Notched Music Therapy (DIY, AudioNotch, etc.)

Hi, I wanted to try notched white noise and I have some doubts (I made a new thread but posted it at "Support" by mistake, so my apologies to mods and you can delete it.)

Has someone tried to notch more than one tinnitus frequency? Is it possible in theory that it could work?

Another doubt is that my T, that has multiple sounds, seems to react to noises (temporary increase), is it harmful to listen to white noise with this kind of T? For what I've read this could just be a sign of hyperacusis but I'm afraid anyway.

Also, when I try to listen to tones to match the high frequency I want to treat, the tone gets "stuck" in one of my ears, I mean, I can hear it for a while after stopping playing it. It happens with pure tones at high frequencies. Is it normal or do I risk to develop new T sounds for listening tones for a few seconds?

 

I am an audio engineer so I have made myself a sound where I notch out an 8 hour cricket sound.
I notch at 2 spots, 3.1 khz and 11 khz ,I also use "Acoustic Coordinated Reset Neuromodulation" whereby I play tones around my T frequency on top of this notched cricket sound and I listen to this pretty much all day, as much as I can take at least and also have this playing during sleeping. So far, no noticable long term improvement but the ACR def helps while listening to it.

Some interesting observations I have made.
I am sure most people that have tried to hunt down their T freq will have it disappear when you hit the right spot with a tone generator. What I also noticed is that when I clench my teeth, which will trigger a hi freq sound I can make certain tones from a tone generator disappear? Meaning...I can be playing 9 khz on a tone gen and it will disappear when I clench my teeth ? No idea what that means or why that happens?

 

Hi @RaZaH, do you have any hearing loss? does your T freq match your hearing loss Freq?

btw, same as you, ACRN def helps while listening to it, sometimes i played ACRN to suppress sound during sleeping.

 

Yes I have hearing loss and yes , I can hardly hear 3.1 khz which is precisely my T freq. Although the 3.1khz one is not as frequent and nowhere nearly as annoying as the 13khz one which is not only heard but felt.
That one drives me nuts and trying to habituate to that makes as much sense to me as habituating to a broken leg.

 

I peronally would not use white noise , rather pink noise. I have no scientific data to back that up.
White Noise is technically flat while Pink noise is flat to the ear, it has a hi freq dropoff and therefore sound flat to the ears while White noise sounds like it has hi freq emphasis. I think that listening to white noise for lengthy periods is not a good practice. Again...nothing scientific to back that up, only intuition.

My approach is to find a broadband noise (crickets) and use that as my notched"noise" It also falls into the background , rather then listening to notched music all day long. In fact when I listen to music I still keep the notched Crickets going with the ACRN sound. Obviously , everyone is going nuts around me.

 

RaZaH: Familiar with somatic T? Many have it.

My T loudness doubles when I turn my head far to left or right, and does so in left ear only. When I tone matched with the online tool and got to my frequency which is ~1016 kHz I find that the pitch changes by up to around about 50 kHz with only the slightest movement of my head to either side. Almost as if I had moved the tone frequency slider on the web page. I understand a muscle pulls on nerve connected to or in middle ear. I've got a lot of tension in my neck these days. Don't know why. Also grind teeth at night. Will pursue this at some point.

 

Yeah , familiar with that , seems that most T sufferers have somatic T ? Am I wrong ?
I wish someone could make this somatic part jive with the "The brain causes T" theory.
Makes no sense to me.

 

I believe you are correct sir. But don't have hard numbers handy.

I tend to believe that this somatic component exacerbates T. The whole brain plasticity thing is a puzzle to me as well. Guess it comes from imaging studies. But of course I've only recently begun to look at the research again after about a 20 year "lull".

 

Has anyone had real t reduction doing this?... Any thoughts etc would be appreciated.... Also I get residual inhibition if I listen to my t frequency... Will listening to this over time reduce t, and is that the same thing as notch therapy?

