Had Treatment to Kill My Pulsatile Tinnitus Once and for All... And This Is the Result

[RicoS]

Today I had the second treatment to get rid of my pulsatile tinnitus. The first time it dropped for 50%-70% after this treatment it is almost gone. Well to be honest after the first treatment it was not even an issue anymore, but we did this one just to make sure my neck is NO problem for my tinnitus or pulsatile tinnitus anymore.

At the moment my normal tinnitus is also very low, but this comes back after a while, but the sound is less aggressive... or it is just softer... I don't know. All I know is that it bothers me way less.

This treatment is not common and it is being done in a private clinic in The Netherlands called "Pijnkliniek De Bilt" I was helped in intervertebral C4 and C5 and today on C8 only both times on the right side because I thought my pulsatile tinnitus was always more to the right.

I did not want to post before I knew it really helped and I must say for ME it does. People who know me know I have bad tinnitus but since the first time I got this treatment in September I have sometimes loud moments but now it is way less and my pulsatile tinnitus is virtually gone. Tinnitus I could live with more easy, but pulsatile tinnitus really killed me this summer and I was at the point of breaking, but then I found this treatment which nobody ever told me...not even here. So it was my last hope to get rid of my pulsatile tinnitus. And it worked.

Below a picture of what they did... You see the needle going in at the lower part of my neck on the left side (in the picture/right side for me of course).

The website is http://www.pijnkliniekdebilt.nl/aandoeningen/specialisatie-oorsuizen.html
It is not the holy grail for everybody, but if you have bad pulsatile tinnitus... You can give it a try. People in The Netherlands... your insurance covers it for 95%.

Hope this helps anybody and give some struggling people hope.

PS. They also try to target normal tinnitus... so it is not a pulsatile tinnitus treatment only, it is for tinnitus in general. So I got wins on both sides... pulsatile tinnitus as well as tinnitus.

Oh and btw this clinic's main focus is on chronic pain, but they find a correlation with tinnitus and chronic pain... just to add my 2 cents on the matter ;-)

 

[Scared111]

i can't read it. what exactly did they do?

 

[Tamara]

RicoS,
I would like to know what kind of treatment was done. What type of medication was used?
You added a Dutch link. If you gave this information in English it would help a larger number of people, since there are people from all over the world on TT. I would like you to do this favor.
Thank you for your attention,
Tamara

 

[RicoS]

Translation in English

2 / 3

• Home
• About us
• Diseases
• Contact

Pain does not have to!

Tinnitus

Pain Clinic De Bilt specializes in the treatment of tinnitus, the medical term for tinnitus. This occurs in about 30% of adults. Fortunately, it is often only mild. However, the major problem with tinnitus is the prognosis. Is it ever over?



Tinnitus or ringing in the ears is an experience where you hear sounds in the absence of ambient noise. It is therefore a sound sensation in the absence of an external sound source. In itself very strange: you hear something that is not there. The sound can be very variable, a combination of different sounds, or very changing during the day. The sound can be either high-pitched whistling or hissing, or a low-pitched hum.



Tinnitus has a clear influence on the quality of life and the psychological well-being. We see that the ringing in the ears can disturb the sleep and sleep. People lose control over themselves and that is difficult.



Given the poor prognosis and the impact this complaint can have on a person's life, it is so important to have effective treatments for this complaint.



The cause of ringing in the ears is a disturbed nerve-like conduction in the auditory center in the brain. The altered nerve information is transmitted to the cerebral cortex and perceived as sound. For the treatment of ringing in the ears, knowledge of the nervous system of hearing is important. The nervous system of hearing is very similar to the nervous system involved in pain.



We work together with colleague Frits Jan van Hemert, ENT doctor in the Bartok Clinic in Almere, not only for the care of patients but also to spread our scientific knowledge.



We now have two international publications on the treatment of ringing in the ears and tinnitus and many years of experience in the treatment of this condition. We can now make a much better estimate for the right treatments to reduce the noise of tinnitus or the effects of the tinnitus.



You can make an appointment with us for the diagnosis, explanation, and the treatment possibilities of tinnitus or tinnitus. You do need a referral letter for an appointment. The request is to take a recent hearing test. Based on your hearing test we can make a better estimate of the treatment methods.

 

[RicoS]

I do not use any medication regarding the treatment, I did not want to because otherwise I did not know if the treatment worked or not.
I am no doctor and do not want to be here to often anymore. Always the same stories and I have had T for more than 4 years now and I know the drill ....
Again this is not the holy grail for everybody, but if you do not try you will not know. My PT is 95% gone the whole day and when it comes back it is faint.
My normal T is still there but less aggressive and perhaps also softer. I do not want to stay focused on my T so I just wanted to add my 2 cents here and hopes it helps others.
You can call the clinic they understand English....well most of us in the Netherlands does so no worries about that.
Two people from my work are also going to try the treatment. If it hadn't benefit me I would not even post a thing, but it helped me a lot and I was really on a breaking point with my PT and this was the last thing to try. It was that or a gun ..... I would of course not do it but that is how depressed it got me.

