In Search of Helpful Ideas for My Tinnitus — It's Been Lately Getting Louder

New to this forum but not to the tinnitus. I've been doing some testing with frequency masking of my 6 kHz ish, left ear frequency jet engine in my head. Got the idea from learning how noise canceling headphones work. Am an electronics hobbyist and musician and thought that even though you couldn't record the sound from your brain, you may be able to mask it.

I see in this forum that this concept isn't new. I've learned on my own that if I start with a recorded 6 kHz waveform from a frequency generator into a DAW and duplicate the track, then invert one of the copies, no sound is emitted when both tracks are played back. None what-so-ever! Have tried this on other random music tracks with the same result. Absolutely no sound is produced. Just need to find a way to "monitor" my tinnitus outside my head to make it work since as noted before, there can be many frequencies contained in the noise.

In fact, when attempting to isolate my frequency, once reaching the 6 kHz level, I could almost imagine that my frequency was an octave higher? Of course I couldn't hear anything higher in the left ear as 6 kHz seems to be the top of my actual hearing range. My right ear hears much higher frequencies but even listening with the right ear plugged and only into the left one doesn't seem to help isolating the mask (if that's even what I'm trying to do).

I tried the audio sounds offered with the intro here but all only added to the tinnitus tone. Another interesting note, there are certain times when it really screams (when waking up for example) that would seem to indicate that something physical like blood pressure, chemical balance, or other internal dynamic is at work. I've studied the cause of tinnitus as a product of nerve decay with age (my case I believe) or damage so gave up long ago as to a cure but lately with it getting louder all the time am hoping for a work-around so-to-speak.

 

Welcome to the forum. One of the reasons explained for loud tinnitus upon waking is called "awakening response". The brain upon waking tries to monitor the vital signs of the body. Unfortunately it considers erroneously that tinnitus is a vital sign. So it monitors tinnitus and amplifies it to make sure it is there. It is a common problem reported by many members. You can do a search here on awakening response and read the detail explanation by Dr. Nagler. Hope your condition will improve. Take care. God bless.

 

Hey there @K.J.Hill, welcome to the forum.

Interesting project you have there. I was wondering if there were websites like this where you can find a sound that closely matches what your tinnitus sounds like, then use that to invert it.

I hope the loudness abates in time and you get some relief.

 

Try here for full range generator:

https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

Now I just need a brain recorder.

Oh, and do be careful of the temptation to increase volume because you stop hearing the tone when increasing the frequency. Could do more damage...