Poll: How Did You Notice/Discover That You Can Influence Your Tinnitus Somatically?

[Tinniger]

Publications say: 60-80% of all tinnitus sufferers are able to modulate the intensity of their complaints by "somatic influence".

By shifting the jaw sideways, clenching the teeth together, pressing trigger points on the head, etc. etc.

How was it with you?

 

[Kriszti]

I read about it here, so tried it. My tinnitus only increases if I tilt my head firmly to the right side and forwards.

I can't modulate it with clenching my jaws even though I have an overbite and sometimes my jaws feel funny. My neck has been cracking for years. I try to do some exercise lightly everyday for my neck, doesn't seem to help. Once I accidentally cracked my neck really badly, but it gave me approx. half an hour of total silence.

I will have a rtg and a doppler for my neck next week. Don't expect anything at this point tbh.

 

[Mister Muso]

Yawning turns on some of my sounds.
Deep breathing turns them off.

Both discovered by chance experimentation. This happens to be the main thing stopping me getting back to sleep when I wake early.

 

[GoatSheep]

Read about it here.

 

[brokensoul]

I also read about it on Tinnitus Talk.

I can clearly modulate my loudest sound (high pitch eee) by moving my jaw forward and clenching. The sound becomes more intense/louder. I wish it would do the reverse, but no of course not. It's tinnitus.

Yay, I can influence my loudest sound and make it even louder.

If I plug my ears or put my head against my pillow and clench/bite, then I get an additional sound on top of the three I already have.

I hate tinnitus.

Clearly putting tension on some muscle exacerbates tinnitus (temporarily) for some people. This is well known and documented. A majority can do this I believe.

More importantly though, can any conclusion be drawn from having a somatic component to your tinnitus? I do not have TMJ or any jaw issue. I do not have a somatic induced tinnitus, yet I can influence it with a jaw movement.

Is it because it excites the neurons in the DCN even more, because the jaw nerves are so close to it? Not sure what exactly happens physiologically.

What interests me the most is, could this mean that your tinnitus sound is coming from your cochlea? If your tinnitus would be generated in your brain without cochlear damage, how could you possibly influence it by moving your jaw?

 

[AliasM]

Whole right side of my brain is loud pulsatile static. The tinnitus increases in volume when I chew, yawn, dry my face with a towel, turn my head to the left (10/10) and less so (8/10) when I turn it to the right, and when I walk. It is very intrusive and loud. I am unable to perform any manoeuvres to make the tinnitus quieter.

It started about 8 weeks into my tinnitus. Soft at first but now really full on.

 

[Joe Cuber]

I first noticed my tinnitus was somatic early on by chance. When I would chew hard things, it would increase the volume and pitch, and one time I contorted my neck out of curiosity (searching for a possible cause actually) and found that that would also change the volume and pitch. I thought I had struck upon the root cause and was elated. It was only a couple of weeks after that when I learned about the notion of somatic tinnitus. Then I went on a bit of a goose chase, thinking a chiropractor could cure me.