Tinnitus — A Recording That Gets Permanently Imprinted Into Your Memory? And My Solution

[AlexSongitus]

Hey guys,

I haven't logged in an while and there's probably a lot of new members but today I had an interesting revelation and felt the need to share it.

To make a long story short I got tinnitus a few years back composing music with earbuds on, playing around with high frequency songs, and went on a binge, 48 hour non-stop session. When I pulled my earbuds out there was a sound that would just never go away. Hello tinnitus, tinnitus meet me. I learned all about this strange and crazy "disease" over the next couple of months.

I went through the typical treatments. I was even a participant in the Auris Medical AM-101 studies and got injections in my ears. Temporary relief initially but impossible to state any permanent benefits from it that I would have otherwise not experienced. You can look through my history to find out more about the studies if interested.

Well I have been pretty cautious with my ears since, mainly just learned to live with it, and not much has changed, I still experience about 1 day of silence a week and the rest of the time I ignore it. Initially I laid off the music for a long time, but I can't give up what I love so I learned to do music even with the annoying sound in my head.

The past couple of weeks it was acting up a bit more than normal. I threw caution to the wind and have been binge composing anyway using them. Went on a binge again. Here's what happened.

I have been trying to brush up a bit on my vocal abilities and since I already had the instrumental wanted to learn Kenny Wayne Shephard's Blue on Black vocals, minute detail by detail, inflection by inflection. I wanted to be able to perfectly reproduce the way he sang it, using my voice in order to expand my vocal range and just to learn some new techniques.

So I did this for the past 2 days. It was a very difficult song for me, and it took listening to it and learning and repeating basically each little word, especially trying to nail his very subtle southern accent, so I must have done each 10 second section at least 100+ times. Listen, practice, record, listen, practice record over and over and over....

Then I realized I have earbuds in. I realized this might be very bad since this is what I believed caused my tinnitus in the first place. So I quickly pulled them out and... total silence. That tinnitus that was acting up, gone. Now I would have silent days before every once in a while, but I would sleep and like clockwork, when I woke up it would be back. Sleeping either helps calm it down, or I have silence, it turns it back on.

But I did sleep and I woke up and now it's still extremely low almost to the point where it's soothing. It's almost like a very colorful, sprinkley white noise now (think seltzer water bubbles). The tone of it shifted for sure, it's so pleasant I could lay down a solo on top of what I am hearing right now.

Well all of a sudden I had a revelation. I remembered the people talking about examples where some went as far as having their cochleas surgically removed, and yet they could still hear it.

Here's what I believe could be going on. Tinnitus, for some of us, is simply a recording that gets permanently imprinted into your memory, AND is constantly played back by the subconscious because it treats this as something so important it needs to be constantly ON, the same way it keeps your eyelids OPEN when you are awake.

In other words the very important things that we need to remember gets stored in long term memory, but we do not actively have to brush up on our memory to remember our names, our family's faces, or even a song we can't get out of our heads. There are some things that are permanently recorded into our memory, and your conscious mind has no business ever needing to do anything to retrieve it. In addition to memory storage and retrieval though, I believe the subconscious brain also moves some things to a sort of motor function where it keeps basic functions ON all the time.

It is entirely possible this could be going on with tinnitus, and it would also explain why when I am sitting here needing to dedicate 100% of my focus on learning this song, which of course has to do with sound, and frequency, my conscious brain at that point triggers my subconscious brain to pay attention. But I believe this only happens when I repeat something for 100+ times, it is only at this point the subconscious brain gets recruited and it says "ok this is important enough that now I have to record" whatever he is trying to learn permanently. Hence, why my tinnitus disappeared. It stops that function, that is keeping my tinnitus active, to concentrate on what I need to learn.

But whoever said tinnitus takes 7 times to remember something, well they never tried to perfectly remember every inflection in Blue on Black, and that was probably the minimum. It could have taken millions, billions or trillions of times throughout your life before whatever sound you have in your head, to be imprinted and to have your brain play it back for you and move it to the section that says "this thing needs to be ON non stop, it's like super important". Which is why the opposite, the silencing tends to happen only when I repeat something hundreds and hundreds of times and I am able to have an effect on it because of hour-long sessions of full concentration. At that point the brain becomes so tired that it is simply unable to cope with keeping everything going, so it begins shutting down unnecessary functions one by one, and eventually tinnitus is one of them.

