Hi All — A Quick Intro

My name is Bri and I am a 63 year old semi-retired Chartered Electrical Engineer. I have had tinnitus since 1975, basically as a result of to many rock concerts and listening to loud music in my long passed youth !! This was exacerbated by a more recent incident in 2002 where I had to disable an activated car alarm in my garage which exposed me to more than 100dB for a minute or so.

I am aware that there are no miracle cures and am sceptical of most "therapies", but wouldn't rule anything out. I have learned to live with my tinnitus, but it can be very loud and debilitating at times. It would be lovely to be able to switch it off and I hope that someday someone will crack the problem for all sufferers of this awful affliction.

Out of interest, I have recently heard about The Tinnitus Clinic in the UK (Harley St based outfit) offering a number of treatments based on the outcomes of a detailed 90min initial assessment, including tympanometry; pure tone audiometry (PTA) and uncomfortable loudness level testing (ULL) - the latter for hyperacusis I believe. The subsequent treatments range from Tinnitus Desensitisation Therapy to their Accoustic Coordinated Reset Neuromodulation. The latter has apparently been developed at the Julich Research Centre in Germany and involves a "device" tuned to your tinnitus that retrains your hearing/brain over time to significantly reduce the level of your tinnitus if not pretty much remove it. From what I can ascertain, The Tinnitus Clinic appears to be a genuine organisation with impeccable credentials, but with associated hefty price tags for its assessment and treatments. I would be interested to know if any of the readers out there have had any experience of this organisation and its therapies and would either recommend or caution against using them??

 

I treated my hyperacusis with keppra...Me and Viking have tried this and both our hyperacusis has gone...It's also fixed my reactive tinnitus. This is a quote from viking regarding keppra and hyperacusis.

"Small update;
the doctor who prescribed the Keppra on me in december of past year, it being administered to patients who had previously received some relief from the combination of gabapentin + clonazepam. The results seem to be encouraging, especially in the group of patients who suffer from tinnitus unilateral not tonal but white noise, narrowband noise linked with Misophonia or hyperacusis. After 3 months of testing, the maximum dosage of 2000mg per day were obtained the following results:
1) Reduction of tinnitus NOT TONAL from 6 to 3. Disappearance of "tinnitus reactivity". Disappearance of Misophonia (FULL).
Drastic reduction of the headaches associated with iperacusia.The patients have improvement in mood and in their ability to react to their situation of suffering. 2 persons have abandoned the use of SSRIs and are climbing out the use of benzodiazepines.
2) If the tinnitus is tonal, no relevant difference. (not lucky people)
3) If there are hyperacusis or Misophonia, after a month of treatment, the symptoms begin to weigh less on quality of life.
4) In patients who did not obtain benefits, was prescribed the Flexiban (Flexeril ... always cyclobenzaprine), with good results on tinnitus tonal, general tension, hyperacusis and headaches. It is noted that these patients have problems related to the neck or jaw or to the structure of the dental arches. Very common side effects that lead patients to abandon the following therapy are excessive sedation or tachycardia. Flexiban has a structure similar to Tegretol. Both are "cousins" of tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptyline or nortriptyline that already in the past have been shown to have some efficacy in the tensive states, headaches or migraine, hyperacusis, generalized anxiety.
It is hoped that these results are permanent, in view of a future development of Biviracetam (enhanced version of Levetiracetam x10) who @Danny Boy is most active in the research, the suffers may have some help with a drug already tested and without serious side effects, avalaibilty and low price."

 

Thanks for that Danny Boy. I may have misled by the mention of hyperacusis in reference to the proposed clinic treatments - I definitely don't suffer from that and would also be cautious of embarking on any drug related treatment with potential side effects, but the advice is nevertheless appreciated.