Unleashing the Power of the Mind to Manage Tinnitus?

I'm just a novice at this, but this is my current understanding: With meditation or mindfulness practice, you can learn to change your reaction to unpleasant stimuly (among other things). Naturally I would react with fear or anger to somewhat loud noises, and pain and more intense emotions to loud noises. The pain I can't change, so I need to be dilligent here with my own protection. When emotions arise, it is natural to try to push them away or blame other people (like "no reason to be angry", "what a terrible person it was who did this to me", "I hope I don't get worse", etc.), so I am just adding more energy to my stress reaction, which doesn't help. Mindfulness allows me to take note that I am adding unneccessary energy, often out of craving reality to behave in a certain way (like, other people taking responsibility for injuring me, even if it would be futile). Then I accept the unpleasant emotions (and maybe pain, if it occurs) with a loving/welcoming embrace. It does take a bit of effort at the beginning, but overall it is the way to give those unpleasant sensations the least amount of energy. When you don't give it energy, it is like tinnitus you have habituated to: It stops bothering you soon or at least it bothers you less, so you can put your mind to things that are more helpful.

 

This would require a nearly permanent hypnotic transe in order to block pain signals during an entire day. I'm not sure hypnoanalgesia is really what you want to look for in a hyperacusis situation.

I'd consult with a hypnologist to work on how your brain is anticipating/processing normal sounds and your unconscious emotional response to it. Even if you're feeling generally OK emotionally and you don't feel like needing some help on this aspect, it doesn't mean your unconscious response/instinct is actually OK with it. These are two different things and from what I've learnt of hyperacusis, it's typically something that doesn't follow "conscious" rules.

Yet, if you want to use hypnoanalgesia as a technique to provide temporary relief to any kind of pain, any hypnotherapist can help you with that in one session. Just ask him to teach you how to do self-hypnosis. If he knows his job, he can do that easily. Online resources won't be of any help unless you already know the basic approach of all this And to be honest, there's not much online to help you guide you through self hypnosis.

 

@Pitseleh, OK, thanks.

George

 

I just read this thread through - I'm afraid I skimmed some of the posts which expounded the various doctrines of meditation. I got into meditation in the 90s - knew a guy who was into Zen and spent time with him. I went to India - spent time in Pune and hung out with various people and groups for a few years though eventually moved on when I got married (now divorced). To me meditation is about silence and inner stillness. No effort of any kind can bring this about. Nothing could be more simple. I don't go for all the complex Buddhist school doctrines - but each to their own method and clearly I am way behind many of you guys with the theory of meditation and maybe I am missing something.

I have not meditated much in the last year - not due to tinnitus. I am convinced I have some low level infection and it has been causing me some fatigue issues. Frankly - in my normal health - meditation is something that happens to me before I go to sleep - and when I wake up. And since last year at some point - it rarely happens. I have some beautiful normal days - but rarely. I function well enough - can walk miles - but the spring in my step is missing. If I sit to meditate - I can fall asleep. My white count is normal - I had tests - no thyroid issues iron fine etc. No idea what is wrong with me. I got tinnitus in February 2022 - 1 month after COVID-19. I also had chronic ear wax. Maybe I have some form of long COVID-19? I don't know. Maybe my tinnitus is a symptom of the infection I believe I have had since last year.

When my doctor told me that there is no cure for tinnitus I felt desperate. But oddly enough - within a few weeks I came to terms with it. This is my new silence. My life will go on. I can and will live with this. Once I made up my mind about this - the tinnitu became less of an issue.

However - I admit I have relatively mild tinnitus in one ear and don't have multiple sounds. I also found some sound files to smooth it down when it spikes. I do not know how I would cope if it was significantly worse and I understand some of the scepticism for people with really serious cases.

Hypnotherapy - according to the British Tinnitus Association - who have no financial stake in any tinnitus treatment industry - there is no evidence that hypnotherapy is an effective treatment for tinnitus. There is some evidence that it is effective for relaxation and anxiety - but there is no evidence it is more effective in these areas than other relaxation and anxiety treatments.

This of course does not mean that hypnotherapy cannot work - it may well work - there just is no clinical evidence that it does work for tinnitus - and virtually any other illness or condition.