Whenever we finally get damaged by tinnitus by a particular event, it could be something you notice or not. It could be one or more frequencies, that you hear SO often, that at some point, the subconscious treats it as if its something so important, it needs to be moved into FULL ON position. The final damage is basically just the trigger and if the brain no longer gets that frequency from your ears, it gives it to you. It gets corrupted. It doesn't just get stored in long term memory, but it gets moved to the active part of our brain and it is constantly retrieving this "memory sound' and playing it for us because this stupid little lizard brain wrongly assumes we really need it like all the time! Especially if it's no longer getting it from the outside world because we damaged our ears.

So again, I want to restate, the revelation I am having is that when I recruit the help of my subconscious 100% in order to focus and memorize something for extended periods of time, tinnitus goes away, subsides, and if it involves music, it definitely changes shape/tone, etc. But I think it requires something on this magnitude, and I don't think there are as many people as obsessed as some of us to attempt to memorize or learn something for like a 12 hour session the way I do without breaks. Where you are just 100% plugged in, and don't even stop, except to breathe. I think that's about the only other function my subconscious is able to keep ACTIVE, when I am in these sessions. So that is powerful enough to have an effect on it. Breathing, eyes open, everything else, every other piece of energy it directs it 100% to the task I am working on. And that includes whatever the heck is responsible for tinnitus. At that point it says, "ok I have to shut down this sound too", because he really needs all of his senses.

To me this was definitely an "Aha" moment that its most likely what is going on with my tinnitus.

When I first got tinnitus, I was messing with a high frequency whistle in a synthesizer, so I am pretty sure it was that high frequency that caused it but I don't think that was the cause as much as the trigger. The cause is either constantly hearing those frequencies all of my life, and then all of a sudden missing them and my brain then deciding, I NEED this all the time or else I might stop breathing. Blue on Black is a pretty mellow song, filled with lows and mids. While that may also have something to do with it, especially with perhaps altering the frequency of it, like maybe recording and forcing the subconscious to do the same thing with a 2nd wave that cancels the first one that got imprinted, I believe that isn't as important as the evidence that points to this definitely being something more about a subconscious and long-term memory retrieval issue that ends up becoming a permanent ON function the subconscious brain believes it heard SO many times in our lives, that it must be something we really NEED all the time, especially when it's no longer there and it doesn't get the stimuli from the outside world anymore. That is what I believe to be the mechanism in play here.

So please think twice before anyone wants to do something as extreme as removing your cochleas because I don't think it's going to do anything, and there's probably a good chance injections in our ears like some of us have had to endure, might also do nothing other than cause pain and loose ear drums. What I described above is also an indication why sound therapy, white noise, works for some to a certain extent.

I hope this helps sheds some light on those in positions to do something about it.

 

[AlexSongitus]

By the way, I suppose I should also tell you what to do in case you want to try and see if it works for you. But do it at your own risk, since this is how I got my tinnitus in the first place. While you can do it at a low volume, most of us with tinnitus learned, volume may not be the only thing that can cause tinnitus, as low level extended periods of listening to music with ear buds could be enough as well. So this falls into the category of basically fighting fire with fire.

1. Pick a song you really like.

2. Download Audacity, it's free.

3. Drag and Drop it into audacity.

Find a place where you can sing. If you are a terrible singer or can't sing at all, then even better because it's really going to require you focus 100% to get it right. If you area good singer pick a seriously hard song outside your vocal range, or outside your style. Something you really like and can see yourself wanting to learn, so you enjoy it as well.

Then record yourself on a new track, on many new tracks, many, many takes. Listen to it. Match yourself as close as you can to the original artist, rinse and repeat. For as many times as it takes. And don't stop for hours. Focus on copying the tone, inflection, notes 100%. Focus on the tiny minute details. You will have to really focus to hear them, and to copy them. And just repeat for the next x hours until you learned every single change there is or as best as you can.

Then see if you still care about your tinnitus.

It's very important that you record, and try to listen to your recording, as you need the GOAL of trying to achieve something, in order for you to be busy for an extended period of time in order to give it the attention required. If you just sing along with a song, it's not going to work, because you are not focused enough, and you will get tired after about attempt #5. Your subconscious isn't going to be tricked into paying attention to you by a typical sing-along. No no, you have to basically convince it "hey this is something I really need your entire attention for, so cut that tinnitus crap out, and memorize this". You want to try and record and track your progress until you can hear yourself improve to the point you reach your set goal. It could be something like a song you like every time it comes on, you suck singing and wish you could. I haven't had the guts to do this exercise with ear buds and my guitar or any other instrument, and won't any time soon and not to mention, it may be that singing is closer to what is needed compared to doing it with an instrument.