Good luck everybody and again I am no doctor so call them and ask them.

 

[Kate]

I find this very interesting, thanks for posting, RicoS. I am in Canada so not easy to check it out from here. I have both PT and T, but it's the PT that drives me up a wall, almost every day for 7 years (I occasionally get hours or even a day where I don't pay as much attention) . I've had all the tests MRI/ MRV/ CA. etc. and nothing found, so I have wondered if the PT may be caused by nerve damage. If anyone checks this out, please post what you find out. I would go in a heartbeat if I thought it would get rid of the PT, the T I can live with.

 

[Codaz]

I do not use any medication regarding the treatment, I did not want to because otherwise I did not know if the treatment worked or not.
I am no doctor and do not want to be here to often anymore. Always the same stories and I have had T for more than 4 years now and I know the drill ....
Again this is not the holy grail for everybody, but if you do not try you will not know. My PT is 95% gone the whole day and when it comes back it is faint.
My normal T is still there but less aggressive and perhaps also softer. I do not want to stay focused on my T so I just wanted to add my 2 cents here and hopes it helps others.
You can call the clinic they understand English....well most of us in the Netherlands does so no worries about that.
Two people from my work are also going to try the treatment. If it hadn't benefit me I would not even post a thing, but it helped me a lot and I was really on a breaking point with my PT and this was the last thing to try. It was that or a gun ..... I would of course not do it but that is how depressed it got me.

Good luck everybody and again I am no doctor so call them and ask them.

How did you get the referral letter which is needed in the Netherlands?

 

[Kelvin]

So glad you have found something to help.
No idea from from the website what the treatment involves ?
Do you have to kiss a fish ?

 

[vermillion]

I am very happy to read this post. What even makes me even more happier is that @RicoS somehow gave me a bit of hope that it worth the try to keep searching treatments.

 

[Lost life]

what did they do to you? do you think there something similar in united states? maybe do-it-yourself thing? let us know. and what would it cost in dollers

 

[Reinier]

I will ask the clinic if they think it is worth me visiting them. (get diagnosed).
I have typical noise induced tinnitus.
It would surprise me. It will be the first treatment in the world that could do anything to alleviate tinnitus. (objectively)

 

[RicoS]

How did you get the referral letter which is needed in the Netherlands?

Got it from my GP without a problem. That want to have the result of a recent hearing test. So keep that in mind

 

[RicoS]

You don't have to kiss a fish hahaha I do not want to look selfish, but i cannot explain it perfectly what the treatment is. For ones in my life I did not check things to the bottom and became a specialist in it. This was for me my last thing to try and I was desperate ...and I was just searching for treatment for PT and for some reason I ended up there and it was 10 minutes drive from my home. I called and had an appointment the next week and the week after they did the treatment in my neck and a couple of weeks back the second treatment.
My PT is gone and my normal T is lower overall...like less aggressive. I can live with this how it is now. I complete silence it is still kind of loud but not unbearable like it was before. It does not overpowers everything anymore.

So again... it did not completely removed my T but it did for 95% my PT and my normal T is way lower, but I still have days when it is loud when I am stressed.

So did it help....yes...it did.... Does it help for everybody...I do not know....T is way to complex and with me it was also trial and error.... They need as much info about your T as possible so you need to be very clear to them.

Do not see it as the holy grail because it can also be that it does nothing for you because 1. They treat the wrong spot 2. It just does not benefit you... 3. I do not know I am now doctor.

Also I know you all mean well but please do not send me PM's how my T sounds and everything. I am not going to monitor it. Right now behind my computer I do not hear a thing... GREAT ...I know it is there but I do not hear so I am not going to focus on it. I want to spend no time on my T at all. The more I am busy with it the louder it gets anyway and I am already very OCD. So like i said call the clinic ask them want you want to know. They do not bite. It is a clinic where they treat chronic pain and T and science is getting more aware that the 2 are related and T can be some sort of chronic pain.

Got to go.....take care everybody.... T is not just a sound....it should not be there and like i said in other posts... I will never STOP trying to find a solution...and for me this treatment was a very good one.

 

[Alue]

I will ask the clinic if they think it is worth me visiting them. (get diagnosed).
I have typical noise induced tinnitus.
It would surprise me. It will be the first treatment in the world that could do anything to alleviate tinnitus. (objectively)

This is pulsatile T he is talking about. Not tonal T caused by nerve damage. Still a great find, but pulsatile T is more curable than T caused by noise induced sensorineural hearing loss.

