Acoustic CR® Neuromodulation: Do It Yourself Guide

[Mike34]

That's fantastic news, @Mike34! When you say you ran those two sequences simultaneously, are you saying that they played concurrently in both ears?

Also, how did you manage to isolate your exact pitch? I've been trying to isolate mine using online resources, but it's pretty tricky and I tend to "feel" that I'm there between 7600 and 8300 hertz. My audiologist actually looked at my quizzically when I told him I was trying to narrow it, as if it were some sort of futile exercise. Foolish man.

Yes I ran them both at the time time.

I'm not sure if I have the exact pitches. I think if you get close you'll get the masking effect I talked about. Whether the treatment will work long term If you don't have the exact pitch is hard to say.

 

[NeverLoseHope]

Since I started this treatment I have had some of the best days in 11 years. And yesterday I woke up and stayed in silence almost all day until a computer spiked me. I did not use it yesterday at all sadly. And today BANG real bad this morning. So I am back on it right now. I am now SURE this is the way forward for me. @generalfuzz

Sorry but for personal reasons I am leaving the group. Look out in the app stores in a month or so when it is available for download FOR FREE, I hope it has helped some of you. It has been really nice meeting so many nice likeminded people. I know exciting times are ahead for us. So bye for now (I might return one day as it was fun). And please remember "Never Lose Hope". Bye 4 now.

 

[Tina C]

Many people are having difficulty finding a tone that matches the one they hear in their head. Is that not because the tone we "hear" in tinnitus is the tone our damaged hair cell receptors can no longer pick up through the ear canal?

 

[Silvine]

Many people are having difficulty finding a tone that matches the one they hear in their head. Is that not because the tone we "hear" in tinnitus is the tone our damaged hair cell receptors can no longer pick up through the ear canal?

When I first got to see an ENT consultant who actually knew a lot about tinnitus they showed me the notch in my audiogram and explained that this area and it's derived frequencies were responsible for my T, due to the lack of signals reaching that particular band of neurons in my auditory cortex. The neurons had basically gone into a synchronous firing pattern due to lack of input from my cochlear.

As my T is only in my right ear, the ENT used a tone generator to play the "missing" frequency into my left ear.

It was an exact match.

 

[preslys]

update from the BTA on the recent RESET2 Trial on the Acoustic CR® Neuromodulation Device

http://www.tinnitus.org.uk/RESET2

 

[Mark662]

update from the BTA on the recent RESET2 Trial on the Acoustic CR® Neuromodulation Device

http://www.tinnitus.org.uk/RESET2

As the outcome was that Acoustic Neuromodulation was no better than placebo, maybe the Tinnitus Clinic offering this very expensive flawed treatment should be stopped from doing so?

 

[preslys]

@Mark662
Did try it ?

 

[marqualler]

As the outcome was that Acoustic Neuromodulation was no better than placebo, maybe the Tinnitus Clinic offering this very expensive flawed treatment should be stopped from doing so?

Where does it say that the outcome was no better than the placebo? All I see is that they are not publishing the results--something that the BTA addressed in their Q&A a couple weeks ago.

 

[Mark662]

@marqualler it says so at the bottom of the page;

The End of Study Report did not report a significant difference in the primary outcome measure (global Tinnitus Handicap Questionnaire scores) between the treatment group and the placebo group.

 

[Mark662]

@preslys
No I didn't try it. It is excessively expensive. Even the German development company that pioneered the original treatment went into bankruptcy. It speaks volumes.

 

[marqualler]

Ah, I see that now. I do also see that the protocols used to do the study were not followed which invalidated some of the data:

"Review of the trial has, however, concluded that there have been deviations from the trial protocol and that the results cannot be regarded as scientifically robust. It is therefore with regret that all the parties have concluded that the results of the trial cannot be published with confidence."

I interpret differently than concluding with definiteness that the Neuromodulation is no better than placebo. However it doesn't seem like a good sign when they chose not to publish the results--if they were good I would think they would want to publish those results?

 

[Mark662]

Yes, it would appear they have held back because they didn't get the result they wanted. This is no doubt illegal and bad science. They have a lot at stake because of the potential to damage the reputation of the Tinnitus Clinic in the UK that has promoted this form of treatment from the start. It now seems it has been charging patients for a treatment without proper scientific grounding.

 

[sticky]

Just wondering, is it possible to have this ACRN therapy done around the 16000 range?

@generalfuzz 's site only goes up to 15000.

Just wondering whether there was a reason for this. I know some people cant hear higher frequencies, so I just wondered whether there was a limitation in programming.

 

[Shiro]

Hello, I'm new here, I red a lot of stuff and I would like to know a few things about the ACRN, is it in any way related in noise cancelling? Like you have to find your tinnitus frequencies then play it all day so the two frequencies (the one from the headphone and the one from your f*cked up brain) will cancel each others ? Does the hearing aid can solve the problem ? I think that my tinnitus is around 8kHz.