I attached my result as an example, not perfect but I am satisfied with it. It's really just high level karaoke session but directly over the original vocals. I am sure most have an idea and will figure it out. This worked for me. Not only could it help alleviate your tinnitus, but you may learn a thing or two also and have fun in the process. And that's a lot better than wallowing in the annoyance of tinnitus or popping another pill of Prednisone or who knows what.

But again, do it at your own risk! If any of you do go through it with it, I'd love to hear your results!

 

[JohnAdams]

When I first got tinnitus, I was messing with a high frequency whistle in a synthesizer, so I am pretty sure it was that high frequency that caused it but I don't think that was the cause as much as the trigger. The cause is either constantly hearing those frequencies all of my life, and then all of a sudden missing them and my brain then deciding, I NEED this all the time or else I might stop breathing.

Sounds to me like you physically damaged your inner ear.

 

[AlexSongitus]

Sounds to me like you physically damaged you inner ear.

Well yeah initially I'm sure it was that, as I stated that's how I got it. But while that may explain the final trigger, that doesn't explain Tinnitus or people's experiences. For example at the moment I am experiencing 100% complete silence. If it was as simple as a physical problem, my tinnitus shouldn't be 100% silent at the moment. My ear should still be damaged just like it is the other 6 days a week, unless there are some minor little hairs/receptors that get inflammated etc when listening to a particular type of frequency that can cause it to stop.

I think that one should be pretty easy to test actually, like for example if you have tinnitus in both ears, and you were to only use 1 headphone in one ear, and it makes tinnitus disappear in both, then that's a pretty good indication your ear has nothing to do with it.

So I don't think that's the case, in the sense that its a physical ear problem. It may manifest itself as a physical problem, but it extends beyond the ear. It definitely has far more to do with the brain than ear once tinnitus gets going and it is why it is commonly reported people who change focus, lose their perception of tinnitus. You have been around long enough to understand that there are many people that experience Tinnitus, like I explained, even without cochlea. It's a subconscious/memory phenomenon, the physical part of it may have to do with why you got it in the first place, but that isn't why it prevails. So in my case I am proof that even prolonged listening to something, which should cause additional problems can do the the opposite, act as a cure.

I truly believe ear drugs alone are a dead end, unless we can specifically detect which frequencies were damaged, and what a particular frequency or range of tinnitus a person experiences, and you can hope to stop it by restoring function. But if it is anything along the lines of what I am describing, even restoring functionality, may not be enough to convince your brain from stopping it once it started, just by simply restoring the function.

I would definitely give that a shot if it turned out to work for a lot of people, but by now I am pretty cool with my tinnitus so I doubt I would ever go through a medical experiment the way I did after I first got it. From the very beginning the best "cures" for tinnitus were sounds for me, whether it was white noise or other sound based therapies. Far more effective and usually immediate compared to any medication. But again, it involves more than just giving your brain access to a particular frequency once it begins to compensate for the loss, which is what I think the best way to describe tinnitus. A subconscious compensation. And it's kind of like once you get cancer, if you stop smoking, it's not going to do much for it. Even if you were to give someone a fresh set of lungs, if it started spreading, you are S.O.L, you have to understand what is going on at the cellular level if you want to have any hope for stopping it. And with tinnitus, I am now positive it involves the brain, subconscious and memory.

I am just trying to help people and this is coming from someone that experiences tinnitus 6 days a week non stop on average. I know when I had it my first couple of months all I used to pray for was even an hour of silence. And I had it pretty damn bad. And different levels in different ears, etc. And most days today I am not bothered for it, it spikes to more annoying levels that I actually pay attention to it maybe once every I don't know how many months. But luckily for me, I get silence pretty regularly. And that is a very much needed break for mental clarity. As long as I could experience silence again even if for a few hours or a day, dealing with tinnitus became pretty easy.

And sound/sleep is definitely a part of it. So if something like above can give a person who has had tinnitus for the past 30 days 1 day break, then I think it would do wonders for their psyche. I know that's all I asked for. I am blessed that I get these breaks and the rest of the time I learned how to ignore it. And this is one way how to do that and I believe you are in fact targeting the source. Learning how to play tennis is going to get your mind off of it, butt I think sound based therapies target the problem directly.

 

[JohnAdams]

If it was as simple as a physical problem, my tinnitus shouldn't be 100% silent at the moment.

Not really. If you did damage to the nerves, then some days they could be functioning well enough but on other days, because of sleep, diet, stress, etc they could function improperly.

