Tinnitus Support Group

Since the above link doesn't seem to work, here is a copy of the email I received...


I hurt my ears again with loud music...you think I woud learn...however I started to listen to the "low frequency tones" again (see my previous emails) and it is helping.

I am including the original email from the University of California that helped me get where I am today.

-----Original Message-----
From: Rothholtz, Vanessa
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 11:37 PM
To: rvares@cogeco.ca
Cc: Fine, Esther
Subject: FW: Duration of low frequency sound therapy


Dear Rein,

Dr. Zeng forwarded your note to me. Thank you for your interest in our study and for detailing your experiences with the ringing in your ears. We did receive your tinnitus survey, but we have not extended our testing beyond California quite yet. If you are in the Southern California area, please let us know and we would be happy to meet with you.

I'm glad to hear that the 40Hz tone seems to reduce your ringing. I hope that it continues on its downward trend. As Dr. Zeng alluded, we are in the preliminary stages of our tinnitus study, and we are currently flushing out the details with respect to the tone itself, let alone the duration of the tone. We will definitely pass on more information to you as it becomes available. With that said, in answer to your question, we instruct most people to use the low frequency tone when their tinnitus is at its worst. There is no limitation as to how long you need to use the tone. Some people have found that they set the tone to be lower than their tinnitus and then the tone itself seems to increase over the loudness of the tinnitus, so they need to keep setting the intensity of the external tone lower until both are imperceptable. If you do not have success in this method, we recommend that you place a declining loudness ramp on all of the tones that you are playing to yourself as you are stopping the tone to avoid any "rebound" when the tone is off. Another thing that you can try is to modulate the 40 Hz tone at an 8 to 12 Hz amplitude modulation and determine if that improves your success.

Unforunately, these are all suggestions at this point, and these are the types of conditions under which we are testing our patients here at UCI. Please let me know if you have any success with the suggestions listed above.

Best of luck,
Vanessa

Vanessa Rothholtz, M.D.
University of California, Irvine