theory over the years after doing it uncountable times.

I believe that nerves in the ear are polled at a certain frequency. This may be serial, parallel, or some cascaded variation. I believe when auditory nerves in distress start misfiring the frequency of the polling itself becomes audible. By retuning the polling frequency slightly, the nerves are given a chance to resync if you will.

Since I learned to focus/meditate I've not had tinnitus last more than 30 seconds. Years ago I had a episode that lasted more than a day.

Caffeine and other stimulants really mess with the nerves and in my experience it should not be combined with high volume listening.

I'm curious to read the article but just the title made me jump up and post. Hopefully I'm not too far left field.  Ohh well, I could have written some fiction about tuning forks on the skull :)

namaste,

A

Ahh well, stimulating the Vagus. Now buddhists everywhere should be worried. Meditation will be replaced by brain surgery. But seriously, that'd be great if this could help out people with serious tinnitus that can't be addressed by new age therapies like mine 

In my case the tinnitus is due to a life saving course of Vancomycin antibiotic in 2001, when my lung disease was flaring up badly and I was hospitalized and on a ventilator.  Still, it can be prevented by avoiding ototoxic drugs, prolonged episodes of louder than normal noise and music, and avoiding outbursts of extremely loud noises as well.  OSHA has some guidelines about how long you can be exposed to certain dB levels before hearing damage ensues.  Some people however may be more or less sensitive to the effects of noise.

To me the most important thing to remember is that hearing damage is cumulative. Concerts, listening to headphones too loud, gun shots, jet engines, etc all contribute to potential hearing loss. I've got it and it's a very high-pitched tone. The last time I took a hearing test, when it got to the higher frequencies, I couldn't discern what I was supposed to be hearing and what is always there.

I read about a doctor or audiologist at Duke University a few weeks ago that has developed a way to retrain the brain as this story talks about and it looks very promising but it is pretty expensive, for now. Hopefully over the next few years more practitioners will start using this method and prices will come down. Luckily my tinnitus doesn't bother me or I might have to spend the money now.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by VALIENTE 

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict 

I sure wish I could cure my tinnitus - it's awful.

Guys, any tip on how to prevent ourselves from having tinnitus?

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadcykler 
To me the most important thing to remember is that hearing damage is cumulative. Concerts, listening to headphones too loud, gun shots, jet engines, etc all contribute to potential hearing loss. I've got it and it's a very high-pitched tone. 

Oh my...I think I have to minimize listening to headphones too loud...plus its cumulative? Well I have to give lesser time using headphones nowadays cos I don't want to have tinnitus.Maybe once week of placing headphones in my ears will be good enough.

Ya, now that I'm gettin older and not blaring my music so loud, my tinnitus has all but vanished.  I listen to my MS1000's at a fairly low volume (and they sound great).

I think things like stress can also bring about tinnitus-like symptoms, so reducing stress is good (for a lot of reasons).

It was hard to read that article and read "Kilgard and his colleagues electrically stimulated the vagus nerve in rats" without stifling the 6th-grade immaturity in me.

Has anyone noticed if their tinnitus increases in pitch when you grit your jaw tight?  Or an increase in tinnitus after continual doses of Advil?

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarriorAnt 

Has anyone noticed if their tinnitus increases in pitch when you grit your jaw tight?  Or an increase in tinnitus after continual doses of Advil?

Mine gets worse with the jaw clenching for sure.  I've heard that salicylates can make it worse, and I wonder if the sulfasalizine that I take for my chronic tendonitis is exacerbating things.