 

I notched several songs, about an hours worth, around what I believe is my T frequency (~10 kHz). Listen occasionally but not as much as research suggests may be effective after reading a paper which found limited benefit for study participants with a high T frequency. The below two paragraphs are an email I sent to the lead author, followed by his reply. The paper:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0024685#pone-0024685-g005
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Hello Dr. Teismann,

I'd like to ask if you know of any recent research on TMNMT for individuals with tinnitus frequencies > 8 kHz? I just read your 2011 paper in PLOS One. I've notched some very soothing music at 1 octave around 10 kHz, which I believe is my frequency. May try to add high-pass noise. Would you think there is much risk for aggravation? I see you found mostly insignificant changes in the > 8 kHz group. Thanks in advance.

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As far as I know there is not yet systematic research on patients with very high tinnitus frequencies.

Adding high-pass noise is an option to increase energy in the high frequency range. On the other hand, in contrast to music noise is not "interesting", and thus may have much less an effect (due to attentional/cognitive filters); or your high frequency hearing is that bad that there wasn't any chance to get an effect from the high frequencies.

One risk for aggravation is the wrong tinnitus frequency. Please make sure that you did not make an "octave confusion" (i.e. your tinnitus frequency could as well be 5 kHz or 2.5 kHz).

One thing you could try (provided that you know your tinnitus frequenc reasonably well) is to narrow the notch to 3/4 or 1/2 octave; theoretically, then you should have a stronger effect (though there is, to my knowledge, not yet authoritative data in patients to support this).

I'm sorry that I cannot come up with more definitive answers; the knowledge base on TMNMT is still sparse, but will hopefully improve quite soon!

 

The somatic T theory proposed by for example famous T researchers Levine and Ridder make sense to me. It's about a part of our brain called Dorsal Cohclear Nucleus (DCS) which 'mixes' information from our ears and our body, for example the jaw muscles or in which position our head is, which obviously affects the pereception of hearing in our brain.

 

I think my frequencies are a complete mixture. I tried to play the somewhat match and it seems to hurt my ear. Should I go 100 db lower so that the highest pitch it plays will not be so high?

 

I'm 71 and have been afflicted with tinnitus for about two and a half years. Came on fast, no warning, just a loud
and fast freight train that hit me out of the blue. No sleep for over 80 hours when the hospital finally knocked
me out. Went to the Tinnitus clinic up at OHSU and found out that my tinnitus was one of the four worst cases
they had on record.

The docs tried every kind of sleeping potions available, which gave me either headaches, nausea, or nightmares.
We finally settled on three Bourbon and waters and one Xanax right before bed.

My audiologist had me try the new Widex hearing aids and they were a gift from heaven. The different Zen sound
patterns gently push or pull my tinnitus into background noise as my mind (hearing) is just hearing the generated
sounds.

I've also been using the sound notch technique and it seems to be an off or on relief for me as I have a very difficult
time matching the tinnitus sounds with the sound generator. I do know that it does help on the days when
the tinnitus is louder and my wife can see the difference in how more relaxed I get. I plan to stay with the program
for another six months.

A couple of points that might help others. Remove stress! De-caf for coffee, drop your sugar intake, up your intake
of fresh fruits and veggies...all of this contributed to a easier handled tinnitus along with the notch therapy.

 

I've had great luck with this therapy - my frequency is at 7800Hz. I've also had some folks with results up >8000 so I'd say try the therapy.

A couple of notes:

1) Don't use music. The research that found white noise to be more effective makes sense intuitively (I'm no doctor, but it does make sense based on my research): white noise is full spectrum. Songs are not. The point of notched therapy is to stimulate your auditory cortex and remove the 1 octave band around your frequency. So the more auditory stimulation around the frequency gap, the better. This is what I used (Brown noise, technically - good for frequencies lower on the spectrum and much easier on the ears IMO).

2) With frequencies > 8000 Hz notched therapy can take months, so be patient.

Hope this helps. I've written up a how-to here if you're interested: http://www.notchtherapy.com

 

Hi Everyone: quick question. I'm considering adding a feature to http://www.notchtherapy.com that would add built in notching, right in your browser. It would be totally free, in the spirit of the DIY content there. The flow would be:

1) Find your frequency (with our frequency finder)
2) Listen to notched white noise right then and there in your browser, whenever you want

The advantage here is that if you need to "re-tune", which is common, go for it - the site will be there and you can tweak to your heart's content.

