Do it yourself tinnitus treatment

[Neenie]

Hi all.
I apologise for the multiple posts - I'm just trying to find a solution that produces long term benefits. I seem to spend my entire day reading about tinnitus, trying to understand journal articles that are far to specific, researching possible cures (yes, I know, they don't exist).
I've read a few posts by you all and I'm more confused now than I was before I started. I'm not particularly smart, damn!
(1) Is there a treatment you can do on your own? My partner has made movies so he knows about mixing sounds and stuff like that which I do not understand either.
(2) I've heard you can get hearing aids which act as/are maskers. What are the most popular (and effective) ones, and what do they look like. I do have a very slight hearing loss from 8-10kHz
(3) I'm starting Neuromonics in the new years (ive been waiting for months. stupid Australia is so far away). I was pretty much just told that it's going to work, but since very few of you actually post about the successes of Neuromonics my hopes are shattered before I've even started
(4) What exactly IS Neuromonics? How does it work? I can't find anything that actually tells me how it is effective

This is what I think: Tinnitus can occur when you have slight hearing loss because your neurons have no input at that frequency so they overcompensate my misfiring. Correct or incorrect? Treatment for tinnitus is to play relaxing music to calm your limbic system and ANS, along with playing the frequencies of your tinnitus, to stop your neurons misfiring. Correct or incorrect

Thanks
Nina
PS: Also, I have a copy of my hearing test and it says "tinnitus frequency" 9KHz, but when I listen to You Tube sounds at 9kHz it does not match. In fact there is no frequency that matches. It's like an old style telephone ringing, not one particular frequency
PPS: Does habituating mean you dont care about the sound anymore or does it mean you cant hear the sound anymore?

 

[Liesel]

Hey Neenie, I can't answer all your questions since my T isn't hearing-loss related, but I want to weigh in on the habituation part since I know you're having a particularly hard time of it.

For me, habituation means I don't hear the sound any more. UNLESS I look for it. Then I can hear it again. But it always fades into the background again as soon as I take my mind off of it. Think of it this way. Do you know what your own nose smells like? No. Your nose filters out that smell because it's always there. It learns to ignore it. Similarly many people don't know what they or their own house smells like. I've had an aquarium since I was a kid, and I don't even notice the noise it makes, but it bothers my boyfriend when he stays over since he's not used to it. The body learns to ignore repeated stimuli, unless they evoke a pain/negative response. So in a way, the first part applies too. I only habituated once I stopped caring about the noise. Then I stopped actively hearing it.

I'm curious to learn more about the science behind these noise treatments as well. My ENT claims they work for people, no matter the cause of their tinnitus. Do all causes of tinnitus result in the misfiring neurons then? Curious curious. My understanding of the treatment is the same as yours.

 

[Neenie]

Hi, thanks for the reply. It's true. Every house has a certain smell that if you live there, you can't smell. I understand that you said it got better when you stopped caring about it. But how did you do that? I desperately want to not care about it, but I do. The noise is there all day so I'm hearing it all day and I don't know how to not care about it. I worry so much about everything and I worry also that because I worry I will not habituate. I've seen psychologists, psychiatrists, councellors, done CBT courses, tried yoga, and meditation. Nothing worked. I'm stuck inside my own brain with these really intrusive thoughts and no matter how much I tell myself the good things, I just dont believe them. You say you dont notice it when your mind is off tinnitus. Mine is always on tinnitus but I don't know how to turn it off other than activities where I avoid tinnitus, like going to the mall, and I don't think that you can habituate to a sound you cant hear, so instead I sit at home listening to it (i know im not meant to) in a hope that I can somehow trick my way into not hearing it, or train myself not to hear it. I dunno.

 

[Liesel]

First step was stopping the obsessive reading. I know most of us go through an intense phase of research. Once I realized that me reading more was not going to lead to a solution, just more questions, I stopped. I keep myself away from that section of the forums as well.

Second step was not looking for it. I used to check and listen to the noise all day, hoping for some sign that it might lessen due to certain activities. I was wasting so much time and mental effort on something that did nothing to help me.

Third step was removing the negative reaction. I was sick and tired of the tinnitus controlling my life, so I took a kind of zen approach. If I heard it, I told myself "It's just a noise. It cannot harm me." and similar statements.

I'm still not perfectly habituated. I still have my bad days. Which is why I'm still here.

I'm a bit shocked that you've tried all those things but you've only had tinnitus for a few months. You seem to be in a whirlwind. Most of these therapies TAKE. TIME. It sounds like you've bounced around so fast that nothing has been able to take hold yet. My therapist said that so many patients expect to see improvement after their first or second session even, and that's never true. It's a process, and it often takes many sessions just to get to know you well enough to understand how they can help. It's a process, not a snap solution.