Amazon Echo "Alexa" and Sounds to Help with Sleep and Tinnitus

[erik]

I have had the Amazon Echo "Alexa" since it came out. I really do think it is a great device in it's infancy with much potential still to be realized. Right now, I use it for all kinds of things such as controlling lights, timer, alarm clocks, weather, dumb jokes, music, etc. To get the most out of your Echo, you need to have Amazon Prime (or have a family member that has it).

One benefit I recently discovered....white noise and other sounds. I always had the Echo in my living room and recently bought a Echo "dot" which is the smaller version of the echo (and only $49) to put on my nightstand mainly intended as only an alarm clock.

I later found out that you can ask it to play white noise, thunderstorms, nature sounds, relaxing sounds etc and it works great. I still need to do some more testing to see what the limitations are but so far it is a good start.

Now, I can go to bed and say "Alexa set alarm for 6:15am" and then follow that by "Alexa, play white noise". If I need to increase or decrease volume, I can just say, "Alexa, volume up" (or volume down).

 

[Ed209]

I've also got the echo @erik, and I immediately noticed the thunder and rain sound apps. On the US version there seems to be a lot of mindfulness apps as well. Unfortunately a lot of the US apps are not available in the UK, but there's still a lot of good stuff on there. It has made me laugh quite a few times with some of the things it has come out with. Another cool feature is that I can verbally tell it to turn my heating up or down.

 

[DenisFerns]

@erik I was hoping to reach you - I hit upon your posts and have been following them closely
It appears that the 2 of us are pretty close in the T we have (including unknown cause, the reactivity and initial progress)
In one of your posts you mentioned your T (after 6 months ) was 3- 4 quiet days and around 3 days 4- 5 (which is exactly where I am now at after 6 months)
I was wondering if you had tried acupuncture , etc and if you were still looking to find out the cause (now that 5 years have passed). Also I was wondering if your T ever got worse (as far as sound level goes). Very few of us have T without known trauma and would like to hear from you - I'm hoping to follow your footsteps in habituation while not taking my eyes off trying to find the root cause so knowing how your T volume has stayed over the last 5 years will be very useful. I've discovered after mining the web that no 2 T's are exactly alike (like finger prints) but don't believe that we who have normal hearing can blame hearing loss.
I've challenged a few ENTs on this - who keep stating that T is 'associated with hearing loss' though not caused by i: one of who actually came pretty close to accepting my argument when he stated that at 5 years (only) our hearing is perfect - Go figure!
I would also like to thank you for your very supporting and informative posts. Unfortunately the search engine directed me to a post by another user whose posts scared me off this board for weeks

 

[erik]

@erik I was hoping to reach you - I hit upon your posts and have been following them closely
It appears that the 2 of us are pretty close in the T we have (including unknown cause, the reactivity and initial progress)
In one of your posts you mentioned your T (after 6 months ) was 3- 4 quiet days and around 3 days 4- 5 (which is exactly where I am now at after 6 months)
I was wondering if you had tried acupuncture , etc and if you were still looking to find out the cause (now that 5 years have passed). Also I was wondering if your T ever got worse (as far as sound level goes). Very few of us have T without known trauma and would like to hear from you - I'm hoping to follow your footsteps in habituation while not taking my eyes off trying to find the root cause so knowing how your T volume has stayed over the last 5 years will be very useful. I've discovered after mining the web that no 2 T's are exactly alike (like finger prints) but don't believe that we who have normal hearing can blame hearing loss.
I've challenged a few ENTs on this - who keep stating that T is 'associated with hearing loss' though not caused by i: one of who actually came pretty close to accepting my argument when he stated that at 5 years (only) our hearing is perfect - Go figure!
I would also like to thank you for your very supporting and informative posts. Unfortunately the search engine directed me to a post by another user whose posts scared me off this board for weeks

Yes I did try acupuncture for about 4-6 months and though it really did relax me, it didn't do much for my T. Being that you have only had it since Dec 16, I think you are actually doing great progress even though it doesn't seem like it. Progress with T is slow and steady and you will have set back now and then but even that gets easier with time. I really do believe overcoming your tinnitus fears, doing whatever you can to live as stress free as possible (I know you cannot be 100% stress free but do what you can to relieve the stress you CAN control) and time which you hear repeated over and over in this forum. It is true, Time helps immensely. Thanks for your kind words!

 

[DenisFerns]

Thanks Erik : Could you tell me if your T ever went back to the early days in loudness? Since our cause of T and the early months behavior are so alike - it would help to know. I even read your survey and it matched mine exactly (except mine reacts to some white noises too besides loud sounds). In fact after reading your post how T reacts to several foods due to the limbic activity in early days - I went back to gradually starting on beer and European Candy (which I had feared for 4 months before I read your post) and though I'm a social drinker only your post gave me the courage to try them (and they had no reaction to my T') and thanks for that. Also thanks for letting me know about Acupunture - I'll be trying that later after my chiropractor gives his two cents . I'm still gearing towards some damage to the OHC in the ear and am trying to nail the cause by going through all the causes and matching my symptoms, As you know he ENT monkeys don't help so we're pretty much on our own -despite the huge costs of med insurance
BTW - did you ever try Tebonin and Niacin? for some reason they brought down my volume of T very quickly I like the 'mental alertness' side effect of Tebonin so I still take it daily

 

[DanielMac]

Hey @erik I am looking in getting into an echo myself-

Have you continued to use the echo dot for this? Are there more improvements or options in the 10ish months since you've shared this? I was looking into getting a sound generator but if an echo (dot) can do essentially the same for the same price I think it is a no brainer to go with the echo.

 

[glynis]

I find my Alexa really good for playing what ever you want to listen to at a sound level for your requirements.
My phone also can work as Alexa also.
The white noise and other sounds have great fine tuning just as good as my White noise generators and Dual Purpose hearing aids with masker setting.
I have some bluetooth earbuds coming to play music through them on a low setting like my white noise generators and hearing aids so will let you know how I get on with them playing music softly .

love glynis