Hypnotherapy / Hypnosis for Tinnitus

I have been dabbling with using hypnosis for T.

I have listened to "Rob's hypnosis for tinnitus" on the following youtube link for about 2 weeks ..

Rob's Hypnosis Session for...

It brought some relaxation and good psychological comfort.

I got a subscription to Audionotch
Uploaded an MP3 of the hypnosis file to Audionotch to create a notch centered around my T frequency: 7070 Hz.
Downloaded the file and put on my small listening device at night.

I was hoping the double whammy of notched sound file coupled with hypnosis would bear fruit.
Mediocre results ... cannot tell either way yet.
They say do it for 3 to 6 months.

Also, I just downloaded Glenn Harrold's Overcome Tinnitus from iTunes online.
It has more special effects than Rob's and I have experienced his excellent deep sleep hypnosis file since 2007.
I will start using a notched version of it tonight.

I think hypnosis should be one of the cornerstones in a multi approach treatment for T.
Almost all studies show that T is a malfunction in the brain.
Brain creates a phantom noise to over compensate for hearing loss or abnormal signal transmission from inner ear to brain.

Using the power of your subconscious would seem a logical way to overcome T and I am throwing myself at this.
Let your brain fix your brain.
If there is an overcompensation mechanism in your brain, then why could your brain (powered by subconsciousness) not fix the malfunction?

T Freq: 7070hz
T Irritation: 2.5 on scale of 10
I'm 3 months into this journey.

 

I tried some videos on YouTube and for me they didn't help at all. Not sure if this will differ person to person but it was a waste of time for me

 

I was in touch with a friend who teaches self hypnosis, he is certified and is a true expert. I live in Mexico part time and he lives there as well. He truly believes that he can work with me when I arrive this summer and can help. Much of his work as been helping people with chronic pain learn to live with it. I know some people that he has helped with pain and also smoking cessation. He's a great person and I have faith that he can, at a minimum, teach me relaxation techniques. Basically it's all in the same boat - hypnosis, meditation, mind body work. It makes sense that if you really work at it, and believe it will work, it should help to some degree.

 

I thought about hypnosis when I first read Kevin Hogan's book after I got tinnitus back in 2006 b/c he was/is a big proponent, but I never went through with it. He started selling his own CDs for self-hypnosis work and I -like many others - started to think he was in it only for the money and that the hypnosis part was a scam, even if he did struggle with and beat tinnitus at some point.

I've had a horrible spike recently that seems to be permanent and so all options including hypnosis are again on the table, but, no, I haven't taken that particular plunge yet.

 

Anyone have any success with hypnosis?

 

@Mark L I use self-hypnosis to help me go to sleep. It helps to push the tinnitus into the background. Every session begins with deep breathing. As I inhale, I think to myself, "Breathe in calm." As I exhale, I think to myself, "Breathe out tinnitus," and imagine the tinnitus leaving my body each time I exhale. I do this about 10 times, and then begin the "trance" exercise, so to speak. For me, it's important to lie on my back during this process, which is a position that a lot of people aren't comfortable with when they go to bed. Kind of reminds them of lying in a coffin

I'm fairly easy to hypnotize, plus I have been doing self-hypnosis off and on for over 40 years, so I don't know how effective hypnosis would be for anyone else. It hasn't made the tinnitus go away, but sometimes in the morning when I wake up with very loud tinnitus I can get it to calm down a bit with the deep breathing exercises.

It's certainly worth a try if you have a qualified hypnotherapist in your area.

 

Not everybody can be hypnotized. It can work for some but not for others. I did try it but it didn't work for me.

 

Tried self hypnosis no joy. Its just so damn loud, cant sleep as we speak. desperate.

 

It took about 2 weeks of doing the deep breathing technique before I began to get results. It's been about 3 months now, and I fall asleep most nights without any trouble, even when the tinnitus is loud like a swarm of cicadas. It's really hard to train your mind to focus elsewhere with all that noise going on in your head, but it's worth it. For what it's worth, I don't take any prescription meds and I don't use any masking devices. No audio, no fan, nothing. I go to sleep in a dark and quiet room.

My suggestion is that you not attempt self-hypnosis with the goal of getting rid of the tinnitus. That's too high a mountain to climb. Just keep trying the deep breathing. While you're doing that, don't monitor the T to see if it's fading even a little bit. If you do, it will jerk you right back into an alert state and the T will return to the level where it was before. Believe me, it's happened to me more than a few times, and then I have to start all over and focus as best I can on the deep breathing.

 

Did you ever take meds Cheza?

 

No meds. Since last year, I have taken a boatload of supplements, though. The ones that seemed to help are Bioflavonoids from Nature's Life; idebenone, which is a "smart drug"; and GABA and niacin. I take one 500mg GABA with a 100mg niacin about 15 minutes before bedtime, and another GABA when I go to bed.

