Can Sound Silence Tinnitus?Maybe you heard of sound therapy devices like Neuromonics, Desyncra, and SoundCure? Or more recently, Lenire? Hazel talks to Steve Harrison, a musician and audiophile who has suffered from severe tinnitus for decades. Steve knows all about the use of sound for tinnitus relief.

Rather than relying on expensive devices, which typically can only do one thing, Steve recommends experimenting with sound and gives practical tips for doing so. We go through all the different types of sound therapies and treatments and discuss the pros and cons.

Check out Steve’s YouTube channel Tinnitus Works and the TinnitusPlay app (iPhone only).

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Skip to: 00:00 Steve’s tinnitus and audio work.

Skip to: 11:26 Sound therapy – no one-size-fits-all solutions.

The reason we have non-responders to sound therapy is because parts or all of the tinnitus are related to something that sound is not going to address. I believe that is the physical side of it.

Skip to: 16:55 White noise and other masking sounds.

Skip to: 25:39 Distraction through randomized tones.

Skip to: 29:37 Survey results on self-administered sound therapy.

Over 60% reported some kind of improvement from self-administered sound therapy, which is better than all the counseling approaches, the medications, the supplements, the acupuncture, you name it.

Skip to: 31:49 Hearing aids for tinnitus suppression.

Skip to: 35:32 Acoustic neuromodulation (e.g., Desyncra)

One important thing to say about every tinnitus trial is the principle of 30% will get worse, 30% will have no change, 30% will get better/improve, and 10% will drop out. There’s not really anything that we can point to now that hasn’t broadly followed that pattern.

Skip to: 45:03 Amplitude modulation (e.g., SoundCure)

Skip to: 53:19 Notched audio/filtering.

Anyway, in my personal experience, and I say this with some reservations, notched sound therapy might have played a role in the reduction of my tinnitus.

Skip to: 59:34 Bimodal devices (e.g., Lenire)

Skip to: 65:02 Tinnitus matching and residual inhibition (e.g., Neuromonics)

Skip to: 71:01 Pseudoscience alert + other tips and tricks.

This is just word salad to me. It doesn’t really mean anything at all. I mean, you could say that about listening to birdsong.

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