I’m not sure. I haven’t decided whether to procrastinate or not.
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I recently finished a 3+ month treatment with Lanier mentioned in that article. Sadly, at best it did nothing and at worst, has made my condition worse. My tinnitus is mild and something I have learned to deal with on my own (my brain filters it majority of time).
I did loose $4,500 for the device that you must purchase and 1 hour every night to listen to the music and put up with the tongue electrode. You have to dedicate the time to it which to me, was more costly than the money itself.
I understand that they never perform bias controlled testing claiming that was too hard to do. I suspect if they had, they would have realized that some people would have just gotten better whether they device did anything or not.
I am not saying it won’t work for others but be careful in falling for the very promising results. Ask a lot of questions before signing up and be fully prepared for it doing nothing or making things worse.
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I found Alcohol does the same and makes it worse, not been drinking since Septemeber and its not changed any.
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No alcohol for three weeks here, Tinnitus just as bad…
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Thanks for sharing this, @Amir_Majidimehr.
I am definitely not going to ask if you want to sell your kit. I appreciate your work but not enough to share your tongue electrode.
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I purchased the wristband used for Duo for my father two weeks ago, before this article came out. It can be used in multiple modes. The mode my Dad is using it for is called ‘Clarify’ - to address speech recognition issues due to high frequency hearing loss - but fyi, someone with the band can use it in one, two or all three modes (the third mode is ‘sound awareness’ - to detect running water, an alarm or other noises). It’s too early to say whether it’s helping my Dad.
I learned about the product at a lecture at Stanford last fall by Prof Eagleton. I spoke with him after his talk. I heard him say the Duo product could be effective with pronounced tinnitus. My impression from him was that it would do little or nothing for mild cases.
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My audiologist has me on a short list to beta this beginning soon. She is going to undergo the initial launch and then recommend me for participation. Can’t wait to see what it yields.
Try listening to this through headphones about 10 minutes. Helps me. I’ve also found that just listening to music through headphones helps.
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I hope you find the treatment helpful. Either way, I hope you share your experiences here.
Thank you. My Tinnitus re-screening is scheduled for 2/9. I have already cleared the psych evaluation and have been approved as a resonably viable candidate. I was given this opportunity when I reported an issue with my current hearing aids, where the software forced the units to work out of phase with each other. I also noticed about a half dB difference between them. (I thought it was me). But when I reported these issues, my audiologist tested them and found my experience to be correct. She immediately put me in this program. Can’t wait to see if it works. It’s not cheap.
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Having had tinnitus since a young age, much of the time I am able to ignore it by concentrating on what is in front of me, or at least in front of my ears. However, about 5 years ago we were headed to the Newport Jazz festival and I was nervous about what would happen. After considering the Westone series, I decided on a somewhat simplistic approach, i.e., a straight reduction in dB with choosing seating carefully. For example, at the Newport Jazz festival, they have several venues with different amplification capabilities. The main stage - we sat at the furtherest rearward point and used binoculars. For most performers on that stage, no hearing protection was required; however, the moment the dB went up, the hearing protection went into the ears. Other stages with less overwhelming amplification were less susceptible to the problem, but they still were usable for performers that were turning it up to 11.
Despite that, I will potentially re-consider the Westone approach in the future. Unfortunately, I had a dramatic reduction in hearing in one ear (at a driving event at a race track where some fool thought open pipes made him fast - he crashed). I now sport hearing aids as a result - they make a wonderful difference for me, though I am on the bubble as to whether or not I really need them.
When I was discussing that the hearing loss with my ENT, I described the whole of my music listening from home audio, home recording, clubs, concerts. I pointed out that I can hear still the difference between quality of recording (I suspect this is really the bit depth (24 vs 16 bits?). Even though I was a traditionally an edge case (on the bubble), his diagnosis was that I would probably benefit from hearing aids - and I feel that I do.
Last, I have to second, third and beyond on the value of audiology and audiologists. To my mind if you have any questions about your hearing, get that hearing test. My audiologist has been invaluable in helping me understanding what is going on with my own hearing situation, i.e., my brain’s interpretation of the data it collects from my ears.
I have two jokes -
- I have a treble channel and a mids/bass channel, unfortunately they are 180 degrees apart (opposite sides of my head)
- I refer to my tinnitus as my ability to hear the background radiation in the universe
Best of luck to all in this critical area of enjoyment of life.
