Cured Tinnitus and Hyperacusis

Hello my Name is Helmut from Germany - (please excuse my bad english)

I suffered from tinnitus and hyperacusis for about 4 Jears. It was a night in a very loud club which was reasonable for my inner ear damage.
The first thing I realised was that I am alone and did not really get any help by doctors. (Of course I received cortison and medications for better blood circulation but this did not help in any way)
So I was looking up a lot at the internet to find help. I think most people here did or do the same. After a certain time I found a webpage wich explained, that it is absolutely necessary for the healing process to protect the ears with ear plugs (they also offered treatmets with lasers, but this was too expansive for me in that time). So I used the earplugs for more than one jear. In this time I realised a change in the tinnitus. First the hyperacusis increased terrible, but the guys there explained to me that this is normal and necessary, so I weard the plugs. After one year the tinnitus became better. Than I read about vitamin b12 and I took this also for several month. With this combination of earplugs and vitamin b12 the tinnitus finally became much better.
Than I had a terrible familiar situation (Christmas is not good for tinnitus) and all came back to the beginning perhapes worse - I don´t really know. So I had to find a way out of this desaster and as my financial situation was better than at the beginning I decided a treatment with Laser. This therapy was over two weeks and I did not instantly feel a changing, but after a few weeks the sound got less and less. Of course Iweard my ear plugs all the time. Mr Kaiser, the lumomed therapist also made a kind of personal coaching wich was very helpful for my familiar and emotional behaviour and situation. He explained to me that it is absolutely necessary to try to solve emotional especially familiar problems because they can cause a very dangerous kind of stress wich can also be reasonable for tinnitus like noise. Now I am free of tinnitus since more than one year and this is why I want to tell you about my story and treatment, as I want to help other people to get out of this illness.
In Germany I am in contact with more than 200 people who suffer from tinnitus and I try to give as much information about all my "tinnitushistory" as possible. (you can find very helpful informations on this website: www.lumomed.de )

I hope that a lot of you can also find a therapist or a solution for this terrible illness. So never give up hope!!!!!

 

Wow. That's great. You need to talk to @attheedgeofscience. He would be the first to congratulate you. And so do I!

 

Who is that? Thanks for gratulations

 

I have to say, that the therapy was not only a treatment with lasers. The therapist helped me with a combination of lasertreatment and a personal psychologic training because of my very difficult familiar situation which influenced my tinnitus very hard. The therapists name is Amon Kaiser from Baden-Baden in Germany

 

Hallo Helmut.
I am also from Germany, with stress-induced Tinnitus.
Would be very interested in details of your treatment.
I have no Hyperacusis, therefore I do not plug my ears.
Laser therapy is oftentimes described as useless, so I haven't gone that route yet.
Best regards,
Martin

 

Glad to hear that you have got better Helmut, it's always excellent to hear success stories.

There isn't a robust body of research to back Laser therapy up that I can see, if you look at their website they do admit that it isn't a recognised therapy:

In spite of numerous studies about Low-Level-Laser therapy for the treatment of hearing problems, this therapy is still discussed controversially by German orthodox medicine. Thus, it is so far only a complementary treatment.

To me this says that the studies have not been adequately controlled clinical trials, so cannot be relied upon as evidence. This is most likely why they also use other therapy alongside the laser treatment.

I would like to see trials and research carried out by the clinic, maybe they can prove how many people it has helped; did they present you with some evidence before you started the treatment?

 

Hello everyone. I'm new to the forum. I've worked as a Psychologist for over 30 years. 14 years was in the U.S. Air Force followed by 8 years working in a state mental health system as director of psychiatric rehab an then private practice. I've experienced T for several years but it has become increasingly intense the past 8 years. I look forward to learning from all of you.