The people claiming it does work - are mainly hypnotherapists. There is some anecdotal evidence from clients who claim they have reduced tinnitus due to hypnotherapy. However - it is not necessarily the case with these successes that the mechanism which caused the reduction is actual hypnotherapy. It may be placebo effect.

My personal view - hypnotherapy may help you to habituate - may help you to change the way you perceive tinnitus - but I have very little confidence that it could help to reduce or eliminate it.

My big concern with hypnotherapy - and many other treatments whose efficacy has not been established - is that they are expensive. And I am not sure if it is a good idea to spend say £100 a session on acupuncture, chiropractic or hypnotherapy - when these treatments have no proven efficacy. I understand though that many who are desperate will try anything. I personally, if desperate - would try all the cost free options first.

There is a desperate guy I know who is flying out with his wife to Ireland to the Lenire people. I thought - oh no - that thing doesn't work.

But who am I to inform him what I know - hope is precious.

 

@bobvann, agree! This is definitely what happened in my case which makes living with tinnitus more difficult.

 

Lenire works but it depends on your expectations. It will not remove your tinnitus. It will sometimes make your tinnitus worse. It will also give you better days, occasionally. Sometimes you can have a straight week with relative silence. There are some pitfalls with Lenire. When I first used it, it was 1 hour every day throughout the whole year, more or less. But I was on Olanzapine at the time. Who knows what that was doing to my brain? After I quit the Olanzapine, I continued with Lenire and I had a massive worsening that turned my tinnitus from a single ear thing to a "cacophony from hell in your entire brain" thing. Everything I knew about my tinnitus and it's behaviour changed overnight. It used to be quiet in the morning and then there was a 50/50 of it ramping up within the first 20 minutes of me waking up. If it didn't ramp up, it could also ramp up a bit after using Lenire. Sometimes it would just stay the same throughout the day. It would almost always start to ramp up an hour or two before bed. Then it would calm down again during the night so I could sleep 3-4 hours.

With the worsening this was turned on the head. At night it would ramp up insanely much, to an almost unbearable level and it would be in the whole head - 120 dB at least. Then I would "wake" up, not having slept anything and feeling stressed out of mind from this dreadful experience - at completely random intervals throughout the day the tinnitus would go almost completely quiet, then return at the most intense volume and pitch again. It was as unpredictable as you can imagine. This was either caused by a sleeping medicine I was taking through the tongue (liquid drops) called Alimemazine OR it was because I was using Lenire without the Olanzapine. I don't know, but it has to be one of those. After the worsening reduced and I got back to "normal", I started using Lenire at only 20 minutes a day - a great deal of experimentation had to be done to realize what my "sweet spot" is. Using it for more than 20 minutes would usually give me a major brain buzz for a day or two. Finding the "sweet spot" was a lot of work, but now I know.

Brains are different, they can be sensitive and this is a new technology that we don't know the full ramifications of yet. I know I have a sensitive brain because of how I react to medicine. I have autism so it's already pretty different from others.

Lenire is definitely not a cure but I'm also tired of people who demonizes it. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Lenire. It has helped me endure the days until Dr. Shore's device is ready or something else comes along that gives me a more permanent solution. However, I'm still sceptical to Neuromod as a company.

 

I am glad you got some good use out of it. Lenire obviously does not work for everyone and judging by the threads on Lenire - people who have tried it - looks like 50% at best to varying degrees. Though most people would accept a 50/50 chance, albeit expensive, to find if it works or not. I do believe that feeding sounds into the brain can have an effect - as I have discovered using various sound files - even Mr Case's Tinnitus Mix file smooths mine off for some hours.

People are too dismissive of course - if they have had severe tinnitus for years and tried so many things - they could well fall into this way of thinking. I am not so dismissive that I rule things out simply because the studies are poor or negative. But if I see anyone saying - this will cure your tinnitus! I am usually one who will post and advise caution.

Take 10,000 tinnitus cases. Half of those - 5,000 will be try X, Y, Z to beat their tinnitus. Of those 5,000 - one could expect that tinnitus would simply go away in a small number of cases - say maybe 50. It happens. But for those small number where their tinnitus simply cleared - what do you think they are going to attribute this to? Obviously whatever supplement or diet/drug they happen to be on at the time. And then they post - hey - Magnesium cleared my tinnitus! We don't hear from the 4,950 for whom no treatments worked.

