Re- Habituation.

[Untold]

How am I supposed to habituate to something that's completely unpredictable. I've got the baseline T, loud and constant, around 13-15Kh but I've got loads of other stuff going on as well. I get popping, clicking, ticking. Spikes at any time. Sometimes half a dozen spikes fire off at anytime, one after another, like those rocket launchers. Then there's the ticking, tick tick tick, loads of them, starting really fast, then getting slower, or maybe starting slow then getting faster. Loads of crackling sounds, instant unbearable headaches that could last an hour or the whole day. The NHS psychologist who phones me says I should accept it and learn to habituate. Yeah right.

[Hidden]

Hi your psychologist shows a lack of compassion and empathy, am truly sorry you are experiencing this but you are not alone, please if you havent already check out Julian Cowan Hill on You Tube, he has a website and app 'Quieten' free months trial, he has helped me understand what T is and what to do, he had it for 20 years and its gone because he found what helped him, this is not false hope, my T is mostly muscular based and i have experienced and still do droning, hissing, and roaring T it is all incredibly challenging and i am learning what i can do to soften it and in time it will lessen, some chat rooms are very negative when it comes to T so please avoid them.

[Jimbob7]

Hi Untold,

Your psychologist clearly has not experienced T, BUT, is right after a fashion. After all, what is the alternative to not accepting it and not habituating to it? . . . Right. Let's not go there.

However, how? How to hit a moving target? The brain is pretty handy at cancelling out noise with which it has grown familiar and the frequency/ frequencies of which are constant. If there's a change in pitch/ tone/ cadence - it alerts you - that's it's job. We don't really want it to stop doing that. We want to know when the mild gentle breaking of the waves on a seashore start to growl and warn us of the approaching tidal wave, etc.

When I first developed T I knew the changes in pitch/ tenor were unsettling my Flight/ Fright Centres - bringing me often to the edge of panic attacks and leading to an almost constant state of unease. This is because everytime our brains detect a change in something external (and the T is detected as external) they alert this centre and ask us: "Do we need to be concerned about this?" We can tell ourselfes "No, stop listening" as much as we want - but the brain will alert us each and every bloody time. That's it's job. Your brain is just doing it's job - that it knows is in our best interests to do for the last half a million years or so of cerebral evolution.

What we have to do is to develop the skilll - and this is not easy, of instantaneous response to the alertness cue, to respond and cancel it out - it takes alot of work, of learning what I call "The FLIP response".

My T is near impossible to cancel out as like you - it constantly changes, different noises come and go - I have Somatic/ Pulsatile - I move - the T sounds move; louder/ softer, up/ down pitch, extra clicking/ buzzing, squeaking, etc; THAT moving target that my brain just won't cancel out.

My FLIP response is to acknowledge the sound change with a couple of questions back at myself:

- Is it louder?

- Is it new?

- Is it better or worse than I've heard before.

Do this everytime your T changes - those three questions. Now, for a while this can be disheartening as you may find yourself witnessing your T growing worse but after you've been doing this a while you will start to get some positive responses to these three questions; 'No, it is quieter, No, I've heard those crickets before', etc, etc.

After persisting with this for a while your brain will learn to attenuate the information from your responses to the T that it sends you. It will learn to differentiate between T sounds that it need not consult you about and sounds that it should. It will slowly learn to hit some of the moving targets.

I have about half a dozen noises within my T that are, dare I say it; "old friends" - and these days my brain knows not to bother me about them - they're just there and they do change.

This process takes work - I have spent time meditating on my T- really listening to it - telling my brain that it need not care or be concerned about these sounds. It's slowly getting the message. Like many of us- if our friends and family could actually hear our T they would be utterly horrified and wonder at how on Earth we live with this - but we do and any tricks we can come up with to better manage our T (habituate the SOB) are weapons in our arsenal.

I hope this one makes sense and you give it a shot and hit some of those targets bang on.

Good Luck,

[Fridays_Child_62]

You seem to be going through a lot but are you sure the ticks and crackles are subjective tinnitus? I think these can be effects of other ear disorders such as eustachian tube disfunction and middle-ear myoclonus. Have you seen a hospital ENT specialist for a diagnosis?

[Untold in reply to Fridays_Child_62]

Hi Friday.I've been a regular visitor to UCHL and they've dismissed MEM.

I've thought for a long time that I may have ETD and it might be a symptom of another issue, maybe a neck or jaw issue. I'm so lost and confused on all this I don't know what to think anymore.

From what I've read recently, and if I've got it right, T can be a result of jaw muscle issues, which can also cause eustachian tube dysfunction problems.

A peice that I read recently, written by a TMJ and neuromuscular dentist said if you have one sided tinnitus, can increase the volume of your tinnitus by jaw movement, you can also develop ETD dysfunction from the jaw muscles. He also said they can help to reduce your symptoms if these issues are the cause of your T.

I don't know what to think or believe about T anymore. All I know is that it's unbearable.

Any advice, help or tips from anyone is greatly appreciated.

Have a great day. Cheers.

[Hidden in reply to Untold]

As i mentioned earlier JCH addresses all ear related problems including ETD And TMD please look him up, these problems can be muscle tension related, your dentist should tell you if your jaw is out of allignment etc, i had no official diagnosis but my neck and upper back and shoulder muscles on one side are very tight and no doubt impacting the ET as its all connected.

[Fridays_Child_62 in reply to Untold]

I'm sorry to learn what you're going through but at least you have been active in exploring the different avenues. I think a lot of people feel the same as you in that they don't know what to believe about the causes of tinnitus. It's an area that needs to be taken more seriously by the medical profession and a lot more research needs to be done, as this condition can be so disruptive to a person's life. My only personal wisdom is that tinnitus tends to evolve and can settle down after a while (part of which might be habituation).