 

[AlexSongitus]

Not really. If you did damage to the nerves, then some days they could be functioning well enough but on other days, because of sleep, diet, stress, etc they could function improperly.

Again that's pretty easy to disprove by simply applying stress/relief to one ear only and observing the phenomenon in both. While I agree that nerves may be involved in some ways, like I say, a missing connection, T for most of us, is beyond the ear.

And what I describe is an overexposure to the exact thing that caused it in the first place. So while that may be what's going on it's kind of weird if it turns out that pouring salt into a wound fixes the problem. I can't think of any disease where if you aggravate it it gets better. The only thing I know of that's like that is a drug addiction, where that one hit, that makes the disease worse, gives you relief.

Like I said, 3 days ago my ears were whistling like a tea kettle, and it went on for about 10 days straight, and today I can listen to it as hard as I want, and there is nothing there. Yesterday all day too. Just pure silence. And I have to say there is nothing more amazing than being able to walk into my backyard, and listen to the rustles of the leaves, birds chirping, and my footsteps on grass. It's an amazing feeling, that I think only T sufferers understand.

 

[JohnAdams]

Like I said, 3 days ago my ears were whistling like a tea kettle, and it went on for about 10 days straight, and today I can listen to it as hard as I want, and there is nothing there. Yesterday all day too. Just pure silence

Ok, then you've spontaneously recovered which is great. It happens.

 

[GlennS]

It sounds like you are trying to self-treat your tinnitus. That's what I've done and whatever theories you construct to explain or justify this or that, what tends to happen is you gravitate towards some combination of masking, mindfulness, and habituation.

When you talk about "recordings", I think you are trying to reverse a chicken and the egg condition. It's the tinnitus that is imprinting itself into your memory and recalling tinnitus is a big part of the suffering. It's suffering because it consumes a large chunk of your daily thoughts. Ruminating on the past in general is the main source of suffering, but the longer you suffer, the more this memory recall enters into a Groundhog Day style feedback loop. You remember a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of acknowledging tinnitus, since so many of your daily thoughts throughout the day are an acknowledgment of the continual ringing.

For instance, I used to work in a department store with looped music. It looped so many times that it felt as though I was in purgatory ala Groundhog Day. Time was moving forward but it didn't SEEM like it because I was exposed to the same songs in the same sequence over and over and over again.

Life needs variety and surprise for life to be interesting, to give your brain something to chew on. If tinnitus were sort of like a radio playing completely random setlists it would be far more tolerable (although over time I suppose you'd become an idiot savant of song recognition). It's the utter blandness of the white-noise or constant tones that robs you of a sense of forward movement in your life. I mean, even nature sounds, despite being masking sources, offer more variety. Birds chirp, then stop, wind picks up and then drops off, crickets, etc... The monotony of tinnitus is the killer even more than not being able to experience total silence.

The reason why mindfulness works is you shift your mental focus on a task or concept which prevents your default state being acknowledging tinnitus. The downside of mindfulness is that it forces you to give yourself busywork. True relaxation becomes impossible. Sometimes it's nice to just zone out and do nothing which is impossible to do. The closest thing might be to passively watch junk TV. So the tradeoff of being able to avoid fixating on tinnitus is a sort of mental exhaustion of having to keep applying some laserlike focus to something all the time.

 

[AlexSongitus]

Ok, then you've spontaneously recovered which is great. It happens.

At this point I feel you are arguing for the sake of arguing and not even taking the time to read. It's not spontaneous in the least. My silence is regular, and anyone that's taken the time to read through my history will see me document sound based methods from the onset that have always worked for me. I am explaining a cause/effect not some accidental magical spontaneous thing.

There was a very expensive device that some other members had access to and others manged to find a link to send some of us an online version of it, that had different stereo chirps in each ear. It worked. It worked for me. It worked for many. Just not long term after a week it lost its effectiveness. And again, didn't know why then. Didn't know why white noise would lose it's effectiveness. But now, if you took the time to understand what I wrote, I believe the subconscious/memory retrieval is part of it.

It's not just simply a matter of sound therapy alone that works and that is why it was temporary. And this is why I am talking about the need for full subconscious attention, and extended use. If it was just sound therapy, not involving the brain, I could of just kept those beeps in my ears that worked great for about 6 days and that would be that. Or white noise or whatever. But that isn't the case.

 

[AlexSongitus]

It sounds like you are trying to self-treat your tinnitus. That's what I've done and whatever theories you construct to explain or justify this or that, what tends to happen is you gravitate towards some combination of masking, mindfulness, and habituation.

