Tinnitus for Awhile...

Hi All. My name is Dan, and I have tinnitus. Sorry, I'm a counselor and a paramedic and have a strange sense of humor. It is actually nice to find a forum for this.

I've had permanent tinnitus since 1985 after a car accident and suffered whiplash. It has steadily increased over the years and is now to the point where it sounds like a coach's whistle being blown as hard as it could be next to my head. The right is moderately bad and the left is extreme. It is always there and always loud. Louder than my own voice. I've recently gone back to wearing hearing aids (not so much for the hearing loss, as I am only deaf to high frequencies) with a masking sound to try to counteract the ringing. We are hoping that after 3 to 6 months, my brain may retrain itself to ignore the tinnitus. We'll see. I've been researching the use of neurofeedback as a treatment for tinnitus, since I use NF with some of my clients for ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, depression, and such. I have not found a good protocol for NF use yet; we only vaguely covered this subject during my training as the instructor did not work in that area. I've read one of the threads here on this but not much more info than I already had. Oh well, the search goes on.

 

Hello, Dan! It is very exciting to have a medical professional on our board. I hope the retaining therapy will work for you. Could you speak more about the neurofeedback treatment? What is it like excactly?

 

I hear recently many car accident victims suffer from airbag induced tinnitus and hearing loss. Airbag deployment is incredibly loud, it's basically small explosives going off right near your head. And with cars nowadays having 6 and more airbags, it makes the matter even worse. So yes, safety has increased and you might possibly survive an accident you wouldn't have in the past, but you'll be greeted to a life of misery.