The whole of my head was completely numb for around 8 months. Everything that I heard, sounded like I was listening under whater. I had fullness in both ears and acute pain. When people spoke to me I had to ask them to lower their voice as my ears hurt so much.
@Michael Leigh
Thanks for the reply.
That is awful, you were very brave.
The "under water" hearing was probably because the Eustachian Tubes function was affected somehow, but I am not sure about this.
The rest is classic TTTS, as far as I can see.
I think that the treatment you followed could have helped you in some way, but it didn't work in the way you think it did. Well, I don't know what you think, I just tell you my impression.
The treatment acted principally as an emotional container. You believed in it and you found in the sound therapist someone to talk with, and you focused on recovery. So the perception of tinnitus gradually diminished and you gradually relax the tensor tympani mechanism which was affected. The in-ear broadband noise acted as a tinnitus masker and a TT relaxer, reducing the contrast of other sounds, and so helping you in your gradual recovery.
I don't know if you had setbacks because it wasn't mentioned in the narrative that I read. If you didn't have them, you were very lucky, considering the terrible counseling of the TRT staff. Or you were smart enough to understand the problem by yourself.
So, could the treatment be consider a "placebo"? Maybe the answer could be found when we compare to other cases.
(I will talk principally about hyperacusis, but the same goes for tinnitus, to which people habituate with or without TRT, sooner or later, and sometimes it disappears completely.)
Some people with less intense symptoms than you followed the same treatment for the same amount of time, and they didn't recover, or they got worse. Or they only got better partially, and these cases are considered as successful in the efficacy studies, even if the little recovery was only natural and followed the logic of TTTS.
Or some people when they go to a TRT clinic have an increased loudness perception or distorted hearing as a consequence of fear and using earplugs or earmuffs too much, a distortion which is naturally eliminated when they loose the fear and get accustomed again to everyday sounds. But TRT promoters would say it was the white noise itself which "reprogrammed" the brain and stretch its plasticity, something which is wrong, especially when they themselves consider that gain perception is very plastic and only natural and not pathological.
It is clear that the in-ear white noise doesn't work by itself. And the counseling, as it is founded mainly on wrong ideas, it could only confuse and also make the situation worse, unless, by chance, it acts as an emotional container and the patient has a sufficient amount of luck (or a wisdom or intuition which compensate for the counselor mistakes).
And in the case we consider the white noise (and the counseling) entirely a "placebo", as some people do, I can think of two possibilities of the real reasons of getting better: the passing of time and psychology (mainly quitting the attention and energy from the tinnitus and the TTTS and understanding how to relax the zone). But some people with exactly the same symptoms as you, could recover in one or two weeks or months, without following any treatment. So the only thing that remains is psychology, which is the only thing that could tense and relax the affected mechanism. The only thing that makes the difference.
Another thing to note is that Jastreboff, and probably also your audiologist, tells patients not to focus the attention on the problem or not to visit Internet forums, for the same reason. And I agree on this, because this is precisely the main cause of the problem. But you don't have to charge a fortune and be disguised as a sophisticated expert to give such advice.
I think a continuous sound (white noise, water running or whatever) is a good tinnitus masker or a good sound contrast reducer, which is useful when you are affected by tinnitus or TTTS. But, again, you don't have to pay a fortune or to hire a "sophisticated" doctor to have the opportunity to playback such a sound, as a temporal tool.
I think you have to consider that most people who follow TRT don't recover in the way you did (you know that, because you are a frequent user of the forum). And most of them have several setbacks, or some develop "tinnitus after hyperacusis", because the TRT staff doesn't understand the etiology of this "hyperacusis", or diagnoses "misophonia" without any reason to do so.
The fact that TRT is more or less mainstream in the field, talks more about how marketing and post-truths work, especially when people are vulnerable and desperate, than it talks about any kind of medical truth and efficacy of the treatment.
Anyway, I am glad that you recovered. And luckily your TRT was for free, I mean you didn't pay.
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