I debugged my own Tinnitus, most doctors don't know anything and don't care about it. It turned out to be related to my neck, so I wonder on what subset of Tinnitus sufferers this treatment is even relevant.
A short story about my debugging after frustration with the conventional medicine.
One day after I came back from work it started in one ear, lasted for half an hour and went away for few minutes and came back to stay. I had no other symptoms, no pain, nothing. Visited a few ENT, a neurologist, had MRIs - all clean, no tumours no other problems. No hearing loss, no other problems with the ears.
The only thing that seemed to help was a nice hot shower. According to the articles I read on reputable sources, it must have been the running water sound that's masking it but I was better for a period of time after the shower and I couldn't reproduce the effect with recorded water sound.
So I conducted an experiment: I would use cold water to see if it helps. It did not. It wasn't the sound it was the heat that was helping, the relaxation of the cold shower.
But I did not had any neck problems? Yes, lately my posture wasnt great and I was having longer than usual time in front of the computer but I had no pain or anything like that. Anyway, I looked for massages and so on and discovered this technique on Youtube about tapping behind your head with your fingers. The method did not work for me but as I was trying it out I discovered that if I do a massage to a specific parts of my neck the tinnitus will get much less louder and even change tonne.
So one day I had a stiff neck, It lasted for days so I went to a doctor and she gave me muscle relaxants and painkillers. Wow, it turns out the muscle relaxants not only make my neck mobile again but the tinnitus got much better!
Now I was sure, it must be about my neck! Previously noticed that the tinnitus got better on vacation but I speculated that it was about the stress. Now I start thinking that it was about my sitting position.
Got myself an external keyboard, a nice monitor and laptop stand so I began using my computer the way that those leaflets about proper sitting position recommend. I did the neck exercises too and the tinnitus that no one was able to do anything about almost disappeared if few months. Every now and then it will come back but I know exactly where to rub to make it go away. It's not completely gone and at some sleeping positions it would come back louder but before finding a way to manage it I was thinking that my life is over because I coldn't think anything without thinking about the sound in my ears.
Pay attention to your sitting position people! It's no joke. The pain is nothing, you can be tough and not care, you can take painkillers and manage it but Tinnitus is something different. It is in your head, you can't cut it off and you can't take a pill to make it go away for a while. It's one of the most horrible things, it consumes you, makes you worse person because you couldn't sleep well since years, you cannot engage in deep thinking where one ide takes you to another idea. It's like working in an open office space next to the server room.
Get yourself a nice stand if you are using a laptop, use external keyboard a mouse/trackpad so that you can sit straight.
If it’s related to your neck then it’s tension related, that’s one form of tinnitus, one that can be remedied. When you have actual ear damage, it’s quite another story :)
Tinnitus appeared to me at the beginning of this godforsaken year of 2020 and I think I have two separate types of tinnitus, with one most likely being due to neck tension (which is more intense on my left ear). I know this because when I stretch my chin to my chest (like exampled in https://www.healthline.com/health/neck-tension#treatments) I start to hear a more pronounced wooshing sound on my ears and gives a burning sensation to my neck and shoulders. I would really appreciate if you could share the neck exercises that you're using.
For the record, I take great care on computer ergonomics so I've, at least, have that covered. And yes, Tinnitus is a curse.
I also have multiple, the scary one is the constant frequency one and it’s the one that comes back if I lay sideways with strain on the neck(Thankfully doesn’t stay anymore). The more tolerable one is the one that sounds like old tv with no signal, this one responds well to massage. There’s also one that sounds like water running in the pipes, I actually like that one - in even helps me sleep :)
Anyway, The orthopedist gave me this leaflet with the exercises illustrated. Pretty basic stuff and in Turkish but the illustrations are good enough:
"The more tolerable one is the one that sounds like old tv with no signal" That's actually the other type of tinnitus that I have, but this is actually the one that I find most tolerable (in the sense that at least it's the more silent one, which I can mask with other noises).
This tinnitus crap showed up to me randomly while working in an open office at the beginning of this year (I wasn't wearing headphones or anything) and a bit after COVID started acting up all over the world and I've been WFH since. As a consequence of this, I think I might not be able to ever return to a regular open office. Really funny timing if one thinks about it.
I remember reading that one way of treating it would be lace your fingers behind your neck and do a flicking motion onto your neck with your fingers. Could be imaginary but it seemed to help. YMMV
That was the relief technique I tried but did not work for me but discovered the one that works: Rubbing in single motion by starting from back my shoulder up to the back of my ear.
A short story about my debugging after frustration with the conventional medicine.
One day after I came back from work it started in one ear, lasted for half an hour and went away for few minutes and came back to stay. I had no other symptoms, no pain, nothing. Visited a few ENT, a neurologist, had MRIs - all clean, no tumours no other problems. No hearing loss, no other problems with the ears.
The only thing that seemed to help was a nice hot shower. According to the articles I read on reputable sources, it must have been the running water sound that's masking it but I was better for a period of time after the shower and I couldn't reproduce the effect with recorded water sound.
So I conducted an experiment: I would use cold water to see if it helps. It did not. It wasn't the sound it was the heat that was helping, the relaxation of the cold shower.
But I did not had any neck problems? Yes, lately my posture wasnt great and I was having longer than usual time in front of the computer but I had no pain or anything like that. Anyway, I looked for massages and so on and discovered this technique on Youtube about tapping behind your head with your fingers. The method did not work for me but as I was trying it out I discovered that if I do a massage to a specific parts of my neck the tinnitus will get much less louder and even change tonne.
So one day I had a stiff neck, It lasted for days so I went to a doctor and she gave me muscle relaxants and painkillers. Wow, it turns out the muscle relaxants not only make my neck mobile again but the tinnitus got much better!
Now I was sure, it must be about my neck! Previously noticed that the tinnitus got better on vacation but I speculated that it was about the stress. Now I start thinking that it was about my sitting position.
Got myself an external keyboard, a nice monitor and laptop stand so I began using my computer the way that those leaflets about proper sitting position recommend. I did the neck exercises too and the tinnitus that no one was able to do anything about almost disappeared if few months. Every now and then it will come back but I know exactly where to rub to make it go away. It's not completely gone and at some sleeping positions it would come back louder but before finding a way to manage it I was thinking that my life is over because I coldn't think anything without thinking about the sound in my ears.
Pay attention to your sitting position people! It's no joke. The pain is nothing, you can be tough and not care, you can take painkillers and manage it but Tinnitus is something different. It is in your head, you can't cut it off and you can't take a pill to make it go away for a while. It's one of the most horrible things, it consumes you, makes you worse person because you couldn't sleep well since years, you cannot engage in deep thinking where one ide takes you to another idea. It's like working in an open office space next to the server room.
Get yourself a nice stand if you are using a laptop, use external keyboard a mouse/trackpad so that you can sit straight.