Go through the pages on this board - there are literally hundreds of approaches, devices, supplements, sounds etc that have been claimed to work. One reason I like Tinnitus Talk - these claims are then tested - people try - and most who try report negative results. I had a go with Mr Case's Tinnitus Mix as it was easy to try - and I found it did have some minor benefit. But obviously Lenire, prescription drugs and most of the supplements people are claiming success with - I won't bother unless I get really desperate - too much hassle and expense. I may well do - am lucky at present - but I keep coming back here as that could easily change.

How did you evaluate your tinnitus at 120 dB? That is like a motorcycle accelerating past you or standing next to a jet engine.

 

I don't know that it was 120 dB, it's just a measurement I took from the experience of crying and shouting at the top of my lungs and still struggling to hear my own voice. It was that loud. Not all the time, but talking with a normal, indoors-voice was often very stressful for me since I couldn't hear my voice under all that noise. It was truly a cacophony of chaotic sound in my entire brain. Felt like every little thing was firing at once.

 

You have my sympathies - sounds like an utter nightmare. I don't blame you at all for trying Lenire or any other solutions.

 

Hypnosis is not a treatment for tinnitus. There is no treatment for tinnitus on the market. Any hypnologist saying the contrary is a crook. We are not curing people, we are helping them in:

1) Finding their own unconscious ways of reprogramming dysfunctional patterns: PTSD, depression, anxiety, insomnia, addiction, psychosomatic and phantom pains, etc (and yes, there is evidence on these aspects)
2) Providing techniques for analgesia and anaesthesia (same here, documented evidence)

Most of the time (I'd say 85 % - figures only based on personal experience), people feel deep changes in their daily functioning after a couple of sessions. On rare occasions (10 %), it acts like a "miracle cure" (which is why some people sometimes expect extraordinary things to happen with hypnosis while they don't have the same expectations in other fields) and all physical/mental problems just vanish while they had been stuck on it for years. On other rare occasions (5 %), it just has no impact whatsoever.

You might want to update your knowledge on hypnosis regarding its mechanisms of action on the brain. It has nothing to do with a placebo effect. It's actually very far from it and has very well documented neuroscientific data.

Most people who have never dug into it are unfortunately still stuck in the old beliefs that hypnosis is a form of energetic healing provided by shady gurus

 

Fair enough. I neither deny nor affirm what you have claimed.

I just refer people to the British Tinnitus Association website section on hypnotherapy who have NO financial stake in any tinnitus treatment industry.

To summarize: Not recommended - and the BTA consider there is no clinical evidence that hypnotherapy is an effective treatment for tinnitus.

Given the success ratios claimed by acupuncturists, hypnotherapists, herbalists, chiropractors etc etc - it is a wonder that we have such a busy forum here at Talk Tinnitus.

 

Tinnitus Talk represents a immensely huge minority of people living with tinnitus. Tinnitus is a condition that affects 16 million people in France (1 out of 4 person in my country). I let you do the count considering it's an international forum, compared to how many active members we have here

Among this minority, only a portion of it is still present on this forum years after onset. Most people leave the forum, reach habituation and regain a happy life. Others have their tinnitus just vanish in the background. In one case or the other, this is a success story.

Again, I'll let you do the count.

For the ones who are left, strangely enough, it might come close to the 5 % I mentioned earlier in my daily practice (and I'm only talking about 5 % of members on this forum, not 5 % of all tinnitus sufferers).

But hey, if the BTA says "no evidence", then I guess we should all, as hypnologists, stop providing help for those who find relief through hypnosis

Now, again, if some crook hypnotherapists claim they can cure you (of tinnitus or any condition), they should definitely be reported.

 

Neither me nor the BTA is saying hypnotherapy does not work. You claimed the science is there. The BTA disagree with you. Or it may be there - but they do not consider the studies as sufficient evidence to endorse this therapy.

I have this rather annoying and irritating trait - when I see a claim on an internet forum - I like to check it out and report back. Since many people do not bother checking things out and accept claims as they are presented.

True the sufferers on here may not represent the total number of sufferers - but when reported failure in any given supplement or therapy aligns with what the meta studies etc are saying - it does not improve my confidence level.

There are a couple of threads on hypnotherapy in this board - not too many people involved in the discussion.

