Icing My Ear Seems to Reduce Spikes

[jamino]

Hi all, just an observation which may be useful to some of you (my theory is that this may not help so much with noise-induced tinnitus, but may be worth a try anyway):

When I have a spike in tinnitus, if I hold an ice pack / bag of frozen peas against my ear for as little as 5 minutes, it reduces the spike by at least 50%, maybe as much as as 80%.

I try to get the ice pack positioned on my middle ear area for 3 or 4 mins, and then just directly over my ear for about the same. I notice the volume fades down quite subtly over the time I'm holding the ice there, but it definitely does go down, and after 5 minutes is quite a bit lower.

I'm hypothesisising that this may be due to slightly reducing the pressure put upon the eardrum by possible trapped fluid - either by making it colder (which could reduce the size/volume of fluid slightly), or by creating a low/high pressure variance which forces some of the fluid to drain from the Eustachian tube. Maybe there are some science-minded people here who could explain what is going on a bit better. If indeed they find it works.

Anyway, it definitely works for me. Would be interested to know if it helps any of you.

 

[Contrast]

tinnitus is in the brain not the ear.

if it works keep doing it, i oddly enough don't get spikes much anymore and have no idea why this is helping you.

 

[jamino]

At least in some cases the root cause is in ongoing issues in the ear or surrounding tissues - particularly in somatic/ETD/TMJ/inflammation etc-related cases. Like mine - hence the reason the ice makes a difference I'd assume.

Noise-induced T may be solely in the brain because it generates the signal whilst it looks for missing audio information from damaged ears / hearing loss. That is not the case with all forms of tinnitus. Mine is not noise-induced and I have no hearing loss.

 

[Contrast]

At least in some cases the root cause is in ongoing issues in the ear or surrounding tissues - particularly in somatic/ETD/TMJ/inflammation etc-related cases. Like mine - hence the reason the ice makes a difference I'd assume.

Noise-induced T may be solely in the brain because it generates the signal whilst it looks for missing audio information from damaged ears / hearing loss. That is not the case with all forms of tinnitus. Mine is not noise-induced and I have no hearing loss.

Research suggest anything that deprives the audiotory nerve or certain audiotory brain functions of input ranging from ear wax, middle ear damage or sensori-neural hearing loss, even hearing loss from brain damage can cause tinnitus. Higher brain functions have a way of compensating for hearing loss similar to phantom limb pain.

What caused your tinnitus? unless you had an extensive audiogram which tested atleast up to 16,000hz and frequency discrimination in background noise you can't say you don't have hearing loss for certain. Most audiograms only test up to 8000hz and are only centric to the human voice range.

Maybe you have TMD, mild head trauma in the past or spine issues maybe something else entirely.

 

[jamino]

I see what you mean - what I'm suggesting is that inflammation affecting the auditory nerve or cochlea or surrounding tissues will naturally be processed differently by the brain, yet in theory the problem ought to be managed by reducing the inflammation at source. It's probably different when it comes to actual damaged inner-ear hair fibres that won't respond in the same way. In the latter case it would seem that retraining the brain would be the closest at-source therapy you could employ (in the absence of regrowing the hair fibres)

 

[Alan Laguna]

I am hypothesizing (as a non-scientist, but Tinnitus sufferer) that the cold from the ice is stimulating the vagus nerve, which has been suggested may improve neuroplasticity. There are many current studies involving VNS (vagus nerve stimulation) matching with the frequency of the Tinnitus to re-train the brain to ignore the phantom sounds of T.

It has also been suggested that cold showers, gargling, yoga, deep breathing exercises, aerobics, soft music, laughter, singing and an overall happy positive outlook favorably stimulates the vagus nerve, which can help with managing Tinnitus. I have tried these methods along with Melatonin in the past, which significantly helped me. But unfortunately, I am dealing with reactivation of the Tinnitus from noise recently — so it's anybody's guess what's going to help now. I will talk to the doctor about applying ice packs at the ears near the vagus nerve to see if there is a scientific justification. Certainly worth finding out!