I've been taking NAC for a year, for hearing protection. I also started taking Thyroid Energy, made by Now, a couple months ago and it has made a bit of a difference. One of the ingredients is ashwaganda which is supposed to help with tinnitus. It's an adaptogen, said to promote the body's ability to handle stress, which is definitely an issue with me.

My other supplements are routine healthcare supplements, like magnesium, melatonin, that sort of thing. I would take those anyway, regardless of tinnitus.

 

thanx for the advice

 

You're welcome. You might need to experiment with different supplements and combos of supplements. Your GP should be willing to give you meds to help you sleep. I think Remeron has been mentioned on this forum as helping some of the members here.

Either way, I hope you find something that gives you relief. You're only 1 month into T, and the first few months are the hardest. You might find that the T begins to lessen as time goes on, all on its own.

 

Keep waking every morning and think, I am going crazy, flip flopping between t and mental illness, making myself crazy I think

 

Try reading the Back to Silence thread and following the procedure that I Who Love Music swears has helped him. Read the entire thread, because there are good suggestions on there for how to cope with loud intrusive T. Since you're so early into T, it's a good time to start retraining your brain and how you talk to yourself about the T. Right now you're in the overwhelmed stage and so it's very important to stop that beast in its tracks as much as possible.

The procedure outlined by I Who Love Music has definitely helped some members here. I tried it and noticed a slight decrease, but then kind of stopped doing it because frankly I just got weary of trying things. My next step is to try Silvine's method, which is also included in the thread.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/back-to-silence.7172/

 

@Cheza, couldn't see the Silvine's thread you mentioned.

 

Mark, it's part of the Back to Silence thread and not a separate thread. Here's the link to where Silvine begins to explain his technique. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/back-to-silence.7172/page-3 It's about the fourth post down. Keep reading from there, because he answers questions from that point forward.

 

@Cheza thanks. Read onwards don't know how staring in the mirror at myself will help but hey. i am desperate.

 

So... my girlfriend went for a hypnosis session today , dealing with trauma issues.
Said it was awesome and told me in no uncertain terms that I was going as well.
Of course I do like I am told and I am booking a session .
Apparently she has a few T clients and she can "allegedly" help with stress issues as well.

Anyone tried hypnosis?

 

Yes, another $400.00 wasted.

 

If a hipnotize can make you forget things, like a number for instance
How come they can't help us not hear the noise.

 

Hello. I hope that this doesn't count as spamming but I thought I'd join and contribute, having found this forum.

I am a hypnotherapist working in the UK. I am pretty much always seeing a tinnitus client or two and can say that I have a good success rate with them. I get some of these clients referred to me (unofficially, a form of 'you might want to look at this person's site' suggestion) by Oxford's audiology department.

So, despite the negative experiences of people on this board I really wanted to contribute in order that some may not be put off trying it out.

I would add the following caveats:

1. There may not be a great many hypnotherapists who are aware of the nature of tinnitus (I attended some specialist training) and so some may be tempted to try to use some inappropriate techniques which have little or no hope of proving effective.

2. It's not something a hypnotherapist can do for you. I'm not in the business of fixing people. I help people to solve their own problems. I help my tinnitus clients to use certain approaches in order to habituate faster than is generally achieved by other therapies (white noise and the like) alone. I have no magic wand.

3. In the UK, at least, psychotherapy is unregulated. Anybody can attend a weekend's course and call themselves a hypnotherapist, counsellor or psychotherapist. In fact, why bother taking a course? Do it now. There's nothing stopping you. My training was four years in duration and I wouldn't refer to anybody whose training took less than a year. Take the time to do some research into the training of those therapists in your area.

4. Rapport is quite vital. He or she may be the best qualified therapist in your area, but if you don't believe you can build a therapeutic alliance with them then go elsewhere.

So, I would suggest that anybody interested in working with a hypnotherapist should get on the 'phone and ask some difficult questions:

a) What do you understand by the term 'habituation?'
b) How will your methods help me to habituate to the sound?
c)what's the difference between objective and subjective tinnitus?
d)What is TRT?

If anybody has done any proper research on this topic then they'll be able to answer and you will know that they may well know enough to be able to help you.

I work with my clients using hypnotherapy and mindfulness, in order to help speed up the process of habituation. I use other psychotherapeutic techniques too, to help my clients process that stress and anxiety which exists independently of tinnitus and which may well lie behind the fact that they find tinnitus problematic whereas many others do not.

I said goodbye to another tinnitus client yesterday. Three months ago she was having some very bleak thoughts about the prospects of a future. After four sessions she was mostly habituated. A couple more to deal with underlying issues and the process was complete. She still hears it a little but it doesn't bother her. She actually said 'I now feel quite grateful to have it, it has made me sort out the rest of my life'. I can't imagine her having said that three months ago.

