Acoustic CR® Neuromodulation: Do It Yourself Guide

My tinnitus is loud (I can hear it above TV and traffic noise),

I found that
http://generalfuzz.net/acrn/
effectively masks my tinnitus.

I play it on my laptop in the background, when I am watching TV and it helps me not hear the tinnitus.
Also, I play it in the background when I am working.

It's not perfect. It can be annoying sometimes, but it is significantly less disturbing than white noise or other maskings sounds.

 

The ECOG has caused further damage to your ears. Same thing with me after I did the Caloric/VEMP. My tinnitus sky rocketed from 2/10 to a 9/10 and remained since. I also developed mild-moderate hearing loss and obtained severe hyperacusis on my right ear. It has been since Jan 17-19 and things have not improved one bit for me. My T can be heard over everything just not shower our loud traffic. I can hear it over TV, conversations, running faucets full blast.

 

Same here no improvement. Reactivity of tinnitus decreased but loudness and hyperacusis is the same.

The world is cruel. Lets enjoy what we can enjoy of it

 

True.

 

Does anyone know of an ACRN app for iOS? (Just switched to iPhone and I don’t see any such apps in the App Store.)
Alternatively has anyone figured out a way to allow generalfuzz’s page to work even with the screen off?

 

From what I heard This only provides minutes of temporary relief and is difficult to use.

 

How are you holding up @Dizzyhead888.

 

I found out what the main reason is that the ACRN program doesn't work on IOS. It uses a library to produce sounds called Audiolet. But in testing other apps/pages which use Audiolet none of them work in IOS either.

So if @generalfuzz knows of another library to slip into place that would be an area of improvement.

 

you can run the acrn on mac using chrome (not safari). The app no longer relies on audiolet.

 

Can this help low frequency bass sounding tinnitus ?

 

I suspect it depends on what causes it. If it's due to the hypothesized maladaptive plasticity that increased amplification around that frequency, then I don't see why it wouldn't just perform as well as with other frequencies.

 

For those interested, here are the results of the Reset2 Study looking at the effectiveness of ACRN from the creators of the therapy themselves;
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5681957/

Unfortunately, the results were "inconclusive". This took everyone by surprise, and it may be a study design issue more than anything else. They did try to implement a placebo group into the study, but how they did it left some obvious open questions for the results, and not a true 'control' group.

They need to redo the study once redesigned.

I'm set up with an audiologist next month and I know this will be one of the therapies that will be offered. I'm just researching everything I can right now before I drop large amounts of money on sounds therapies that may or may not help. In reading this forum, it looks like the results are mixed. Some derive significant benefit, while others seem to get very minimal to no benefit.

I've used the linked page for the 'do it yourself ACRN', and I'm going to commit to at least 2 hours a day to see if it may help. My T is weird though. I can't seem to get an exact pitch match. Close seems to be around 6K or just a bit under, but there is something that is missing.

Anyway, just thought I would post that link for 2017 data on where the industry stands on ACRN.

 

I know what you mean, I am trying it myself but i can not only find my tone properly but it's like i have the high pitch but then some more complex noise there. Anyway I think i found a close match and I am just wondering if I can use ACRN without headphones (just on speakers etc)

 

Not sure. It seems like all the manufacturers of music therapy, be it Neuromonics, Notched Music, CR Neuromodulation, etc. do their evaluations with high fidelity headphones as the delivery method. I don't think it could hurt to just use speakers, but not sure how that will affect efficacy.

 

So I just tried this today and it seems to quieten my tinnitus, not sure if it's residual inhibition or not... Has anyone tried listening to it overnight? Would that even work or do I have to be awake for it? I'm on speakers so far as I haven't used headphones since my tinnitus got really bad, but I'm wondering if it'd work...

 

It’s been a long time for me since I’ve used this at all. I don’t know if overnight is a good idea. I really didn’t know what I was doing though. I had my audiology report that indicated which frequency was out for me but choosing frequencies in this treatment seemed to be hit or miss. I adjusted them around during the months I was trying.

Sometimes I literally got silence for a few hours after 30 mins of listening then other times I’d suffer even worse the next few days. I could never make rhyme or reason out of it.

I’ve had tinnitus for years now, my suggestion is whatever you try, be willing to suffer for a few days. If it gets worse -ok- you were prepared for that. If it works - super bonus good luck.

 

I have had T for about 50 years. Probably from tool use and high volume music. Many different sounds crickets, millions of locust, some drums, and in the last year triangles - switching from one ear to the other. Best I have been able to calculate at about 38db. It is hard to tell how much hearing loss I have because the T is louder than most voices. No way I can here in crowded places. I am getting pretty good a reading lips.