 

Well I think the Lasertherapy alone was successfull, but I had to change a lot in my live. Mr. Kaiser made a very special personal coaching I´ve never heard before. It is a kind of trainig how to behave in situations that cause emotional stress. And especialy to "recreate the own psychological structures" . He said to me, that if I do not solve my problems, the laser is regenerating the inner ear cells, but if I stress them continious they cannot be cured. And I have to say it was not a easy way to be confronted with all that psychological stuff, but at the end I have to say every way is better than living with that tinnitus noise in the ear!!
Steve, I think what you say is correct, the lasertherapy is not provided by "normal Doctors who work for the insurance casses" only from "private doctors" here in Germany, but we have a health system that causes very strange situations. Not every new therapy is automaticaly proven by the clinics. Normalwise the developpers need realy a lot of money to be financial "strong enough" to get a chance that their products or therapies are proven by clinics (that´s the desaster of medical "free market").
I can say this because I had to pay a lot of money with another illness (autoimmun skin illness) wich could not be cured by all the doctors I´ve consultet. So I went to a private doctor who sold me special creams and homöopthic medicine. It was very expensive but helpful. It was the same thing. It was not proven by clinics, very expansive but it helped! - so I believe that there are a lot of good therapies which do not really have a chance to be brought to other patients, but they are helpfull and without any lobby.

 

Helmet congrats on your success. I'm finding that Europe seems to have a lot more care for T. than the US. My only is guess is they do not have the same regulations as here. I believe I did find a link to your doctor at http://www.lumomed.de/ I was able to right click in my web browser to translate to English. Thanks for your post

 

Hello Chrisarti,

what do you mean with regulations?

 

If I read correctly, you started your therapy after suffering with tinnitus for several years, so it was chronic by then? Did you wear the earplugs for "normal" noise, such as walking on the street? Also, was your tinnitus loud or more of the kind that is heard mostly at home with closed windows?

I've had it for several years, now getting slightly worse although not loud yet, so I'm searching for ways to reduce the volume.

 

Fantastic to hear Helmut
@Chrisarti being in Europe I can tell you it's absolutely no different, except for the regulations

 

Great news @HelmutK.
Well done for persisting and never giving up!

 

Thank you very much for all your positive feedback. (here in Germany this is not normal - you get a lot of negative reactions in forums if you write about your success.)
@Frederick86 : Yes it was a chronic Tinnitus for over 4 years. The tinnitus was very loud and annoying during the whole day and night. I couldn´t sleep normal because I woke up several times per night because of the very hight sound in my ears.
With the earplugs it bacame much better. Iweared them the whole day even in my appartement but not during the night as my appartement is quiet during the night. As it became all worse after my "special familiar situation" the plugs didn´t help any more so I had to do something more effective. But perhapes the plugs couold also help you - I hope so (by the way I also took Vit B12!)

I wish you all "quiet ears"!

 

Hello Helmut,
I am having terrible trouble psychologically adjusting to tinnitus. I am a very emotional person and my tinnitus feels even worse when i am trying to talk to loved family members. I even find it impossible to smile. I can't watch tv with them or go places with them, etc. I am interested what you said about dangerous stress and building new psychological structures. If there's any key notes and help you can give us here, i would be very grateful. I think this would be important to discuss. thank you for coming to talk to us.
John

 

@john2012 Your situations seems to be really terrible! And I think you should contact Mr Kaiser for professional help, because I think it is very hard to give you a key to come out of your situation. But I can tell you how he worked with me:
The first step was to identify my "psychologigal trigger points" - that means for example my dad always said to me that I will not be successfull in my live because I am a "dreamer". So I tried everything to be successfull to avoid feeling this "pain" again. And most of my social contacts press on this trigger point so I am fuctionating like a mashine. As soon as anybody just gives me the impression that there could come up the feeling "I´m not succesfull - I´m a dreamer" I start doing everything to avoid this. Of course this is a massiv stress - I am a perfectionist.
So this was the first stepp to realise which are all my "trigger points".
A very interesting exercise by the way. In my case but this is individual complete different to other persons the second step was that I should confront myself with this trigger points (not so nice experience). Over several weeks the "programm" that was installed in my brain began to change. I could say that I began to accept my individuality without being successfull and today I think I can say I am happy being a dreamer and very "unperfect". But of course these triggerpoint are still there so I have to go on with working with myself.

As you can see this is a very individual way of treatment and I think it is necessary to have a professional therapist who cares for you. Like you descibed not to be able to smile anymore you shouldn´t wast time! I think smiling is like medicine to our soul!!
best whishes
Helmut

 

Good stuff! Has your hearing improved as well?

