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Hello,

I learned a technique from one of our fellow posters here and to me it's been a cure. I have not felt this good about my tinnitus in 40 years. My tinnitus is loud, in both ears, it changes frequencies, sometimes accompanied by hyperacusis, it spikes now and then, and it's here for good. I've panicked over it, cried over it, begged doctors to help me, had MRI's, X Rays, ear cleanings etc... But that is all I'm going to say about my tinnitus. I am done describing it. And lately I've been free of having to listen to it.

It's been a couple months and now I feel confident that this is my cure after years and years of trying to ignore my tinnitus, or cover it up, or medicate it, or acupressure it... etc... I tried everything. All the way back to 1974. I even had to cancel my ENT appointment I waited 2 months for. The receptionist asked, "Are you sure you want to cancel?" I said, "Yes, it's only 3 days away but I have no real complaint." She said, "Well, good for you!"

I'm so thankful for this forum. If I hadn't come here, I'd still be "Listening for" my tinnitus.
I'm the last person in the world that would have thought that a little self-talk could be the answer. But after my last round of medication, acupressure, exercises, doctor visits and masking, I was ready to try anything.
There is no name for this technique so I'll call it the 40 Year Cure for lack of a better name.

The technique takes only TWO seconds. If I do it 40 times a day, that's less than a total of one and a half minutes a day!! After a few weeks of doing it, I've had better than great success. I haven't even had to do it today and it's now lunchtime. No, I have NOT heard my tinnitus today. I only have to do it 2 or 3 times a day now.

I'm not working up this post to lead to a commercial!! haha No, I'm not selling anything. I'm just another guy here on the forum. I want you to know how BAD my tinnitus was, how long I endured and suffered, and how good I feel now. My tinnitus was brought on from playing awfully loud music when I was a teenager, also from taking all kinds of strong prescription migraine medicine when I was young. I'm 56 years old, can you imagine how GOOD it feels to be rid of tinnitus?

I have to be honest, if I listen FOR my tinnitus, it appears. Over the years it's come and gone but lately I was growing tired of waiting for habituation and feeling stressed out. A while back I was going to stores looking for the perfect little MP3 player I could wear all day long listening to ocean sounds. I did not like that idea much, and about that time, I saw a post here on the forum that truly changed my life. They told about the technique of redirecting my thoughts from the SOUND of my tinnitus to my RESPONSE to my tinnitus. I read it and thought, Ya Ya, psycho babble, another new cure, mind-over-matter, etc... I guess you could say I had a sad and negative outlook. Thank goodness for my desperation, because there was nowhere left for me to go so I gave it a good try.

Before I discovered the 40 Year Cure, every morning I was getting up, and the tinnitus was there, after breakfast time I was already whipped out having to listen to it. And all day long I'd be saying to myself, "Why me? Why is it so loud? I wish it would just get a little quieter. If it's worse tomorrow I don't know what I'll do. Why can't the doctor do something? It's so loud, nobody knows what this is like!" I was measuring my tinnitus.

I stopped talking to myself like that. But stopping the "Tinnitus Talk" wasn't enough. It has to be replaced by something else when I do hear the tinnitus. So I started saying, "I hear the tinnitus, it's making me nervous." Or, "There it is, I'm not as nervous as yesterday." Or, "I hear it, but I'm too busy to care." Or, "Yes it's tinnitus, but I'm kind of happy and busy right now." Or even, "I hear my tinnitus and I'm scared." It's OK to be honest. I noticed that the more I would describe my feeling about the tinnitus, instead of the volume of the tinnitus, the less and less I was bothered by it. The first few days I thought it was too good to be true, I noticed even in the short period of a week I found myself describing my responses less and less. Wow!! Well, I surely wasn't going to test and fail at this technique by going backwards and describing my tinnitus!!!! So here I am, and rarely do I even hear my tinnitus. If I think about tinnitus, I hear it. But if I only measure my response to it, I hear it less and less over time. It took a couple months to get to a comfortable spot where I can say that yes, 98% of my tinnitus is gone.

Naturally I want to compare my tinnitus to previous volume levels to tell myself it's getting better, but that's the VERY THING that makes it pop into my head. I refuse to measure my tinnitus anymore. I only measure my feelings toward it when I hear it.

A friend, who doesn't have tinnitus, told me he thinks it's like having bad eyesight and getting used to wearing glasses. But tinnitus is not like bad eyes. I wear glasses. Yes they can be bothersome and not wearing them even more so. But tinnitus is intrusive and bothersome and it drove me to despair many times in 4 decades. After doing this new technique I've discovered that taking action and sticking to it has been not just treatment, but a cure for me. I also have to avoid loud sounds in everyday life.

I don't know what kind of mind trick this is, or cognitive thing... I'm not an ear doctor... but I know I'll be OK the rest of today and probably tomorrow and why wouldn't I feel great next year? I hope your tinnitus gets better and you don't have to listen to it for 40 years. And if you've tried things that didn't seem to work, try this. I didn't think anything would help me. Good luck!