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Just a thought - my coffee intake was discussed with my ENT. I am now down to about 2-2.5 cups (8 oz US cups) a day. I was at 4+ cups a day easily. I think the reduction has made a difference for me.
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Possibly, i don’t have a lot of coffee really so not a trigger for me, have two cups max most days it’s 1 and over last 5 months only 1 a day as had some other condition to contend with that required to cut down on it and alcohol. No difference for me that I have noticed. May well pay attention to the days I have two and see.
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I couldn’t read the article behind the paywall but thanks to Neosensory I could gleam at least one of the methods described in the article. I have seen this somewhere else. Probably on YouTube.
Obviously I have tinnitus. Mine is an incessant tone in my ears, described often as the classic “ringing” in the ears. The intensity and pitch of the tone can change but it’s always there. It does however give me a superpower - I can with high accuracy tell you when there is a change in barometric pressure.
The title of the article alludes to hacking the “last mile” of the brain. To my mind, or brain as it were, an electrode on the tongue does not quite reach the bar as a brain hack. I am going to describe a method which I believe does qualify as a brain hack.
I practice meditation with heavy emphasis on the word practice. I am not an advanced practitioner as I am terribly inconsistent. Without delving into the minutia of how to meditate (the school of Sam Harris with his app “Waking Up”) here’s how I do it.
I sit comfortably, relax my body including and most importantly relax my jaw muscles. I close my eyes and instead of trying to ignore my tinnitus I lean into it. Hard. I focus singularly on the tone. I focus so much on it that it cleanses my mind, mostly anyway, of other fleeting thoughts. I focus on the tone to the extent that I can feel it. I can feel that which I perceive to be my eardrums. It could be something else that I am feeling but it doesn’t really matter what it is. What’s important is that I am feeling it. It becomes a sort of throbbing or pulsing sensation, almost a precursor to pain without being painful.
Now that I can feel my tinnitus, not just hear it, I can begin to manipulate the tone. I have been able to change the tone and intermittently eliminate it. I get so excited when I succeed that it snaps me out of “the zone” and allows the tone to return. But it works. I just need to practice, practice, practice which I must admit I have not done with any consistency.
It doesn’t take much initial practice of the methods of meditation to get to this point but one should at the very least seek rudimentary instructions in meditation to get to “the zone”. I truly am a novice practitioner so the effort involved to get where I am is minimal. In other words, “if I can do it, then so can you”.
Now that’s what I call a brain hack!
Or, just listen to crickets. There are videos of “crickets at night” feely available on YouTube. If I need to concentrate on work or read then the sound of crickets masks the kind of tinnitus I experience without any undue distraction. Having YouTube Premium without advertisements and the ability to listen without the necessity of displaying video also helps. This is of course just old school masking, not hacking or resolving the root cause of the condition. It works for me in a pinch though.
A second alternative I can mention is the music radio streaming app Zen Radio. I am a paid subscriber of DI.FM due to my passion for electronica. If you subscribe to DI.FM - or any of the sister apps as it should not matter - then you get Rock Radio, Classical Radio, Jazz Radio, Radio Tunes and the latest addition Zen Radio.
While these radio apps are just that - radio - you will find that each app has a large number of sub-genres or channels. As an avid electronica listener I regularly hear music on DI.FM which I cannot find in my other paid music streaming subscriptions (Spotify, Apple Music, Qobuz, Tidal, YouTube Music). I take screenshots when I hear something I like and then look for it on the aforementioned apps. More often that not I cannot find the song or at least that particular version of the song anywhere else.
I like the two-year plan for di.fm. Fire-and-forget for two years and at the lowest monthly fee by comparison. The quality is fair enough - 128k ACC or 320k MP3 for Premium Members, otherwise quite low but free to try so nothing to lose. And of course no advertisements as a Premium Member.
I mentioned all of this because of Zen Radio and it’s 39 channels to choose from such as Baby Sleep (if you have one of those), Chillout, Deep Concentration, Deep Focus, Meditation, Native Flutes, Ocean Sounds, etc. I think you get it. I like it and use it often.
I still do love my Georgia crickets at night though, free on YouTube.
I hope all of this helps anyone who shares this affliction.
Brevity is not one of my qualities
/Will
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