Tinnitus Pitch and Loudness Matching

Saw a few people online describing their tinnitus frequency in terms of Hz, I'm ignorant when it comes to this, how does one find this out, any idea guys?

 

thank you so much for the thorough reply Markku, this makes the picture much more clear

 

Hi Markku,
I wanted to clarify something. I went to one ENT doctor who had some tests done. He said my tinnitus frequency is 6000HZ. Then I went to another doctor and had audio tests. They said my tinnitus frequency match is 2khz at 15db. Could you explain to me what all this mean?
Thank You.

 

Hi All,

I'd like to share a Tinnitus Frequency Matching Tuner that is also available for free on-line. It's produced by my firm, and I'd like to thank Markku for granting us permission to make some limited posts regarding the service we provide. The tuner can be found at: http://www.audionotch.com/app/tune/

Here's a screenshot:


Tuning your tinnitus is definitely challenging at times. Speaking for myself, it took me several tries with our manual tuner in order to find it. Other tuning procedure are out there (i.e. binary search algorithms) but I've personally found that manual tuning is the best - the feedback from comparing your tone to the computer tone is immediate and your brain has a reference point (the figure in Hz) to make a comparison with. Mine was personally at 17,000 hZ, which is quite high. (Very few studies have been done on treatment at this frequency level, unfortunately).

Cheers,
Peter,
Co-Founder
www.audionotch.com/

 

Hello,

How would I go about having an audiologist measure the severity of my tinnitus? I would not even know what test to ask for. Any advice?

Thanks!

 

Great, that's very helpful. Thank you!

 

Hi everyone:

My coworker has developed a new software program that provides features over and above those considered standard with regular tinnitus tuning (pitch/frequency detection) software. The software allows you to listen to "atypical" tinnitus tones that are not the typical "sine wave." There is also a neat visualization feature and auto frequency adjustment feature.

(http://www.audionotch.com/app/tune2/) (please note, requires Safari or Chrome).

We're still working on updating it to include even more tinnitus sounds.

When pitch matching, also be aware of Octave Confusion: http://www.audionotch.com/blog/tinnitus/what-is-octave-confusion/

I think that some of you may find this free tool useful.

Disclosure: I run http://www.audionotch.com/, a Notched Sound Therapy proprietor. There's a lot of discussion (some of which I've participated in on this forum) regarding Notched Sound Therapy, and you can check it out. Be aware that it's possible to do it yourself for free (we offer software so you don't have to do that).

 

I've tried to determine the pitch of my T with the AudioNotch tuner thing. I think it's about 7000khz but I'm not sure. I find that I can't hear any tones above about 10000khz. I was wondering if it's possible for the pitch of your T to be above that which you can physically hear? So if I was an octave out with my 7000khz it's possible my T is actually 10500khz (is that right?) in which case I wouldn't physically be able to hear the tone to match it?

John

 

Hi John,

It is quite possible, my T is partly above my hearing abilities frequency-wise. AFAIK if you go octave up from 7000 Hz that means doubling of the frequency to 14 000 Hz. Sometimes it is surprisingly hard to find frequency match to your tinnitus even when you could hear that frequency.

 

Curious, will give it a try. Thanks

 

Hello Everyone,

I know this may be a bit more of a pointless question. But I was sort of curious.

When I got my ears tested with an Audiologist, she ended up trying to match my tinnitus. We went through the regular tests, listening and saying certain words etc.

I ended up being in the sound proof booth for about maybe 8 minutes before we actually started to try and match my T. Mine ended up being at 1,000Hz tone at 30 db in my right ear and 50 db in my left.

Do you think that being in the room for that long may have played a bit of an illusion on my ears as I was in a sound proof room for such a long time, that it may have contributed to a louder perception of my Tinnitus?

I was also still new when it came to dealing with this spike in my Tinnitus. So I hadn't really eaten much and had a coffee before going (I know not the smartest thing, but I was so tired in those early days that I needed something to get me through the day)

 

Yes.

 

I see a lot of you know what db your tinnitus is at.

How do you measure this? Do you feel it helps to know?


Edit; after my question was merged, I got the how-question answered, but still; do you feel that it helps to know your frequency/bd?

 

Is there a way to know how loud is our T (in dB), without going to a doctor everytime? Any gear similar to the one we use for Hz, but which measures the volume?

 

@Valentina i would be scared ro know my bad t results..

 

@Geo Why scared? Your T will not change if you know how loud it is.

 

Yeah but knowing that my T is actually worse than most sounds harsh

 

Using Peter Phua's test... 9610, seems to match my tone. At 12000, and 16000, I hear nothing but hear lower frequency tones above those points. 9610 sounds the same with the volume up or down but I can hear it turn off and on. . Is this a hearing problem or a failure of the tone generator?

Trying this against a simple online tone generator makes me believe it is the software. It also seems to have made my tinnitus worse.

 

I never had db measured just hz, I had to go to an audiologist that has special equipment. It is my understanding that standard equipment measures 8KHZ and below. Mine is in the 12-14KHZ range.

 

Mine is 10 to 13khz. It is accompanied by a dull migraine somedays like today. It sounds metallic and raw. I want to believe life will become better and i will somehow habituate to this. Life has become a million times more challenging.

 

Is possible to measure Loudness and frequency of my Tinnitus If it is not a flat monotonous tone?

Most of the time mine is like a loud steam escaping from a pipe, or a weird hight-pitch white noise...

 

Comparing Three Established Methods for Tinnitus Pitch Matching With Respect to Reliability, Matching Duration, and Subjective Satisfaction

 

What Makes Tinnitus Loud?

INTRODUCTION: Tinnitus loudness is a subjective measure, and it does not directly reflect either tinnitus severity or the impact on daily life. Nevertheless, loud tinnitus may be the most frequent clinical complaint of tinnitus patients. Factors contributing to the loudness of the phantom sound have rarely been studied. We evaluated both matched and self-rated loudness in a large sample of patients with tinnitus and analyzed the influencing factors among demographic, hearing, and tinnitus characteristics.

METHODS: Two hundred ninety-nine patients with chronic tinnitus were enrolled. We evaluated the matched loudness, minimal masking level (MML), and visual analog scale (VAS) loudness. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed for each loudness measure using independent variables of age, sex, time since tinnitus onset, tinnitus laterality, pure-tone average, tinnitus pitch, tinnitus handicap inventory (THI) score, VAS annoyance, disturbance and daily tinnitus duration, and depression score. We calculated bivariate correlations between each loudness measure and all independent variables.

RESULTS: The psychoacoustic loudness measures (matched loudness and MML) were highly correlated and were affected by the hearing deficit and tinnitus pitch (Pearson r > 0.5 for pure tone averages, and r > 0.3 for tinnitus pitch for both variables, p < 0.05), whereas the subjective measurement (VAS loudness) exhibited little to no correlation with the other two measures and was related to psycho-emotional factors such as the THI score, VAS variables, and depression (Pearson r > 0.6 for VAS annoyance, r > 0.4 for VAS daily duration and disturbance and THI score, r > 0.3 for the depression score, p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION: The matched tinnitus loudness and MML values were influenced principally by the extent of hearing loss and related factors, suggesting that rehabilitation using hearing aids could help reduce perception of tinnitus loudness. A psycho-emotional approach might more effectively lessen self-perceived loudness.

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/med/33165158

 

Bullshit. Just another study sponsored by hearing aid companies.

 

Oh yes, the louder the better.