Anyway, please don't dismiss it. If you can find someone who knows about it and if you can strike up a good rapport then you could well benefit.

Best wishes to you all

Paul Hughes

 

Thank you for joining the forum. Just out of (my own) curiosity, how would you answer the questions above? And in particular, I wonder why (c) was included in the way it was i.e. would it not be better to require the hypnotist to ask the client as to whether he/she has been examined by an ENT before consultation with you or another hypnotist?

My own opinion: I do think that hypnosis possibly could be effective for milder cases of tinnitus.

 

Why don't you offer free hypnotherapy sessions to some British members here and they can report how it works

 

I have tried it and not a great deal to report although I felt very relaxed .Glad I tried it and sure it can help some depending on the cause

Eltel

 

Hi there

I would reply to the questions as outlined on my website. I'm not here to pass any tests, even those set by my own self, since I'm not here to win any clients. I simply offered an opinion as to the value of hypnotherapy and the methods by which people on this forum might find a suitable therapist, to be discounted or taken into account as the recipient wishes. The (c) question was simply suggested as a means of gauging any potential therapist's knowledge. There's no intrinsic value to it. Objective or subjective, the distress is the same.

Yes, I certainly do ask whether the client has consulted their GP.I almost needn't bother, however. Hypnotherapy is usually the last port of call once they've exhausted the medical route and have grown impatient with whatever therapy is offered them.

'Milder tinnitus'. I don't think this exists in any objectively measurable form. What is important is the level of distress experienced as a result of tinnitus of any nature or volume. Those whose tinnitus has led them to the brink of suicide are obviously going to pose more of a challenge than those who merely find it a severe irritant. I've worked with both.

Free sessions? If I were newly qualified or desperate for clients I would do so. As it is I offer a sliding scale of fees according to income - reserving some slots for those who can pay no more than my costs (room rent plus petrol / gas). This is as far as I can go, having a family to support, considerable overheads, and finding few other professions prepared to offer even these concessions.

Depending on the cause? I find that the cause is largely irrelevant - unless the cause is that which medical interventions can resolve alone. A sound is a sound and the job is to habituate to that sound. My chronic pain clients may have real physical causes behind their experience or psychosomatic pain, for which no cause can be found. It matters not. Their experience is valid and similar methods can help them learn to habituate to the sensations experienced.

Best wishes

Paul

 

True (in terms of distress). But objective tinnitus may have a potential treatment option (hence the reason to see an ENT in advance of therapy). This was my point.

 

Yes, agreed. I think I covered that, although this was in an edit which may have come between your reading my reply and my reading yours. It's a poor therapist who'd take money from a client when the cause might be directly resolved through more conventional means.

 

Yeah i have seen that reasoning before,nice hypnosis there lol.

 

I saw the potential for the comment to be interpreted in different ways as I clicked 'send'. Nevermind.

Hypnotherapy is always the last port of call. I understand that fully. Plenty of my clients arrive in a position of doubt, unless they're one of the growing band of clients who come because their friends tell them of me. Those who arrive in doubt as to the potential efficacy of the approach have tried everything else. I'm pretty much always the last ditch solution.

I was once of the same opinion. I'm not some sandal-wearing, joss-stick burning afficionado of all things esoteric. I went to see a hypnotherapist for smoking cessation, having absolutely no faith in it and having previously laughed off any suggestion that it could be of use to anybody. I had, however, tried everything else and was ready for giving it a try. It was the success of this experience which led me me into training to do it myself. Well, that and a spot of counselling, which I had always disdained too.

So, I understand the scepticism.

Nevertheless, my experience is that it helps and that my clients tend to leave happy with the results. I could be a charlatan, I could be deluded, my clients could be very good actors. I could, however, be right. Perhaps hypnotherapy could be of benefit. Up to you all to find out or remain sceptical.

If you do decide to find out I'd advise you to investigate the training of the therapists in your area, to ask the questions outlined above and to ensure that you have confidence in your ability to develop a rapport with the therapist you choose.

Don't expect a one session wonder. This isn't magic. Whilst training I did plenty of reading on neuroscience and consciousness. Writers like Damasio, Doidges and Gladwell do a great deal to explain how the mind works and how hypnotherapy can help people to change perceptions and responses to stimuli. They don't mention hypnotherapy, of course, but they do explain - without realising - how problems arise and how the work which we do can be of benefit.

So, hypnotherapy isn't about some stage hypnotist waving a magic wand and transforming you in a puff of smoke and in an instant. It will take a little time and effort on your part. It can, however, be done.

Best wishes

Paul