Study: 81% of Test Subjects Benefit from New Long-Term Tinnitus Suppression Hearing Aid

[Karl]

Interesting discussion. I've had some sort of flu for the past 3 days, and I'm way too focused on my tinnitus. I think that a person needs to be healthy to deal with tinnitus, otherwise the negative ideas take over.

Louise: I wasn't aware that you have hearing aids. I would like to get them, too, because of this study. Now I'm confused if they aren't giving you relief. Carlover appears to be having success with hearing aids.

Jazz: I wanted to get Dichonics so bad, last October I actually went ot Amarillo, Texas, and met Dr. Leslie Dalton who invented Dichonics. I used his Dichonics system for 1 hour each day, for 3 days. He says that another business organization is planning to sell and distribute Dichonics via the Internet. I have been unsuccessful contacting these people, whoever they are.

I wore the Dichonics headphones an hour, then took them off and my tinnitus was suppressed for about 5 minutes. The duration of suppression lengthens with daily use. One woman using Dichonics is getting up to 13 hours of suppression, so she can sleep.

Dr. Dalton has tinnitus, and he accidentally made this discovery. He doesn't call this "a cure", but something that will make habituation easier.

Hearing aids may be the best approach if this study is true.

 

[Louise]

Interesting discussion. I've had some sort of flu for the past 3 days, and I'm way too focused on my tinnitus. I think that a person needs to be healthy to deal with tinnitus, otherwise the negative ideas take over.

Louise: I wasn't aware that you have hearing aids. I would like to get them, too, because of this study. Now I'm confused if they aren't giving you relief. Carlover appears to be having success with hearing aids.

Jazz: I wanted to get Dichonics so bad, last October I actually went ot Amarillo, Texas, and met Dr. Leslie Dalton who invented Dichonics. I used his Dichonics system for 1 hour each day, for 3 days. He says that another business organization is planning to sell and distribute Dichonics via the Internet. I have been unsuccessful contacting these people, whoever they are.

I wore the Dichonics headphones an hour, then took them off and my tinnitus was suppressed for about 5 minutes. The duration of suppression lengthens with daily use. One woman using Dichonics is getting up to 13 hours of suppression, so she can sleep.

Dr. Dalton has tinnitus, and he accidentally made this discovery. He doesn't call this "a cure", but something that will make habituation easier.

Hearing aids may be the best approach if this study is true.

Hi Karl, You're right about needing to be healthy to deal with T. I'm on the third night of no sleep because of mine and feel pretty bad. Cant think straight, and the noise......

Yes, I got aids 2 months ago and didnt have the immediate effect on the T which some people do get. These are the things I know about aids for T:
1. For some people they reduce the noise as soon as they are put on, (whether you have to be listening to sound or not for this effect I do not know (Carlover would know as he does get this effect from them), I have been told that if they do not have this effect then a person probably has hearing loss above 8khz. Hearing tests only test up to 8khz.
2. Even if they dont reduce the T noise they are still providing sound to the brain at frequencies which have been lost and so this does two things; a. Stops the ears straining to hear b. Could result in the tonotopic remapping of neurons which have moved away from the frequencies that were lost.

Hearing aids have long been known as a strategy for dealing with T, its not new. David Baguely advocates them as do many Hearing Therapists. Now this LOFT thing, I dont think this is new technology either as my free NHS aids have a function which sounds like this. They have a function to slide sound down in frequency from a frequency where you have loss to a frequency where you dont have loss so that you can hear the sound. For example I have loss at 6khz, a sound comes in at 6khz and the aids slide it down to say 5.5khz where I dont have a loss. If you do that though you are still not giving the brain the sound its lost (so point 2b would not apply). Maybe the LOFT function is different to this as it mentions an octave. Maybe my aids are sliding the sound down an octave, I dont know.

Its a shame about Dichonics, again it's all about money. I think the ATA chose Soundcure and put all their money there, none left for Dichonics.

 

[Louise]

Something I forgot to say Karl, over here we can pay for aids from private audiologists and can be given a 6 week trial period on them where we can get a refund if not happy. Maybe that's the case in the US? I dont think you'll know if they will help you unless you try them. Apparently Starkey have brought out (or are about to) an aid which is good for T as it has an extended range of amplification, past 8khz and also have a lot of functionality around shaping white noise for masking (you can switch this on and off on the aids).

 

[erik]

Yes, there is usually 30 day return period in the USA for hearing aids I believe. About being healthy to deal with tinnitus, I think that is both physical and mental. Mental health is key. Positive thinking and positive state of mind, being in the calm place, as difficult as it is at times, can really do wonder for T.

Sometimes I think my T is quieter and sometimes I think it is louder....but does it really change that much or is it because of my mental state and my perception of my T? Interesting is the answer to this Jonathan Hazel question I posted in the support forum:

Q:I was wondering, if a person had relatively OK "tinnitus" for a long while but it slowly got worse, even though there was no obvious physical cause or noise exposure or anything, is it ever possible to get back to where the tinnitus was quieter? I am and have been anxious about tinnitus for years but can never tell if increases/exacerbations are due to some physical change that will never get better or if it's psychological and I have hope of going back to the way it was. Just wondering if there's any kind of rule of thumb or something to figuring out if a change in tinnitus is physical/permanent or psychological/stress etc and reversible.

A:Revisit the Jastreboff model! The only thing that makes tinnitus 'worse' is your reaction to it, and that is based on a) what you think is happening ('dreadfulising') and b) your mood state which influences tinnitus through the model (look at the diagrams). Your reaction (AVERSIVE CONDITIONED RESPONSE) to tinnitus is what governs it, and the effect it has on you. This is what TRT reverses. Loudness is immaterial and indeed some of our worst affected patients had tinnitus they could hardly hear except in a very quiet room.

 

[Louise]

How do you stop it though Erik? How do you not react to something that is awful? How do you undo an aversive conditioned response? What do you tell yourself? what do you do in bed at night when you can hear it as the masker cant mask? I guess there must be ways as some people manage it. Maybe they are very laid back types?