Use Your Brain to Cure Your Tinnitus
70Some ten million persons in the US have symptomatic tinnitus-, which bothers them.
There are many causes of tinnitus including drug reactions, hypertension, cochlear hydrops and Meniere’s disease.
The commonest cause is hearing loss due to acoustic trauma. But now with the military, there is blast trauma with hearing loss and tinnitus.
But, whatever the cause of the tinnitus, some persons have it and others do not. Workers from the shipyards are exposed to very loud noise. Many show a typical high tone hearing loss especially at the 4000 hz sound. Yet, among workers with almost identical hearing loss, some will complain of tinnitus and others say they don’t have it.
None of our current theories of tinnitus explains these differences. Nor can we explain why we can cut the 8th nerve for cancer or other reason, and with no nerve inpulse to or from the ear, some patients develop tinnitus, and others do not.
The main problem in tinnitus therapy is that it is a subjective symptom and we have no means of objectifying it.
Today the science of neuroplasticity shows that parts of the brain can be changed to other functions and uses. With training, an uninjured part of the brain can be trained to take over and function for an injured brain function. The key is training and repetition. Study of placebo effects indicate that the brain is the factor that controls the chemicals and enzymes of healing. How can we get the brain to heal tinnitus?
Mrs. Adair, age 44, awoke with tinnitus. Various treatments failed. She was upset that she didn’t do a thing different that might have brought this on. I decided that perhaps if we replicated the body chemistry before the tinnitus, maybe we could relieve her? We decided to try.
I asked her to visualize a happy or fun time before the tinnitus. It was important to be as realistic as possible, using all five senses to recall the events of that fun time. She did this for 15 minutes/day. A week later she reported that the tinnitus no longer bothered her. It was there if she paid attention to it.
The theory here is that with visualization using all five senses plus the joy of the event, certain chemicals are corrected or changed that corrects the tinnitus.
To make sure that the proper nutrients or enzymes of good hearing and brain metabolism are there for her body to use, I have my patients take Ear Aid™. This is a product that contains the factors known to be important in hearing, nerve and brain function. (see www.earaid.info) Thus, in the visualized pre-tinnitus state, if certain enzymes are needed, they are provided.
Perhaps a factor that helps this to work is the relaxation it gives a patient knowing that there is a procedure he can do for relief. Perhaps it is just the relaxation effect. Or maybe the brain is shown what to do, like a biofeedback, and then proceeds to do the job properly. Whatever the mechanism, this is an easy exercise to do and has a scientific rationale.
Eventually I hope to have enough cases to publish on this method. But, for my patients, and anyone who wants to try it, the fifteen minutes a day spent correcting the factors of their tinnitus chemistry may be well spent.
Another method for tinnitus relief is to record two hours of your favorite music—relaxing type, on your I Pod. Listen to it for two hours a day. It can be background or soft so it doesn’t interfere with your tasks. In theory, listening to the same music daily, new tracks are laid down that displace the tinnitus “track.” Three months of this daily two hour listening should determine the effect. In one sense the brain gets accustomed to the I Pod music and learns to ignore the tinnitus.
From Stressed? Anxiety? Your Cure is in the Mirror C.2010
