My Journey with Tinnitus — On Going Saga

Where to begin.

In October of 2015 I had a procedure done on my back that consisted of the Doctor inserting a needle into my back to kill the nerves on 8 vertebra, 4 on each side. Shortly ofter this was done (approximately 3 days) I went to bed feeling just fine, when I woke up the next morning I had this terrible static noise blaring in my ears. Over the next several months I nearly went crazy. I was in hospital on three occasions with the issues. I was put on several different drugs, anti anxiety and anti depression, went to at least 5 different audiologist seeking help. Went to a acupuncturist, Physiologist, Hypnotist,

I checked on Neuromonics, Notched Music the whole gamut. Nothing sounded like it would be of value and the cost was unreal $5000.00 for some sounds and a device to play them on.

Finally I was on YouTube and came across this DIY program with Audacity which was free and sounded like it would do the same thing the $5 Grand would do. So I downloaded Audacity listened to the video on YouTube and began experimenting with the different sounds you can generate with Audacity. I did not care much for the White Noise, so started notching different songs and sounds.

I found the Rain and soft Thunder seem to be best sounds to listen to. I had read some where that it was helpful to listen to the sounds while sleeping. I mounted two speakers on my headboard facing to the middle of the bed. I was able to put the sounds on my mp3 player and plug it into the speakers and play the sounds all night while sleeping.

None of the audiologist were able to give me a definitive frequency of my Tinnitus, the closest any of them would say is it seemed to be in the range of 4khz to 6khz and closest to the 6khz frequency, so this is where I began my trials.

The sounds in my ears and brain would very between static like on a radio, to Bee's buzzing in my ears or brain. The sounds were normally on the left side of my brain, but would be in both ears. It would very from the front lobe of my brain to above my ear, to the middle of my brain to the back of my brain.

A few time I was able to get the sounds down to a level one or two on a scale of 0-10, but not often. It became very frustrating. This went on until January 2017, when I either read or heard that the best sound to use was the White noise as it contained all of the frequencies. So I began using only the white noise. One track was the white noise and soft thunder, (because it then sounded more like rain) and the second one was white noise with rain and soft thunder.

I have been listening to these two tracks at night while sleeping for about a week and I can tell a difference in the level of the sounds. Then have quieted down from 7 &8 level to 4 & 5 starting out in the mornings, Usually they will pick up some as the day goes by, but only by couple of notched.

I have noticed that my frequency has gone from 6khz to 78khz so I am setting the notch of the tracks to cover 7khz thur 10khz. This can be done with audacity when you install the app BandStopFilter.

Right now I am more optimistic about getting my Tinnitus down to a level 1 or lower, it may take another year but I am determined to stick with it.

I hope this may help some suffering with Tinnitus.

Richard A Gavitt Sr
Jan. 26th 2017

 

so your self therapy was to listen to white noise during sleep?
I just wonder why that would help with T - isn't it more suitable for H?

 

It was audio Notching. You can do the same thing here - http://www.audionotch.com if you're not skilled with certain apps