When you talk about "recordings", I think you are trying to reverse a chicken and the egg condition. It's the tinnitus that is imprinting itself into your memory and recalling tinnitus is a big part of the suffering. It's suffering because it consumes a large chunk of your daily thoughts. Ruminating on the past in general is the main source of suffering, but the longer you suffer, the more this memory recall enters into a Groundhog Day style feedback loop. You remember a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of acknowledging tinnitus, since so many of your daily thoughts throughout the day are an acknowledgment of the continual ringing.

For instance, I used to work in a department store with looped music. It looped so many times that it felt as though I was in purgatory ala Groundhog Day. Time was moving forward but it didn't SEEM like it because I was exposed to the same songs in the same sequence over and over and over again.

Life needs variety and surprise for life to be interesting, to give your brain something to chew on. If tinnitus were sort of like a radio playing completely random setlists it would be far more tolerable (although over time I suppose you'd become an idiot savant of song recognition). It's the utter blandness of the white-noise or constant tones that robs you of a sense of forward movement in your life. I mean, even nature sounds, despite being masking sources, offer more variety. Birds chirp, then stop, wind picks up and then drops off, crickets, etc... The monotony of tinnitus is the killer even more than not being able to experience total silence.

The reason why mindfulness works is you shift your mental focus on a task or concept which prevents your default state being acknowledging tinnitus. The downside of mindfulness is that it forces you to give yourself busywork. True relaxation becomes impossible. Sometimes it's nice to just zone out and do nothing which is impossible to do. The closest thing might be to passively watch junk TV. So the tradeoff of being able to avoid fixating on tinnitus is a sort of mental exhaustion of having to keep applying some laserlike focus to something all the time.

I have stopped trying to treat my tinnitus 2 years ago. I moved on from it a long time ago. It has little effect on my life anymore, except on some rare occurrences when it gets louder or I get overly tired. I'm only here taking about this because it just happened to be loud all last week, and noticeable something that I didn't notice in months really, and then this made it disappear entirely.

This isn't just a matter of shifting mindfulness to ignore it for the moment. It simply disappears entirely for me to where I can hear a pin drop, even when trying to listen for it. Like today and yesterday, all day, I can do anything I just simply am tinnitus free, and have 100% silence. So this has a prolonged effect. Even after sleeping overnight. Which by the way, it's insanely rare and can't actually remember a time where I had 2 back to back days of silence. Usually if I do have a day of silence the next day is a guaranteed tinnitus day when I wake up. Sleep always affected it. If it was off it would be on or if it was too loud, it would be better in the morning. So for me it was always 7 days tinnitus, one day break, 10 days tinnitus, one day break etc. Sleep always being a trigger.

Whatever it is, if I could put this into a pill and give people silence even for the next 6 hours, I'd be a millionaire. But I can't, and I will be highly surprised if anyone can, and luckily for those that are continuing with sound therapy, it's free, except for the time investment.

 

[GlennS]

It simply disappears entirely for me to where I can hear a pin drop, even when trying to listen for it.

I reread your thread and it sounds like you brainhacked yourself at a level far beyond most of us. I don't discount your experience but it sounds incredibly difficult or a fluke of nature. I don't think your layman description of the root cause of tinnitus is entirely accurate but that doesn't take away from the results you say you're getting. Neuroplasticity is definitely a thing and not very well understood.

 

[AlexSongitus]

I reread your thread and it sounds like you brainhacked yourself at a level far beyond most of us. I don't discount your experience but it sounds incredibly difficult or a fluke of nature. I don't think your layman description of the root cause of tinnitus is entirely accurate but that doesn't take away from the results you say you're getting. Neuroplasticity is definitely a thing and not very well understood.

If you look through my history I have many posts and exchanges with other members where we talk about many different types of sound based therapies that work. I don't think there is anything fluky about work or therapy. Sometimes it just takes hard work and in this case we don't fully understand why or how it works, but there are many avenues that do and this is one of them. Some people just want to sit around and wait for a pill, and sadly, as someone who has been through the injections of the AM-101 trials, I don't actually believe that's coming in our life time. The medical community do not truly understand tinnitus, and on top of that, in a corporate driven world, the holy grail is almost always an "aspirin" like drug, not penicillin. Although that would be good enough for most people.

In the case of tinnitus though I think we're dealing with something outside the scope of traditional scientific methods, and it won't be cracked by ear doctors, or head doctors alone, it will take a much better understanding, and it will most certainly have something to do with sound/frequency and how our brain operates at a subconscious level at is core. It stems from an area of science, where the reality may be, there is currently no science for that area.