 

[threefirefour]

This is pulsatile T he is talking about. Not tonal T caused by nerve damage. Still a great find, but pulsatile T is more curable than T caused by noise induced sensorineural hearing loss.

I have some pulsatile tinnitus thats modulated easily myself, so this is good to know. That being said some PT is neurological. Not all of it's easily curable.

 

[RicoS]

This is pulsatile T he is talking about. Not tonal T caused by nerve damage. Still a great find, but pulsatile T is more curable than T caused by noise induced sensorineural hearing loss.

For them it does not matter. T or PT... for me my PT is almost gone. T became less loud. They do not say they can fix T they say they can reduce it for some. My T came from anxiety or noise induced .... I do not know for sure what was the catalyst.
But if I did nothing because everybody said it will get less over time...I would still be stuck with monster T and PT.

The thing is we just do not know how to fix T so if this treatment helps a bit ...than thank God...or better thank the clinic that they expose them self to do something different based on their expertise.

If I read this post with my normal T and somebody say...."It is only for PT ...it is easier cured...." it takes away a bit what the clinic stands for. I know you mean well, but the clinic is to reduce T...not PT. I went there for PT because that bothered me the most. My normal T is more on the left side en my PT on the right so they focused on the right and even the left side became a bit less. But who knows if they treat the left side , my T will be even lesser than it is now.

From what I understand they do only one treatment in 2 months on you. There are people who did the treatment 3 times and still had no result others did it 4 times and after that it was on right spot. Some are happy with the first time...some will have no result what so ever. But the fact remains that it helped me ...and if you know me I would never ever post something here if it did not 100% did something positive....
I used the salustim for almost a year and my T became a bit less....or was it just habituation...I did not know so I stopped posting about it. I tried so many things, but this had a fast result which was clear in my face.

So again. They treat T...not just PT..... I went there for PT and he told me about reducing my normal T and bla bla bla but I was in such pain of my PT that I did not even listen....I just wanted help because I was on my end of suffering.
Everybody if you have questions just call them do not judge on only my post or the comments. Seek for yourself. That is what I also did. I will never give up find a cure...not even now....I can live with this T but I still have bad S-OCD and anxiety disorder and that has my focus now instead of PT and T joining in. I am doing better than before the treatment but I am not there yet. Over these 4 years my body got a hit with all the stress of T , S-OCD ..and other anxiety issues. It takes time to get over that....a lot of time.... so I give it time....
Everybody should decide for them self if they want to do this. I only can say...it helped me ...no tricks , no pills that I took. No hero story how strong I was to overcome my T...because I was not...I thought I was done this summer.... I did this treatment and it saved me from going nuts.

 

[Luman]

I am very happy that it works for you but I find it a bit hard to believe that a treatment for tinnitus such as this is not available in other places. Even if it worked on half the people with tinnitus, it would literally be a gold mine.

 

[Martin69]

I know Rico very well from this board and also we are in regular communication. He was suffering massively from PT, but also has T, severe OCD and anxiety (as he wrote here, too).

His PT could be influenced by trigger point massage and neck massage. For example he is using a product called "Thera Cane", which I also use for my neck issues (from sitting at the computer 9 hours every day for work). Trigger Point massage and using this Thera Cane killed his T for some hours or a day. But it always came back. This chronicle pain clinic seems having resolved a neck issue much better than the treatments before.

My T (which is multiple high-pitched sounds in the head; no PT) cannot be influenced by massage. At least not immediately. I have perhaps 30% 10/10 days and the rest is between 6/10 and 9/10. Seldom really mild days (maybe once in 3 weeks). Even after 4 years, I have no clue what influences it. It was not noise-induced or an issue with the neck (for example an accident), but purely powered on by anxiety. I had high anxiety in a certain moment and this switched on T. Never had any ear or T issues at all before.

Hence I don't know if this neck treatment will help me at all, in particular since I had an Atlas correction already made. But I know I have still many neck issues from work and from life in general.

The clinic is only 163 kilometers away, so I could be there very quickly. I will think about if I will make an appointment.

From Ricos translation, I found very promising:

"The cause of ringing in the ears is a disturbed nerve-like conduction in the auditory center in the brain. The altered nerve information is transmitted to the cerebral cortex and perceived as sound. For the treatment of ringing in the ears, knowledge of the nervous system of hearing is important. The nervous system of hearing is very similar to the nervous system involved in pain."

I still believe in this, that it is a nerve issue. I also think that Julian Cowan Hill is (at least partly) right that our nervous system is in red alert state. But I doubt it can be simply fixed with Cranio Sacral Therapy, massage, acupuncture, meditation, yoga, TRT, psychological blablabla etc. At least not for the worst cases. Maybe a switch was powered on which cannot be powered off again at all. No one knows.