 

I tried the free tool twice. My tinnitus frequency is around 8400, so pretty high. I did it for the last half hour from work. I had a solid minute of silence followed by the loudest tinnitus I've experienced and out of both ears. I came home and was able to use it around 45 minutes and after taking it off, the tinnitus was there, but I felt detached from it for a few minutes, then more loud ringing out of both ears (on a normal day only my right ear acts up.) I didn't play it too loud I thought, just tried to bring it over the tinnitus level. I'm new to trying to reduce or cure my tinnitus, so I may have had some things wrong.

 

I have a very high pitched T. which must be something around 10.5k-11k, when I use tools to measure it. (Not always easy). So it happens that this super-high pitched Tinnitus is also the upper border of my hearing frequency. (I am not the youngest either)

Your tool generates 4 tones, with 2 of them (much) higher than the one you put in as your T. So if as in my case the T. is very high and basically on the upper frequency what you can hear, then I can hear only 2 tones since the other 2 which are out of my hearing range. (Eg. enter 11k, and it will have one 12k and one 14k). I am pretty sure this isn't intended.

 

Have to say, third time I did it for about an hour and a half. Definitely lowered my tinnitus level a bit, though it's starting to come back, but not as strong as it was.

 

I've tried it at work today and it's either helping or I'm having a good T day. Either way it's a welcome relief!

 

Does this treatment work if you can't objectively ascertain the pitch of your tinnitus?
I think mine is at least 14000 hz, closer to 15000 hz, but I'm not sure. I have very mild Morse code in my left ear (that I don't care about) and very loud high pitch hiss in the left side of my head that's kinda spreading to the center + some mild wind nose in my right ear (inaudible unless in absolute silence).
Does this treatment has potential for this type of tinnitus?
I'm willing to do this treatment, but I'm not sure how to find the correct frequency.
Does ~1000 hz frequency difference makes an impact on treatment efficacy?

 

For me, I came from broadcasting and my "hiss" level is the same as tape hiss which I learned from broadcasting was around 8khz. I can't hear anything past 12K, but I'm in my 50s so that's not so bad. 20-20khz hearing is unfortunately for the young.

 

Guys!!

If you have a high T. like I have (10k and higher), check out this one:

https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/neuromodulationTonesGenerator.php?l=0000250041000045587000&m=&d=0

There are some presets as well, in the URL above I have my preset which I played around yesterday which I subjectively found working well for high pitched Tinnitus.

The principle is similar as with these 4 tones..but as mentioned, the method covered here in this thread doesn't work well at very high tones (15k+) and not well at 10k+. (Since it would create two tones which you simply can't hear). (You can see this if you run the "old version" of the tool from this OP where it shows you the frequencies).

That link above also creates pseudo-random tones, and I found these random tones and the shifting/warbling especially in the high freqs very effective. Try it out and play with these settings!

** As for these devices in general, and mind you I learned about this CR neuromodulation technique just a couple of days ago, I find it outright hideous to charge people $5k for what is essentially a primitive tone generator. There is nothing super-involved to it, and everything this $5k device does you can do with a super-easy app or software on a phone/PC...like the OP did on his website. The pricing alone for these devices, I can't help, screams "scam" to me, even if the underlying principle may well be "sound". (Pun intended). TLDR: You should be able to get the same results with an app/website and a pair of $5 earplugs, if you ask me.

 

I'm getting good results with this ACRN, for a few weeks I'm doing only like twice a day for 10 minutes, sometimes it's almost gone but overall like 50% lower (not using headphones, just speaker).

I started off by listening to ACRN for 2 or 3 hours, but that didn't help, the short 10 minutes seem to reset the brain better.

I have a 4 kHz steady tone in one ear.

Also I recorded it for like a minute with my mobile phone from my laptop, handy when no internet and working fine as well.

Many thanks to developer.

Also there is another app with more settings possible: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.appyhapps.tinnitusmassage

Peter

 

I started last week to experiment with this for my "Typewriter Tinnitus". I found or believe it has 4.980Hz which is very like a tonal tone. My hearing isn't bad so I can hear all the stimulation tones. I read you can adjust the single tones to your hearing- how can I do that? Actually I am using my iPhone just set my Tone and listen to the stimulation.

It does definitely mask my tinnitus and achieve some Residual Inhibition during the stimulation.
With this I can work for 8 hours much much better than without! My brain gets messed up and I can't focus on the typewriter tinnitus anymore and that is relaxing me.
I use it for approx. 8 hours a day even though they recommend 6 hours.

But otherwise it is so hard for me to survive, therefore I found some "relief" with the ACRN by @generalfuzz.

Thanks so much! I hope I can cope with this strategy until Neuromod releases its Lenire bimodal stimulation system.

Please never shut down this site @generalfuzz! YOU ARE SAVING MY LIFE - thanks so much!!!

 

I must be missing the boat - what does RI mean? I've looked everywhere. Thanks!

 

Residual inhibition.

 

I'm sorry. I looked it up, but can't figure out - what exactly is the ECOG you are talking about? Thanks.

 

I am so low tech... LOL! Mine is 14,000 Hz per my audiologist last week...