Investigating Physical Links to Tinnitus

[Tinnitus Talk]

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How much do you know about the way your tinnitus is linked to physical responses? Maybe it's the jaw, the neck, exercise or stress?

If you asked us, we would say that we know a bit and have a few things we suspect have a link, but we don't know of anything absolutely certain.

There is not enough information available on physical links so we want to learn more and contribute something to research.

We have spoken with several tinnitus researchers at various conferences about the extent to which physical links may contribute to one's experiencing tinnitus. Supported by a researcher partner, we're planning to analyze and publish the results.

Don't think that you have anything physical linked to your tinnitus?
Your information is regardless really important.

Please complete the survey!

 

[glynis]

Done!

 

[Kelvin]

Done.

...an interesting question in there that made me think!

Question was does your tinnitus get louder when you do various jaw movements etc, and one answer was when you tilt your head back!

Mine screams loud when I do that... anyone else get this?

I haven't seen this discussed before although I have seen lots about jaw movements etc.

Just wondering...

 

[OnceUponaTime]

Done.

 

[Luman]

Did it.

 

[TheDanishGirl]

Done.

Looking forward to seeing the results.

 

[Bobbie7]

I completed the survey.

 

[JohnnyMx]

Done.

 

[Santiago Biagi]

Completed.

 

[Philippe79]

Completed!

 

[Bill Bauer]

Done.

 

[Jomo]

Done... I put my email in for the results but did not receive it. Are we waiting for a total group response or our own individual and group?

 

[raybaudi]

Done. Mine gets worse when I tilt my head backwards too.

 

[Pavlos]

Done! Very curious to know the outcome.

 

[vermillion]

Done.

 

[Christophe_85]

Done!

 

[JimChicago]

Done.

It is a well written survey with questions to calibrate off one another.

Would like to see something similar related to:
1) different food/beverage impact on tinnitus vis-a-via type of tinnitus.
2) fasting (and different intervals of fasting) impact on tinnitus.

A day without eating always reduces tinnitus from 8 down to a 1 for me.

 

[Dmitriy]

Done. Who is conducting the survey? Are the results shared with any research group?

 

[MarkPoe]

Kelvin, my tinnitus gets worse when I tilt my head backwards also.

 

[MarkPoe]

Completed.

 

[MBH]

Done.

 

[Markku]

Awesome response - thanks everyone!

We passed 5,000 completed responses only 7 days after the launch of the survey, which is extraordinary considering that the survey we did last year received 5,017 responses within around 4 weeks.

We are now at 5,400 responses and the survey will remain open for a short while still.

If for any reason someone has waited this long, please go complete it. The average completion time is 8 minutes.

Done... I put my email in for the results but did not receive it. Are we waiting for a total group response or our own individual and group?

The results are sent when the analysis has been completed, not at the time of submitting the survey.

Thanks for completing it!

Done. Who is conducting the survey? Are the results shared with any research group?

We are conducting it. We also formed the questions but had some feedback from a tinnitus researcher. The eventual analysis is done by a researcher as well (rather not name who yet, because the person may change depending on the schedule). Definitely will be shared with other researchers.

It is a well written survey with questions to calibrate off one another.

Would like to see something similar related to:
1) different food/beverage impact on tinnitus vis-a-via type of tinnitus.
2) fasting (and different intervals of fasting) impact on tinnitus.

Thanks, we have actually got three other surveys already lined up. We are looking forward to carrying out more surveys.

 

[Greg Sacramento]

The survey results including that on physical links (primary causes) that includes rate of loudness will be of interest to me.

Many of us never realized the neck jaw connection to tinnitus before receiving tinnitus.

I wish not to think about habituation with having severe tinnitus, but to consider myself in survival mode. It's a play on words, but being in survival mode isn't accepting severe tinnitus for what it is. It's trying to find ways to lessen the ringing.

The surveys may provide more awareness to flow charting of conditions to treatments.

Thanks

 

[linearb]

Worsening based on muscle movements should not surprise anyone; this is well documented in 80% of cases going back to Dr. Salvi's work at the University of Buffalo in the 90s, and more recent research from Dr. Shore's team in Michigan indicates that what happens is following loss of audio input from the auditory nerve, the dorsal cochlear nucleus miswires sensory feeds into audio to make up for the input loss. They have directly observed this on the cellular level in animal models, and their whole experimental approach to treating tinnitus is predicated on this idea.

So, while it may be that neuromuscular problems can actually create tinnitus in some cases, it seems like garden-variety hearing-loss related tinnitus is basically a result of starting to "hear" the nerves that connect to muscles.

 

[Greg Sacramento]

@linearb I have some hearing loss along with other cervical problems that I have mentioned, so I'm just looking for some little possible relief, even on a temporary basis. What we talked about in another thread today about somatic treatment success in overall deduction has a lot to do with amount of hearing loss.

 

[Greg Sacramento]

I just posting this link in reference to correct posture and dental care - Both posture including the neck and TMD are mentioned in the top 5 on many treatment lists. Just basic statements where we have gone into much more detail many times before.

https://www.prevention.com/health/health-concerns/best-treatments-for-tinnitus

 

[Greg Sacramento]

I have a straighten neck. My neck could had been straightening for years due to having one leg shorter than the other causing skeleton imbalance, bad posture or from lots of daily forward head bending. My neck did straighten more immediately from whiplash due to muscle spasms and that also caused my TMJ.

I have some hearing loss, but I doubt that is why I have high pitch ringing that will move from one ear to the other, becomes head centralized and decrease or increase whenever. It's my neck spine placing pressure on my brain stem causing less oxygen and blood to the brain which also causes headaches. This is in combination to a straighten spine placing pressure on muscles causing imbalance and nerve pressure. This also causes soreness in shoulders, arms, hips, lower back and legs. From having lack of oxygen and blood to the brain, my heart is becoming enlarged. My straighten spine is also starting to cause disc problems mostly in the C1 and C2 with increased arthrosis from that.

A normal curve in the neck may be a must for those with neck T. To place my curve back into my straighten neck spine, I'm using a folded towel to place a little pressure against resistance to the back of the neck. There's videos for this. After using the towel method, I have light touch therapy on all large muscles in neck and I have the shoulders and lower back lightly massaged. With my age, heart condition, and diseased neck conditions, other neck adjustment treatment would be dangerous as well as over stretching techniques.

I use a small soft pillow folded under neck for sleeping. I been doing this stuff and it's helping to bring my severe T down a little, but the pitch is still sharp.

I may post again saying this isn't the solution, but I'm trying. I think if I can get my dental situation straightened out, maybe not so much just my entire TMJ problem and get my T lowered to a 7, then I should be able to habituate. I habituated almost completely the first time from T when it finally dropped to a 6-6.5 level to about the volume of a microwave oven.

Bless all.