 

[generalfuzz]

@sticky

FYI, I host a hi-freq version @ http://generalfuzz.net/acrn-hifreq/

 

[sticky]

@generalfuzz,

Thankyou very much

 

[linearb]

Yes, it would appear they have held back because they didn't get the result they wanted. This is no doubt illegal and bad science.

Bad science, sure, illegal, maybe not -- this is what passes for science when commercial interests are involved, in all cases.

In the US we have had an absolute boatload of instances where pharmaceutical companies do, say, 10 trials of a drug, and then publish the 5 which showed the result they wanted, and bury the other 5. In fact, Merck is being sued by the government over this right now:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/merck-whistleblowers_b_5881914.html

and there's a swell book about how this went on for years with SSRIs:http://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-...424444848&sr=8-1&keywords=emporer's+new+drugs

I'm not trying to pick on pharma co's; they are in the impossible situation of being the only organizations doing research to demonstrate the safety and effiency of their products. It's madness, and most tinnitus treatments are in exactly the same situation. Unless the will of the people becomes to demand and subsidize public research into drugs and medical devices, the dark ages will go on.

 

[Davey]

I have been stalking this topic for over weeks now and have been testing all the stuff here. I have made my own audio file from jibs' tutorial and have been listening to the ACRN from generalfuzz. Results are slightly different. Before I started with the therapy I had two different tinnitus sounds, but in both of my ears. The first sound is hissing and the second is a tonal sound.

Results:
When I was experimenting with the audio file from jib's tutorial I sensed my tinnitus was changing. The tinnitus was slowly decreasing and I was hearing electric sounds, but hearing those electric sound was pretty annoying. After a while those electric sounds disappeared and my tinnitus was back at normal volume.

After using the ACRN from generalfuzz the tinnitus was decreasing to a point where I had to focus on my tinnitus to hear it again and my tonal tinnitus was gone. I also didn't hear any of those weird electronic sounds and the effect was longer than the audio file from jib's tutorial. By effect I mean the decrease of my tinnitus.

So it's working for me, my tinnitus is decreasing and my tonal tinnitus is gone after using the ACRN from generalfuzz.

I just want to thank Jibs, generalfuzz and everyone else that is dedicated to helping others with their tinnitus.

 

[SteveToHeal]

See this:

http://www.thetinnitusclinic.co.uk/...C&utm_medium=e-newsletter&utm_campaign=TICE12

 

[linearb]

My tinnitus is very high pitched and it's grating to listen to ACRN at that pitch -- but I seem to have some luck by matching it as best I can and then cutting the frequency exactly in half, to move it down one octave.

I had a bad day yesterday and did this for a couple hours, today seems significantly different, but I'm doing it again anyway...

There's something about the "desynchronous" timing that messes with the brain at a primal level -- my cats don't give a shit about the high frequency pure tones, but ACRN tones at any frequency make them look all around the room like "WTF WTF WTF"

 

[preslys]

Hi guys

Update from the tinnitus clinic and from peer journal Frontiers in neurologiy (03/16/2015)

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fneur.2015.00054/abstract

 

[mindpower]

Hi, thinking about trying this... a few questions:

Do you need to listen attentively to the sounds or is background listening enough?
If you have multiple tinnitus frequencies like I do (three of them), do I make 3 sequences that play simultanously or how do you go about it?

 

[Steve]

Hi, thinking about trying this... a few questions:

Do you need to listen attentively to the sounds or is background listening enough?
If you have multiple tinnitus frequencies like I do (three of them), do I make 3 sequences that play simultanously or how do you go about it?

Hi and welcome.

The official line was that you pick the tone which is the most annoying to you and base the sequence around that.

You should listen where you can hear them but where it doesn't affect your concentration. Hopefully they should be able to blend into the background and not effect your listening.

Listen up to an hour at a time for a total of no more than 6 hours per day.

This isn't from me but from the trial guidelines. Best thing is to see how you feel with it and if it feels like it's working. Your tinnitus tone is likely to change so make sure to check it regularly and create a new sequence to match.

 

[Silvio Sabo]

What if I can't hear the frequencies above my tinnitus sound? I have mapped my tinnitus at somewhere around 14 000 hz. It's nearly impossible for me to map it precisly but it's as close as I get and I don't get that exact match though. However the frequencies that are used in that case are around 11 000, 12 800, 15 500 and 19 800 hz. The ones at 15 500 and 19 800 I don't hear at all.

Also, should I listen to the sounds on both ears or just the one where the sound I have is the loudest? I have tinnitus in both ears however my right ear is considerably louder and drowns out the tinnitus in my left ear so the tinnitus in the left ear I barely notice.

 

[Steve]

What if I can't hear the frequencies above my tinnitus sound? I have mapped my tinnitus at somewhere around 14 000 hz. It's nearly impossible for me to map it precisly but it's as close as I get and I don't get that exact match though. However the frequencies that are used in that case are around 11 000, 12 800, 15 500 and 19 800 hz. The ones at 15 500 and 19 800 I don't hear at all.

