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I posted to this forum about five years ago under the same name, Bryan. That post is here: http://www.mytinnitus.de/forum3.htm
My tinnitus continues unabated. Back then I had a hearing loss at about 3000 ertz and guessed that is were my ringing is. Since then, I sat at a piano and found the note. It is about G4. That is the note of G but four octaves above middle C. The note A above middle C is 440 Hz, almost an octave above middle C. My G is almost three octaves above that, or about 3500 Hz.
The ringing is a rather pure sine wave and it in both ears. It is always there and never relents. When the room is quite, it is more obvious.
It ocurred to me that since the ear hears different frequencies at different places within the ear, if the cause is within the ear, cutting the right never would kill the ringing. I would of course be completely deaf at that frequency, but that it a trade off I would gladly make. But never are rather small and singling out that one nerve would be quite difficult if not impossible.
I do have TMJ and had it before the onset of tinnitus. Moving my jaw or pressing anywhere around my ear or head has no effect on the ringing.
I have had this for about 30 years now and really wish I could get rid of it.
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Hi Bryan,
Welcome to the new forum.
I hope that you are OK apart from the tinnitus.
It is of course regrettable that there is no improvement in your case yet, but one shouldn't give up but continue to try all reasonable possible options here. However, cutting the hearing nerve isn't really a reasonable option, as usually the tinnitus has nothing to do with an inner ear damage, but is a nervous problem and produced in the brain (see http://www.tinnitus.org for more). So cutting the nerve would not get rid of the tinnitus in most cases (and anyway, I doubt that it is possible just to cut out a certain frequency; you could only cut the hearing nerve as whole, but that would obviously mean you become totally deaf, which would be much worse than the tinnitus (especially as the latter is likely to continue)).
I wonder actually whether there is something that permanently aggravates your tinnitus and thus prevents it from improving. I am thinking here in particular of high pitched noises that you might be exposed to on a daily basis. These wouldn't even have to be very loud or to persist over an extended period. I believe for instance that in this sense an electric shaver has caused big problems for me in the first couple of months of my tinnitus, before I stopped using it. Only then did my tinnitus improve. I tried a couple of months later (when my tinnitus was already much improved) to use the electric shaver again (I had shaved wet in the meanwhile), but immediately I felt it worsening again. So since then I haven't used an electric shaver again, and I also took care with other noise sources (e.g. using ear plugs when hoovering). The point here is that certain frequencies can 'couple' into your tinnitus and thus aggravate it. If that happens on a regular basis, it might well prevent an improvement.
Thomas
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I never would have throught that one or two minutes of a not very loud sound would agrivate tinnitus, such as an electric shaver. But what the heck, I'll try that.
Regarding the nerve cut, I am fairly certain that there are very many nerves running from the cochlea to the brain. Each area of the cochlea detects a different frequency and each will have its own conduit to the brain. If somone could find the one or few nerves that carry just the one particular frequency, and if the problem is in the ear, then that frequency could be silenced while not affecting other frequencies.
While I have my fair share of mental difficulties, I am not convinced that this is a mental problem rather than a physical problem with the ear. It would seem that in over 30 years, if this were based on a mental state, there would be some time when I was relaxed enough or secure enough for the ringing to stop for even just a short while.
Regarding hearing protection, I have been using ear plugs when mowing the lawn, working with tools, vacuuming the house, etc. I departed the military some 28 years ago so that's no longer a problem.
Oh well. Thanks for the idea and taking time to respond.
~Bryan
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Bryan,
Under normal circumstances the noise by an electric shaver etc. would not present any problems, but if the tinnitus is already present, you can become very vulnerable at certain frequencies. Many people with tinnitus are troubled by otherwise harmless background noises like that of the TV, computer etc. In almost all cases this is a high pitched tone, very much at a similar frequency as the tinnitus, i.e. it can couple easily into the latter. Also, in case of the shaver, much of the noise is transmitted directly through the bone, which could make matters even worse. So I would definitely bear this in mind.
And I am by the way not saying that a nervous imbalance is necessarily a mental problem. The hearing system can be thrown out of balance by many factors (be it physical or mental); the tinnitus is just a result of the imbalance.
Thomas
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I appreciate your respect for wording it that way, but I am a rather un-laid back guy. I suspect that my internal tensions do agrivate the situation. As tensions ease and increase over the years, I have found effectively no change in the level or presistancy of my ringing.
Just the same, my wife bought a bottle of Clear Tinnitus capsules and I have been taking them. When I look at the long list of ingrediants, I get the feeling they have no idea of what might help and just threw in the kitchen sink. I have been taking the time to relax and sort of meditate. One of my primary thoughts is that my brain can learn to ignore that one particular frequency.
This morning when I woke up I noticed that the ringing in my left ear seems to have reduced in intensity. Its not gone, and the right ear is the same, but that is a tremendous improvement.
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