Remember: T has hundreds of causes and also varieties. For some it helped to just drink a green smoothie, for others to fix a neck issue, for others I don't know. Millions have no success with anything. But I also never want to give up to look for PROMISING treatments - and not the scam many offer.

 

[Codaz]

Got it from my GP without a problem. That want to have the result of a recent hearing test. So keep that in mind

Where did you have pain? Or only PT? And what were the results of the hearing test?

 

[Reinier]

I received an answer from the clinic.
This treatment is putting in a "nerve signal blockage".
I am not a medical person, so this is all I know.
There is no guaranty it will work for everybody. Both ends of the scale. For some people it helps a lot, for some people it does not help much at all.
Also this treatment needs "maintenance". They need to repeat the treatment every two years.

Me personally, I think I will follow up on this and discuss it with my GP. If there is a possibility of permanent change (some sort of damage?), I am not interested.
The fact that they need to repeat it every two years tells me your body reverts to default again (-
I don't have to commit myself to anything. After talking to my GP or the clinic I can always decide not to go through with it.

 

[Lost life]

does any one know the cost?

 

[RicoS]

Where did you have pain? Or only PT? And what were the results of the hearing test?

I have no pain ...I never mentioned I had any.
I do not have hearling loss in the normal range I guess. This was my first testresult the second one was even better than this on.
If this treatment has to be repeated every 2 years....fine ...it only takes 15 minutes and the people are very nice. If it stays away also fine. I am just glad it worked on me for my PT and partly my normal T. Before T I had no neck issues no PT no nothing when T came...it went from bad to worse to very good for a period to extremely bad with PT and this saved me.... that is all I can tell. And no I had no neckpain also.... I just kept trying to locate it what a trigger might be and I even thought it came from my shoulder, but this treatment just hit the right spot to calm my auditory center a bit. My left ear has the worst T btw but my hearing in this ear is also the best. So it must be a brain / nerve thing

@Martin69 thanks for you post my friend.... You one of a kind ... and I am glad to call you my friend!

 

[Codaz]

I have no pain ...I never mentioned I had any.
I do not have hearling loss in the normal range I guess. This was my first testresult the second one was even better than this on.
If this treatment has to be repeated every 2 years....fine ...it only takes 15 minutes and the people are very nice. If it stays away also fine. I am just glad it worked on me for my PT and partly my normal T. Before T I had no neck issues no PT no nothing when T came...it went from bad to worse to very good for a period to extremely bad with PT and this saved me.... that is all I can tell. And no I had no neckpain also.... I just kept trying to locate it what a trigger might be and I even thought it came from my shoulder, but this treatment just hit the right spot to calm my auditory center a bit. My left ear has the worst T btw but my hearing in this ear is also the best. So it must be a brain / nerve thing

@Martin69 thanks for you post my friend.... You one of a kind ... and I am glad to call you my friend!
View attachment 13922

That is a very good audiogram indeed.

 

[Cor]

I had this treatment as well several years ago, here's my post:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/nerve-block-for-tinnitus-relief.6226/

 

[Codaz]

@Cor I wonder why they cannot put some kind of small electrical current on the nerves to see which one makes the T much worse. Maybe it's a way too simple thought of me but one of them is treated with the needle.

It's not like we are dealing with micro organisms. These nerves are seen on scans.

 

[Cor]

Im not sure the OP had the exact same procedure I had, but it does look like it.

They know exactly what nerve they need, it's the ganglion cervicale superius. The needle heats up which causes the outer layer to burn off. This has the effect of the nerve becoming incapable of passing signals (so the opposite of trying to induce signals) which causes blood flow to the ear area to be unrestricted. At least, that's what I understood when I had this procedure. After about 2 years the body heals and signals can pass again.

 

[Codaz]

Im not sure the OP had the exact same procedure I had, but it does look like it.

They know exactly what nerve they need, it's the ganglion cervicale superius. The needle heats up which causes the outer layer to burn off. This has the effect of the nerve becoming incapable of passing signals (so the opposite of trying to induce signals) which causes blood flow to the ear area to be unrestricted. At least, that's what I understood when I had this procedure. After about 2 years the body heals and signals can pass again.

Did you have a difference in audiogram before and after the procedure, or after a while?

 

[Cor]

No, and I highly doubt it would change anything in an audiogram. They dont claim to fix hearing problems afaik.

 

[Codaz]

No, and I highly doubt it would change anything in an audiogram. They dont claim to fix hearing problems afaik.

I was just speculating because you said increase blood flow. So I thought maybe because the blood flow is unrestricted some hearing comes back or is less problematic. Don't know.

 

[Cor]

No, hearing has nothing to do with blood flow. But it apparently does influence tinnitus in some people. That's why often betahistine is used with tinnitus patients. I would say this procedure is like betahistine on steroids.