Tinnitus - Notched Sound Therapy

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Tinnitus (ringing in the ears) - Notched Sound Therapy

Curious whether there are any forum members with tinnitus that have experience with what's known as notched sound therapy. Essentially, the frequency of the tinnitus sufferer is identified and then a filter is applied to notch out that frequency from either white noise or music. This then may be heard for an hour a day, over weeks, to determine whether a benefit is experienced. The initial step of identifying the precise tinnitus frequency appears to be key for those who may have benefited. There are a number of studies and reports on this technique, as well as free online filter options or white noise and paid ones for music.

Links:
Short and Intense Tailor-Made Notched Music Training against Tinnitus: The Tinnitus Frequency Matters

AudioNotch - Tinnitus Treatment Sound Therapy - Tuner and Tone Generator

https://tinnitusnotch.com/

http://www.chr-search.com/pdf/notched.pdf

Sound Therapy for Tinnitus Management: Practicable Options: Ingenta Connect

https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2012.06452.x

The American Tinnitus Association lists notched therapy
https://www.ata.org/managing-your-tinnitus/treatment-options/sound-therapies

Another site to match frequency, but with instructions on using Audacity (free) and the available Nyquist filter to process sound. Also lists research links: http://www.notchtherapy.com/
 
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Essentially, the frequency of the tinnitus sufferer is identified and then a filter is applied to notch out that frequency from either white noise or music. This then may be heard for an hour a day, over weeks, to determine whether a benefit is experienced.

Tinnitus is misfiring of sensory cells inside the ear or something like that. How does eliminating it from ambient sound help the problem? Does anyone understand how it works?
 
Concerning the mechanism of action:

"Selectively stimulating the auditory neurons that don’t produce the tinnitus frequency appears to laterally inhibit the auditory neurons that do produce the tinnitus frequency. Sustained lateral inhibition rewires the connections between neurons in the auditory cortex so that the baseline level of inhibition increases (even when users aren’t listening to the music). Therefore the tinnitus volume decreases."

Source: http://www.chr-search.com/pdf/notched.pdf

The links supplied at the top post go into the level of detailed required to gain a much better understanding of what tinnitus is, the therapies involved, and the research.
 
A parent (age 79) and a sibling (age 55) are suffering from the condition, and have for years. In the literature, one gets the impression that pure tone tinnitus is the most common form by some measure, and that's why it's focused on. The single tone type may change frequency, however, over time. What has been your experience?
 
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True, some of the other forms are very bizarre, and obviously this form of therapy would be of no use, I'm speaking of when people hear music and even voices, often people have been thought of as mad when they're not. My tinnitus is single tone, most of the time, I haven't found that anything helps but I haven't tried this so I am interested. I have found that stress aggravates it, but stress aggravate most ailments. I saw audiologist a while ago and have noise related hearing loss not enough in itself for them to be able to prescribe hearing aids, but with the tinnitus as well they were able to prescribe. It's hard to say whether they have helped because I haven't used them much, I think they possibly did at first, but they are only national health ones and there is a delay in the processing which I'm very aware of and makes music listening with them impossible.
 
Interesting idea.
My tinnitus consists of 2 tones, one just below 10KHz and one just above. Is it any co-incidence that I worked in TV service in the 60s and 70s when the UK horizontal scanning frequency was 10.125KHz? Those 405 line TVs used to screech like hell, and I would be working in a room with many running.
My pet theory is that my ears became desensitised to 10.125KHz, and as nowadays my brain receives little of it, it has wound up the gain such that I'm hearing processing noise.

Fortunately I have a mindset that is able to ignore it. I know for some people it can be distressing.
 
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I'm glad you are able to ignore it. I'm aware of mine most of the time although it usually doesn't get me down even when it's bad. It does help to have a certain attitude, remaining calm and unstressed is consequently very important to me, and that can have positive results for me generally.
 
My tinnitus consists of 2 tones, one just below 10KHz and one just above. Is it any co-incidence that I worked in TV service in the 60s and 70s when the UK horizontal scanning frequency was 10.125KHz? Those 405 line TVs used to screech like hell, and I would be working in a room with many running.
My pet theory is that my ears became desensitised to 10.125KHz, and as nowadays my brain receives little of it, it has wound up the gain such that I'm hearing processing noise.

Found this to be very interesting. Presumably you self tested (as, like all of us here, we have the equipment and a certain facility with these matters), but did you ever consult with an audiologist or physician? And have considered experimenting with the suppression therapies such as are described here: AudioNotch - Tinnitus Treatment Sound Therapy - FAQ
 
Found this to be very interesting. Presumably you self tested (as, like all of us here, we have the equipment and a certain facility with these matters), but did you ever consult with an audiologist or physician? And have considered experimenting with the suppression therapies such as are described here: AudioNotch - Tinnitus Treatment Sound Therapy - FAQ
Yes I tested myself a few years ago. I did have a consultation once but found it unsatisfactory and never followed up on it - maybe I should. In the meantime I might try some of the ideas posted.
 
The concept of notched noise doesn't immediately make sense to me. The notch removes the sound that you can no longer hear. There must be something about the notch width. I may try playing around with Octave and see what I can create for free, as I am just plain cheap and this is a DIY forum.
 
I've had tinnitus since 1999/2000. Sounds like a cicada and if I recall correctly tested at 6 to 7kHz. Some15 years ago I read about a technique to "cancel out" the tinnitus by introducing the same frequency but that is "out of phase." Maybe it was this method that the article was referring to. Would happily be a Guinea pig for some relief from the considerable din. Thanks for the information, I'll will look into this once I am back from vacation.


Oh,mine was definitely caused by stress. I had a stress angina, and shortly thereafter my tinnitus started up.
 
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I've thought about this too as I have self-diagnosed hyperacusis which I'm lumping in under this thread as related to Tinitus.

I don't have traditional single tone Tinitus. What I have noticed with age is an increase in the background noise level. Not only my hearing (background noise is mostly hiss, mostly high frequency so not 1/f) but also my seeing (in low light I have more visible noise).

I have mapped out my hyperacusis using an on-line tone generator and tested myself with more than one type of speaker/amp so as to create some equipment independent consensus. There are several frequencies that cause clear irritation, some of them narrow band and at least one a bit broader - so the Q is not constant.

I believe the cause was playing my hi-fi at very loud levels about 10 years ago.

The result is that I can't listen to music reproduction that has treble peaks, rising treble or sibilance. I can listen to a Fostex 127E for about a minute at most before I want to turn it off; I can't use Grado SR60's at all. I can listen to Alpair 10.3 and Audio Nirvana Super 15 all day long.

I haven't tried a notch filter yet but have considered the idea several times.
 
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