 

These are some insights I learned about mindfulness and Buddhism in the past few years. Take it with a grain of salt because I train mindfulness rather low-key (but still daily).

- When you practice mindfulness, you probably get into this somewhat trance-like, calm and relaxing state (you'll probably feel it more clearly if you formally meditate, but I do that rarely). It feels pleasant, but it might tempt you to use it as an escape from your problems or make you believe that this feeling is the goal of meditation. The idea of mindfulness according to my current understanding is to be with your problems (actually all inputs from your senses, including your thoughts), not escape them (which is what I did for a long time), which just feeds them with more energy. It takes a lot of courage and understanding to be with your problems. But by not giving your problems extra energy, you will have more for other things, which is relaxing (this is the ironic part; the benefits of mindfulness are achieved when not trying to achieve them).

- Tying with the afore-mentioned is the insight that mindfulness by itself has only limited benefits. Sure, when I realize that I am sitting right now, it might help slowing down my mind a bit from shifting around thoughts and concepts. But mindfulness in Buddhism is just one part of the so-called noble eight-fold path. For me, mindfulness is important to take note of my thoughts and decide whether they are helpful or not (often thoughts are just like idle chatter, so they are not really helpful). In my first 1.5 years of tinnitus, I often thought how bad my situation was and hoped for it to improve. But these thoughts were not helpful at all. Now with mindfulness it wasn't that I could just shut them off, but with the realisation that these thoughts indeed did not help, I gradually managed to turn them down and free space in my head for more useful thoughts. Even not thinking about anything in particular is better than constantly churning catastrophising thoughts.

- Unhelpful thoughts often center around an attachment to how the world/your life should be or how it ought not to be. The world is how it is and wishing otherwise won't change anything (unless of course you do something about it, if you can), except draining my energy beyond what it already takes to deal with tinnitus and hyperacusis. So I let go of these attachments and try to accept how the world is (the somewhat tricky part here can be that sometimes you think "I shouldn't be thinking that way", but that is often again an attachment how you should be; the thoughts will go away if you accept them, not by pushing them away). It takes practice but is also interesting. Though my life could be seen as unstable, I am doing relatively well because I don't churn thoughts about a potentially terrible future.

- Judging a situation or people often comes with attachment how the world should be. That doesn't mean we shouldn't discern (mindfully judge) what is good or bad for us. Not judging is easier in some situations than in others (I haven't really figured out yet how not to automatically judge bikers and people with loud cars...).

- Goals should be seen more as a direction you want to go, not points you want to arrive at. This is because in the second case there's often an attachment to achieving the goal, which will result in suffering if it is more difficult than you thought (maybe resulting in excessive effort on your part) or you can't reach it (maybe resulting in disappointment, shame or other unpleasant emotions).

 

@Stuart-T, I think that therapies such as hypnosis and bio-resonance or osteopathy, for example, do have a role to play in treating tinnitus. Apart from the possible direct healing benefits, there is also the healing element brought about through the relationship with client and therapist in terms of empathy, attention and focus etc. Anything that contributes to a positive shift in the patient's psyche is all to the good.

 

I think you nailed it there - non conventional approaches have a significant human empathy element which can benefit the patient - often absent from conventional medicine. This is why homeopathy trials fail, yet people who go to homeopaths and get all the sympathetic attention and get listened to report improvements.

Interesting nobody goes to alternative treatments for cancer, kidney stones, brain tumours, multiple organ failure, septicemia etc etc.

They go for conditions for which conventional medicine has few answers - chronic pain, tinnitus and other conditions which can actually improve with no intervention.

If I was desperate enough - and had the money - I would be trying all of these as well.

 

Actually, people use alternative treatments for a wide variety of diseases, including the ones for which there is ample research funding and plenty of clinically proven treatments, if not cures. Hospitals, for example, often encourage cancer patients to go to acupuncturists as part of their treatment because acupuncture can alleviate symptoms of cancer or the side effects caused by other treatments, e.g., the nausea that comes with chemotherapy.

Cost isn't always an issue, either. There is a movement called community acupuncture, which provides acupuncture at a drastically reduced price so that it is affordable to everyone, even people without health insurance. They can afford to do this because instead of having private treatment rooms for everyone, they treat multiple people in large rooms. Everyone lies down in reclining chairs spaced about six feet apart, and masks are required. The furniture in places like this is nearly always secondhand or donated, so it's not fancy, just very basic. But as long as you have licensed acupuncturists working on you, that's all that matters.

