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by newt_slowly 103 days ago
My dad had tinnitus and it bothered him relentlessly. He was constantly following potential new treatments, talking to doctors about it, etc.

I have it too. I've taken the approach of truly accepting it: "I will hear these sounds the rest of my life, and I'm truly okay with that". As a result it doesn't give me anxiety or bother me, and I find it helps it fade into the background. The more you focus on it (and let it bother you) the more it stays in the foreground.

I know the advice of "just learn to be okay with it" is easy to communicate but very hard to actually do. I found mindfulness meditation helped me learn to accept things without judgement, including the presence of my tinnitus.
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theshrike79 103 days ago
My ear doctor suggested the myNoise app[0] for me, specifically the Neuromodulator and Brown noise sounds.

The Neuromodulator[1] is a random-ish noise field that ... confuses? the brain after a while and lets you forget the tinnitus - at lest temporarily. The noise isn't "real" it's the brain generating it due to faulty signals, so giving it a bunch of noise helps somehow.

Brown noise[2] was specifically suggested for older people as it has more stuff in the frequencies we still hear naturally :D

As a happy coincidence my partner AND dogs sleep better with the brown noise on, they all tend to wake up to the smallest of noises - this helps with it.

[0] https://mynoise.net

[1] https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/neuromodulationTonesGenera...

[2] https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteNoiseGenerator.php

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ajb 103 days ago
I used to use brown noise, but I find that rain/ thunderstorm sounds are better. It's a noise that your brain is used to ignoring, and other sounds blend into it - even if they are almost as loud -while with the more homogeneous brown and white noise, it has to be louder than the sounds it's trying to mask.

Having said that, I'm not sure how well it would do for high pitched tinnitus.

Edited to add - now listened to the neuro modulator, nice one.

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yesitcan 102 days ago
The fact that we have to tell ourselves these affirmations is just a failure of modern medicine.
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