 

Hi Helmut, nice to read about your success story.
Finally someone who made it !!
I wish to ask you a question: why, being in Germany, do not have evaluated treatment of Dr. TASS, the coordinated reset ?
It speaks well in literature. Why?

 

Interesting, I have a friend that suffered for two years , then started using earplugs all the time.
He is fully cured now. It kind of makes sense to me that we would need silence to heal.
Did you start using earplugs because of the hypercusis or T ?

 

If I wear earplugs, my T skyrockets and stays that way for a period of time. I don't know if this is the same for everyone or not. I wonder if wearing earplugs constantly, your brain focuses in on the T and then learns to cancel it out over time or healing actually occurs? I've never understood why the auditory hair cells can not heal if given the proper treatment. A wound will never heal if you keep picking at the scab. Our entire body down to the cells is designed to heal to some degree. Maybe the correct ear plug and decibel reduction is like a band aid to the ears? Wild thought here... The hearing of babies in the womb is developed by week 16 so maybe 20-24 weeks of muffled hearing with ear plugs will help ears heal?

 

Well yeah, It certainly makes sense on an untuitive level. Also , we have therapies like notched music therapy. Wearing earplugs certainly mimics that , cutting out the hi freq at least.
I have even thought about someone designing earplugs that notch out your T freq and just wear that for a few months rather then listening to notched music.

 

When I first got my T I wore earplugs a lot, to block any sounds from causing damage and to protect myself. It is an intuitive thing to think, it makes perfect sense.

All I got from doing this was hyperacusis, plus my tinnitus got worse from focusing on it constantly.

But I can't say how it will work for others, especially along with other therapeutic interventions at the same time.

 

Yup, I did not do this because I was afraid of hypercusis.

 

I did this at the start, protected like crazy, and it seemed to be helping. My T dropped a lot! I swear my ears were healing. I did this for 3 months after the onset. Almost no noise, not even the TV. I did develop hyperacusis but the T was reducing. Only after talking to doctors and the experts in my area did I decided to quit this. They stated i was overprotecting. I started playing a lot of hockey and getting on with my life. My right ear is WAY worse than my is left now. I believe this to be from shooting the puck, I am right handed. Anyone that plays hockey knows how loud a slap shot can be. My right ear being the one that was exposed closest to the shot is still bad or even worse than at the beginning. My left however, got about 30 percent better (ear facing away from the shot). At the beginning both ears were identical. I think that in the early stages there is some chance for recovery but believe that what is done now, is done. I think what happens in the first few months determines what your T will be like for the rest of your life. That's my experience anyway. I had ototoxic ear poisoning, unilaterally, both ears exact same damage. Now the right one is a huge issue for me. I highly doubt this to be coincidence. If I could turn down my right ear to the level of the left I would be one happy guy. But I guess who knows, maybe it would work again like it did for Helmut!

 

@HelmutK. Did u only use b12?

 

Agree, you want to block out loud environments but still expose your ears to natural sounds.

For example, I keep my ears plugged around noisy traffic but unplug them when relaxing at home.

I also keep my ears plugged at the gym because the music is always louder than it should be.

Ervan,

With regards to vitamin supplements try your B group vitamins but also magnesium and zinc. Deficiencies in these are known to cause tinnitus.

 

Hello Steve is your H gone, I have T about 10 weks and I am getting H, lots of people on the site says , it usually goes, It is painful ,I get when I am on the phone, when the noise is pearcing!..Please let me know. any info will help, Thanks

 

Yes my H has gone. It took some time but it went.

I do still dislike using phones, a bit of a psychological connection rather than a painful H one. A mobile / cell phone makes my T worse when I use it to my ear so I only use speaker phone now.

 

How long did it take for the H to go?, and did you do anything in particular..I only use ear plugs for loud noise , Church, dances, went to a lot before T and H now I am afraid to go..Thanks for your info.

 

Hello Markd , do you use custom ear plugs ? I use Walmart' s and they do not work proplerly. need to get some new ear plugs.