Old Sound and New Sounds

Another newbie. I have had a level of T for 30 some years which I was fairly capable of ignoring; suddenly, last month, the right side developed a new lower roar/hum like a massive transformer inside my head, accompanied with pressure and low frequency hearing loss.

I've had migraines for my entire adult life and BPPV on and off for 30 years. I feel fortunate to say the migraines and veritgo have dropped off the last couple years but the new LOUD tinnitus is miserable-HELL- is exactly right. MRI set for this week but the round of prednisone and 3 steroid injections haven't changed anything. The Hyperacusis is probably the most distressing; dishes rattling, grandbaby squeeling in delight, or a music too loud .

I have some initial questions: Where do I find suggestions on how to mask and how to match my sound and should I look for a therapist right away or see if I can achieve some plasticity?

 

Welcome to the forum. Masking is a popular discussion subject. So if you search the forum with 'masking' you should get a lot of prior discussions. I have written something on masking before. Hope this info will help you find something that works to mask your T. Take care. God bless.

1) Mask at bed time if having trouble sleeping, by using a sound pillow or sound machine with pillow speakers. There are good sound machine & pillow therapy systems like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Oasis-...d-Oasis-Therapy-System-Speakers/dp/B00MH5HKTA

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipod with nature sounds or music using itune. If you have a smart phone, you can download free APPs for soothing or T-masking sounds. Use wisdom in the use of headphones or earbuds as extended use or excessive volume may hurt your ears. Try set the volume slightly below that of your tinnitus.

3) With PC & speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds to see which one masks best:

TT's excellent audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: https://mynoise.net

or download free sound generator ‘aire freshener’: http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or click play to mix these sounds with this simple sound generator: http://asoftmurmur.com/

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.