And anyone that says otherwise, or if some new development came up that I am not aware of, well, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[JohnAdams]

I don't actually believe that's coming in our life time.

So you don't think regenerating damaged synapses and destroyed hair cells will help with tinnitus?

 

[AlexSongitus]

So you don't think regenerating damaged synapses and destroyed hair cells will help with tinnitus?

Both of those things can help, since they are all parts leading to the auditory cortex, but I don't know if that will be enough. The auditory cortex is ultimately where I believe a big part of the problem lies but I don't know if it's simply limited to that once tinnitus gets going. And there are clearly other things that do help as well. If you just follow the evidence it appears to strongly point to a combination of auditory cortex, subconscious, and neuroplasticity issues and less due to destroyed hair cells. And it absolutely is affected by outside stimuli and sound.

I believe our limited understanding of how our brain is wired, much like a software running on a computer, is the biggest hurdle with Tinnitus, because to me it's absolutely clear it exists in that area. And yeah it could very well be a combination of the two, and it may include actual physical damage to some part of the brain, but that is one gigantic and dangerous assumption to make without solid evidence. If the problem lies in the programming, a glitch if you will, even if just in part, you won't fix it with just messing with the hardware. Likewise if the cause lies partly in the hardware, you would, of course, also have to fix the hardware. But if I have a glitch in a program that plays a loud beep through my speakers, I'm not reformatting, and I'm not replacing the CPU either unless I'm positive that is what's causing the glitch in the program. I'd rather re-install or patch it. And before I do such a step, I would perform a full diagnostic.

I really don't like the term "damaged synapses" since that ultimately will point to neurological drugs as an answer and enough people on this very forum have taken some pretty big risks with those as it is. Where did you find proof that tinnitus was the result of "damaged" synapses?

 

[Earing]

I have been trying to brush up a bit on my vocal abilities and since I already had the instrumental wanted to learn Kenny Wayne Shephard's Blue on Black vocals, minute detail by detail, inflection by inflection. I wanted to be able to perfectly reproduce the way he sang it, using my voice in order to expand my vocal range and just to learn some new techniques.

Kenny Wayne Shephard did not sing Blue On Black, it was the lead singer Noah Hunt.

 

[AlexSongitus]

Kenny Wayne Shephard did not sing Blue On Black, it was the lead singer Noah Hunt.

View attachment 30785

Yes I know. It was composed by multiple people actually but most people don't know that. Kenny Wayne Shepherd is the name of the band under which the song is released so it's like saying "Nirvana's Smells like Teen Spirit vocals" so I was referring to it in that sense. Great song!

 

[Earing]

Yes I know. It was composed by multiple people actually but most people don't know that. Kenny Wayne Shepherd is the name of the band under which the song is released so it's like saying "Nirvana's Smells like Teen Spirit vocals" so I was referring to it in that sense. Great song!

I knew ya knew. I was just funnin' ya. KWS father was / is a promoter so he made his son the guy.

 

[Piney]

For what it's worth: I can remember as a child I did numerous motorcross races and after a very long day at the track at night I would lay asleep and look out my window and look for motorcycles because I heard them. I then asked my father the next day if he had the same experience and he said yes so I believe memory has something to do with it. But that doesn't explain drug induced tinnitus. Since mine came on after hearing damage and an inflammed nerve I thought it stayed because of the shock of it all and my brain won't let go. Anyways Neuromod and a CI produce some kind of electronic stimuli or shock which somehow we assume can benefit the condition. I wish I could just shock the whole system and be done with it.

 

[Jazzer]

If you look through my history I have many posts and exchanges with other members where we talk about many different types of sound based therapies that work. I don't think there is anything fluky about work or therapy. Sometimes it just takes hard work and in this case we don't fully understand why or how it works, but there are many avenues that do and this is one of them. Some people just want to sit around and wait for a pill, and sadly, as someone who has been through the injections of the AM-101 trials, I don't actually believe that's coming in our life time. The medical community do not truly understand tinnitus, and on top of that, in a corporate driven world, the holy grail is almost always an "aspirin" like drug, not penicillin. Although that would be good enough for most people.

In the case of tinnitus though I think we're dealing with something outside the scope of traditional scientific methods, and it won't be cracked by ear doctors, or head doctors alone, it will take a much better understanding, and it will most certainly have something to do with sound/frequency and how our brain operates at a subconscious level at is core. It stems from an area of science, where the reality may be, there is currently no science for that area.

And anyone that says otherwise, or if some new development came up that I am not aware of, well, I'd love to hear about it.

I agree.