Also, should I listen to the sounds on both ears or just the one where the sound I have is the loudest? I have tinnitus in both ears however my right ear is considerably louder and drowns out the tinnitus in my left ear so the tinnitus in the left ear I barely notice.

When you're up that high it can be very difficult to get the correct frequency. 14KHz to 15KHz is not much in terms of the way we perceive sound. If you can, try and get somebody to test you out, get them to play tones from the slider and ask if it is higher or lower than your tinnitus. Make sure the tone isn't constant as that will generally suppress your tinnitus a little and make it harder to locate.

You should be able to zero in on it a lot better with this kind of help.

Unfortunately if you can't hear all of the tones this particular technique won't work. You could experiment using tones that you can hear, substituting higher tones below your tone. It would be a complete experiment though as there is no data I know of to support it working.

 

[Silvio Sabo]

Ok, I think I could hear them once I raised the volume but then I had to adjust the volume of the other tones @generalfuzz made a really usefull tool there so I could do it. I listened to the tones matching frequency 14 200 hz for an hour. I had no change but then again I didn't expect any so quickly. I plan to try it for a while to see if it helps. Any help at all would be nice.

I did however feel like my tinnitus got a little agitated for a little while after listening to the tones.

I have another question though. Am I supposed to listen to the tones for at least an hour at a time? I So f.i. if I listened to it for an hour at one time during the day. Can I listen for another 10-20 min later in the day as long as I put in one session of consecutive 60 min that day?

 

[Steve]

Ok, I think I could hear them once I raised the volume but then I had to adjust the volume of the other tones @generalfuzz made a really usefull tool there so I could do it. I listened to the tones matching frequency 14 200 hz for an hour. I had no change but then again I didn't expect any so quickly. I plan to try it for a while to see if it helps. Any help at all would be nice.

I did however feel like my tinnitus got a little agitated for a little while after listening to the tones.

I have another question though. Am I supposed to listen to the tones for at least an hour at a time? I So f.i. if I listened to it for an hour at one time during the day. Can I listen for another 10-20 min later in the day as long as I put in one session of consecutive 60 min that day?

It is just my understanding of it, but you don't have to listen for a full hour, just "no more than an hour". Make it up with smaller sessions, which is maybe better. I found that listening for too long at a time leaves an audio artefact - meaning you can still hear the tones beeping after you stop (I had sessions of 3 hours and more sometimes).

Be careful about raising the volume too high. You don't want to overdo it and hurt your hearing. The tones need to be perceived as soft when you listen to them.

 

[Silvio Sabo]

It is just my understanding of it, but you don't have to listen for a full hour, just "no more than an hour". Make it up with smaller sessions, which is maybe better. I found that listening for too long at a time leaves an audio artefact - meaning you can still hear the tones beeping after you stop (I had sessions of 3 hours and more sometimes).

Be careful about raising the volume too high. You don't want to overdo it and hurt your hearing. The tones need to be perceived as soft when you listen to them.

Ok, I adjusted the volumes of the tones for each of them so that the ones of lower frequency have a lower volume than the high ones or else I don't hear them. Now I percieve all the tones as soft even though the volume of the tone at 19 800 hz is at a much higher setting.

 

[1MW]

All sound therapies have worse results than placebo.
Its all for the money. Are not real cures only worsening can do.
T is a sign of some problem. To cure T you must fix this problem.
Sounds can not repair damaged hearing only can do more damage.
Stay away you will get more damage.

 

[Steve]

All sound therapies have worse results than placebo.
Its all for the money. Are not real cures only worsening can do.
T is a sign of some problem. To cure T you must fix this problem.
Sounds can not repair damaged hearing only can do more damage.
Stay away you will get more damage.

This is an incredibly sweeping statement, where is the evidence to support it? The aim of sound therapy is not to restore hearing.

All audio therapy that you can currently buy (as far as I'm aware) has been shown to perform better than placebo, you can argue that the dice were loaded in a number of trials but you can't argue with the results.

The aim of sound therapy is to interrupt tinnitus in some way. Whether that is to try and make the brain ignore the tinnitus or an attempt to re-program neurons depends on the therapy.

I can agree that most sound therapies are not what they make themselves out to be but I personally think that this is down to a lack of understanding on the specific tinnitus causes and the way in which the individual responds to sound.

Each person is different so an understanding of this and a test before undertaking therapy is what I believe is needed. If we can say, for example, that a particular sound therapy works for 75% of people with TMJ as the root cause then we have a model to work with. The same model may say that it only works for 10% of people with acoustic trauma as the root cause.

There are no 100% treatments yet, possibly never will be due to the variety of causes. We need to work with what we have and play the numbers game. Acoustic Neuromodulation is a part of that and it seems to work for a number of people who have tried it. If we can gather more data then we just might be able to say exactly who it does help.