Private acupuncture can cost about $100 a session if you're paying out of pocket, so community acupuncture is a real bargain because it can be only $15 or $20, depending on where you live and what the going rate is. (I'm just quoting the approximate cost based on where I am.)

If anybody is interested in trying community acupuncture, google the phrase "community acupuncture near me." There are hundreds of clinics in the United States, and I suspect that there are many in other countries as well.

I had a huge tinnitus & hyperacusis spike on Tuesday, but I had a community acupuncture session yesterday and another one today, and it really helped bring down the aural fullness and the stress level and, most importantly, the suicidal ideation.

I'll be honest and say that acupuncture has never diminished the volume of the tinnitus, but I am grateful for the relief it provides for the other symptoms. Even if the symptom relief lasts only for a few days, it's worthwhile.

 

Thanks - but being needled never really appealed. What about community massage? That could be good.

 

I promise you that on almost every part of your body, the needles barely feel like anything at all. They are hair-thin, and they don't penetrate very deeply. The only places where the needles can sting a little is on the tops of the feet, the toes, and sometimes the fingers because there are so many bones that lie just beneath the skin. And even then, those needles don't penetrate deeply.

I don't think community massage can be a business model, although I wish it were.

The reason why community acupuncture can be a business model at all is that in a standard private acupuncture session, the acupuncturist talks to you for a few minutes about your symptoms, and then they put the needles in you and let you relax for about an hour. There is literally nothing for the acupuncturist to do during the time you're lying there. When I had private acupuncture in the mid-2000s, my acupuncturist would crochet scarves or read books at her desk until it was time for her to take the needles out of my body.

Because there is so much downtime for the acupuncturist who is treating one person at a time, community acupuncture makes so much more sense. A single acupuncturist can space appointments about 10 or 15 minutes apart and treat one person after another in a single large room without ever needing to twiddle their thumbs and find something to do to pass the time. For every five or six people who are peacefully relaxing in a recliner, another person is having needles put in and another person is having needles taken out. It's a super-efficient and effective process, and the sheer number of people coming in during the day means that the clinic can keep prices low.

Alas, it could never work that way with massage because the therapist's hands are constantly touching you for the entire duration of the session. There is no way to get one therapist to treat a larger number of people in the course of an eight-hour day.

 

I've been a Zen practitioner for over 30 years. The word Zen is a Japanese mispronunciation of the Chinese word chan, and it simply means meditation. Mindfulness is meditation on the go. You can do it anywhere, on the bus, anywhere, and it doesn't have to be in a quiet place. It isn't about changing your mind though, this is a common misunderstanding. It's about letting go of the thoughts in our minds, the prejudices, the likes and dislikes, and experiencing reality just as it is w/o me fooling around w/ it. Our minds will tell us all manner of things that just ain't so.

The practice in itself will lower one's blood pressure and calm us down, so that will benefit tinnitus sufferers. It's when we feel stressed that it nearly always becomes louder, or at least our sense of it makes it seem louder. It's a very simple meditation, and even 20 minutes a day will change your life a little, maybe a lot, but it's called a practice because we have to practice it. Slough off, and it doesn't work. Which is OK, we all stop things and pick them up again later, it doesn't mean anything.

I'll give you a good example of how this can be helpful (they use mindfulness in hospitals now, in drug recovery programs, in many, many places). One day I was on the bus and a group of people nearby were talking very loudly. They were irritating me to no end. Lots of swear words, and again, they were very loud. Or at least they seemed very loud. So I did my meditation, which is just sitting upright, breathing naturally, and putting my focus on the end of my nose where the air went in and out. It's very subtle. When a crazy thought pops up, or any thought, and we realize we are no longer focused on our breath, just bring your attention back to your breath. Within 5 or 10 minutes the people were no longer loud or annoying, they were simply humans discussing their business. It was ME that had made it annoying, so when ME got out of the way, I was simply hearing them talk. Loud perhaps, but just talking. And that's fine.

 

Yes good point - massage makes the therapist work 100% of the time. Nobody is going to pummel flesh for $20 an hour.