I get the feeling that all of these 'gadget' driven treatments are nothing more than trial and error.

Not only would I not spend a penny on them, I wouldn't be prepared to risk further neurological damage with them.

 

[GregCA]

I get the feeling that all of these 'gadget' driven treatments are nothing more than trial and error.

That is exactly how scientific progress is made: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/steps-of-the-scientific-method

The alternative is "don't try, you won't make mistakes". No thanks.

 

[Jazzer]

That is exactly how scientific progress is made: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/steps-of-the-scientific-method

The alternative is "don't try, you won't make mistakes". No thanks.

Good post.
Made me think.

 

[Chinmoku]

By the way, I suppose I should also tell you what to do in case you want to try and see if it works for you. But do it at your own risk, since this is how I got my tinnitus in the first place. While you can do it at a low volume, most of us with tinnitus learned, volume may not be the only thing that can cause tinnitus, as low level extended periods of listening to music with ear buds could be enough as well. So this falls into the category of basically fighting fire with fire.

1. Pick a song you really like.

2. Download Audacity, it's free.

3. Drag and Drop it into audacity.

Find a place where you can sing. If you are a terrible singer or can't sing at all, then even better because it's really going to require you focus 100% to get it right. If you area good singer pick a seriously hard song outside your vocal range, or outside your style. Something you really like and can see yourself wanting to learn, so you enjoy it as well.

Then record yourself on a new track, on many new tracks, many, many takes. Listen to it. Match yourself as close as you can to the original artist, rinse and repeat. For as many times as it takes. And don't stop for hours. Focus on copying the tone, inflection, notes 100%. Focus on the tiny minute details. You will have to really focus to hear them, and to copy them. And just repeat for the next x hours until you learned every single change there is or as best as you can.

Then see if you still care about your tinnitus.

It's very important that you record, and try to listen to your recording, as you need the GOAL of trying to achieve something, in order for you to be busy for an extended period of time in order to give it the attention required. If you just sing along with a song, it's not going to work, because you are not focused enough, and you will get tired after about attempt #5. Your subconscious isn't going to be tricked into paying attention to you by a typical sing-along. No no, you have to basically convince it "hey this is something I really need your entire attention for, so cut that tinnitus crap out, and memorize this". You want to try and record and track your progress until you can hear yourself improve to the point you reach your set goal. It could be something like a song you like every time it comes on, you suck singing and wish you could. I haven't had the guts to do this exercise with ear buds and my guitar or any other instrument, and won't any time soon and not to mention, it may be that singing is closer to what is needed compared to doing it with an instrument.

I attached my result as an example, not perfect but I am satisfied with it. It's really just high level karaoke session but directly over the original vocals. I am sure most have an idea and will figure it out. This worked for me. Not only could it help alleviate your tinnitus, but you may learn a thing or two also and have fun in the process. And that's a lot better than wallowing in the annoyance of tinnitus or popping another pill of Prednisone or who knows what.

But again, do it at your own risk! If any of you do go through it with it, I'd love to hear your results!

Interesting. Do you think it is necessary to wear earbuds or could it work also using speakers?

 

[Mister Muso]

Interesting. I have three notes from the C major scale in my left ear. It's a first inversion, starting with E. Sometimes I get one note or another, sometimes all three together, and sometimes a gentle broken chord. It's not so unpleasant as my higher and lower tones, except it concerns me that it's getting louder. Also, any masking just makes it get louder. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I used to play the piano regularly, and those particular notes would have been amongst the ones I played the most often?

 

[AlexSongitus]

Interesting. Do you think it is necessary to wear earbuds or could it work also using speakers?

Well I have had plenty of sessions like this with speakers over the past 2 years, but I also never tried it at a high enough volume with speakers, since I can't. It never happened with speakers.

I think the earbuds working may have something to do with them block all outside sound also which allows you to super focus on the sound you are working on. I think it could work with regular studio headphones that have noise cancelling capabilities as well.

 

[AlexSongitus]

Interesting. I have three notes from the C major scale in my left ear. It's a first inversion, starting with E. Sometimes I get one note or another, sometimes all three together, and sometimes a gentle broken chord. It's not so unpleasant as my higher and lower tones, except it concerns me that it's getting louder. Also, any masking just makes it get louder. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I used to play the piano regularly, and those particular notes would have been amongst the ones I played the most often?

Yeah I think it very well may. I'm pretty sure that's what happened to me. If I were to upload the whistling sound i was working on, and I won't since even now I think it can do damage, any person would go "yep that would do it".