The disadvantage: you can't bring it with you - that would require more lifting on my part and my time is constrained.

Finally, my question: would you use this? Would it be of value to you? I'm still evaluating the approach but before I put any significant time into it I wanted to ask here. Thanks for listening!

 

Hi, good to hear that someone else has high piched T aswell. Mine is about 14300Hz and I set the slider to 14100 when the first high frequency is about 15400 which I can still hear pretty easily. 2nd high frequency goes up to 19680 which I can't hear anymore so I'm doing also this "crippled soundtherapy".

Alltho I've thought a bit if I edit the sequence and levels a bit and set 2nd high to next note pitch which would be 16317Hz which I may be able to hear at moderate sound levels.

Btw, have you had any long term relief from ACRN considering you have high pitched tinnitus aswell?

 

Hello. New to the forum but glad to have found it. Can anyone tell me whether the Audio notch sound treatment is safe to use. Can it make the tinnitus worse. Thanks.

 

Any comments with the results? I just made some 4 hour white noise running in the background (super low volume) and it totally hides my T. I used Audacity really easy to use and make.

Anyone?

 

http://promedicalaudio.com

Seems like they have an app for the iPhone. Don't know if it legit. Can anyone confirm?

 

Has anyone tried this? Did it help?

 

If am reading this correctly, states you find your own frequency at home from their website.
If you click on the page for distributor it mentins some have higher T from incorrect frequency selection. Is it better to go to a professional to make sure you have it correct?

 

Can anyone help me with notched music? I can't make it myself, so can someone help me? I am struggling with tinnitus and notch music can help lower it, can't it? Many thanks if you can help. I would like mozart kk8 notched, my frequency is around 13,000hz tinnitus

 

Don't want to scare anyone, but I tried notched white noise from a website a couple of months ago. It gave me a new tone of tinnitus in my previously "good" ear. It might have been because I had trouble matching the frequency though, and got it wrong.

 

I bielive that he biggest problem here is matching you t. There is no way to match it electronically, only guesses. If you cannot match it 100% how can this work? And how many people can match it so close?

 

Danny,
Your not going to find a lot of 13k with most music to notch. Its only harmonics up there for the most part.
Use white noise.
>> There is an app called Tinnitus Pro that lets you notch your own music, if you want to try and has white noise. It walks you through your T sound to make a one octave notch which gives you some range. Also has options for changing the notch Q as its called and you can make it different size notches. White noise has all the frequencies.
It helped me a lot in the beginning, now I find apps like White Noise and myNoise are good too. You just play the sounds just below your T volume so you can habituate. If your using earbuds, be careful not to over do it in volume or amount of time without a break for your ears. Less of an issue if you play on speakers.

And YES its http://promedicalaudio.com that makes it.

Stay strong.

 

@RaZaH,

Playing the frequency of your T and having it disappear is a temporary phenomena, although in the beginning it lasted quiet a while for me. Then my brain (or whats left of it) got hip to my game and stopped my T from disappearing. However when I go back to it after a long time, it works briefly. The bitch.
I get same frequency when I clench my teeth, but no way it helps T change or hide. Just adds to the mix.
I think clenching teeth is a different animal than listening to an audio signal that fools the brain for a bit and shuts it up…till it doesnt work. White noise did the same for me for 2 days... in the beginning.
I am also / was an audio engineer. Kinda semi-retired but have issues going to NYC with anxiety and my still active clients.

 

This 'Tinnitus Pro' is a great app! Thank's for sharing it here. I only wish I could have this for Spotify!!

 

On Audacity, there's an option that allows you to adjust the notch size. Do any of you think this compares to AudioNotch, if I have it set to one? I already use Audacity on the reg anyway, I don't wanna pay for a programme if I don't need to!

 

I believe there's a parameter that you can alter when you're notching. It's the number of octaves...
I remember when I did this I had to add the plug in and down load it... I forget what it's called but you can find it in this thread.

 

Bandstop filter.

I notched some white, pink, and brown noises. I used a Q of 1 which is basically one octave.

Most important. You need to find your T tone, if not you will just