There is a danger in earbuds and noise cancelling headphones. You get used to the loudness, and have a tendency to get louder and louder without realizing how loud you are really going. It wasn't until I listened to the sound through speakers that I realize, holy crap that was way too loud.

 

[AlexSongitus]

So I want to give you all an update. Today I napped for 3 hours and my T is back to its normal self after the nap, about a 3-4/10 in my left and 1-2/10 in my right. And this is pretty typical T for me, which no longer bothers me. I am only paying attention to it right now, because I had silence for all these days and to give you guys an update, otherwise I would be going right on about my life not caring since its always like this.

So the silence lasted 4 and a half days. It's the longest stretch I have had since I got T more than 2 years ago. I even tracked it on a spreadsheet for about 30 days. Most was 1-2 days. and always got interrupted by sleeping. This was the first time ever, that I had complete silence and went to bed and woke up in silence again the next day, and this lasted for 4 days.

I'm going to be working on music a lot from here on out and I will come back and give you guys updates from time to time if I discover anything new. I'll be curious to see how many days it stays on now before I get another silence day. Usually its between 5-10 days of consistent T before that happens.

Another thing I notice every time I do have silence is it does appear my hearing is better, and I wasn't sure but after this extended session, I'm leaning more towards that not simply being just perception. In other words, when I have T, of course you would perceive as not hearing as well. Because right now with T on, I can't pick up the sounds outside, like soft footsteps that without T, I can.

I think those session is the equivalent of being stuffed up, and then you use those nose inhalers to open up your nose and passageways. Something to that effect could be what's going on here as well. But with hearing and audio. And in this case it had a very significant prolonged effect on me.

 

[eagerUser]

@AlexSongitus I partially agree with you but let's say someone has an allergic runny nose in spring every year and it stops ASA spring finishes. How does that happen with your logic? Because the brain would not let the runny nose signal go away! I am literally asking a question! I can't find an answer!

 

[AlexSongitus]

@AlexSongitus I partially agree with you but let's say someone has an allergic runny nose in spring every year and it stops ASA spring finishes. How does that happen with your logic? Because the brain would not let the runny nose signal go away! I am literally asking a question! I can't find an answer!

That's definitely the million dollar question. Yeah, I don't know if it's really like that last example, that's just what it felt like to me. That's why I say, that once T gets going, it seems like it moves into the auditory cortex and some other parts of your brain and then beyond that neuroplasticity kicks in. That's what we have to figure out.

To steal GlennS's phrase I definitely think brain hacking ourselves is probably the best avenue at the moment. at least for some of us. If any of us can just figure out how to consistently reproduce this type of silent effect I am experiencing, at least for some of us with certain types of T, it would be progress. Which was what I hoped to achieve with these posts. Maybe someone else out there, takes a look at my experience, and they have theirs, or a researcher that's already working on this path and eventually we can make a breakthrough.

One of the biggest problems with T though, like many on here have said is that those of us that can live with it, and move on from it, rarely come back or spend time working on it once you get accustomed to it. And it's also understandable since you don't want to presently keep bringing yourself back to it, but in this case, I felt it was important enough it needed to be shared and will continue to participate any way I can.

 

[AlexSongitus]

So just to give everyone a heads up, it took about 3 days since it came back last week to get silence again, and as of last Friday it's been basically nonexistent since. Since this took place it's almost as if it's reversed. I have gotten more silence days than T days. And when it did come back, it was just temporarily annoying for maybe a few hours and then would disappear next time I would look for it. And yeah, I have been composing daily for extended hours. Today its basically a 1/10 and only when i really listen for it, but a super pleasant noise, like when you turn on your old tube tv, but with some color sprinkled throughout. I am currently enjoying it more than silence and I am often losing perception of it. The more I try to perceive it the less I hear it, the complete opposite of what typically we experience with T. I'm sitting here staring cross-eyed into space and trying to focus in on it to see if it gets louder.

Something else I remember having all my life but I realize I stopped experiencing and I don't know if when it stopped was right after I got T. From time to time I would have these dizzy spells one experience when getting up out of bed too fast. But there was something else that went along with it. I never really understood it and the only reason I remember it now is because it made a sound I could hear in my head similar to my super low T. The best way I can describe it, is if a worm traveled from the base of the back of my neck, up to my brain. Almost as if a blood clot, would allow blood all of a sudden to travel through the vein, and I could physically feel it and also hear it. It would only last about a second. I remember having that forever and I'm realizing I haven't experienced it in years. No clue if there is any connection, but interesting that what I consider my "base" T noise and that are very similar.