June 2012 Archive
Browse all posts from June 2012.
Free Tinnitus Masker
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 30, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Tags: free software Tinnitus tinnitus masker
When I first developed tinnitus, I struggled tremendously. Being enrolled in a taxing educational program like Medical School didn't help. In particular, it was extremely difficult to sleep - the noise of tinnitus prevented me from falling asleep in a timely manner. One thing that helped me was the usage of tinnitus...
Does Tinnitus Go Away?
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Tags: does tinnitus go away? remission Tinnitus
The short answer is: 1. Yes, sometimes. I did a brief literature search for "tinnitus remission," and it seems that there is a paucity of research on the question of spontaneous remission. When people pose the question "Does Tinnitus Go Away?" they are usually referring to instances where a person has developed chronic...
Tinnitus and Insomnia
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Anyone with tinnitus can tell you that it's hard to sleep with a loud noise going off inside your head. The ringing in your ears isn't exactly conducive to falling unconscious. Many individuals feel the need to turn to fans or other masking noises in order to fall asleep. Confirming these anecdotal reports, researchers...
Evidence that Tinnitus Negatively Affects Cognition
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Tags: attention cognition Tinnitus
Imagine you're writing an exam. You're concentrating heavily on the material, weighing different variables in your mind, balancing equations, and remembering facts from 2:30 AM (which was six hours ago). Suddenly, a fire alarm goes off, and doesn't stop screeching. It cuts into your ears, and the examiner looks at you....
Chris Martin Suffers from Tinnitus
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Tags: Coldplay concerts hearing damage hearing loss Tinnitus
Add another one to the long list of musicians who've developed tinnitus from loud noise exposure. Chris Martin has tinnitus : 'I’ve had tinnitus for about ten years, and since I started protecting my ears it hasn’t got any worse – touch wood. ‘But I wish I’d thought about it earlier. 'Now [the band] always use moulded...
The Association Between Tinnitus and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Tags: PTSD soldiers Tinnitus veterans
Here is a link to an interesting abstract drawing a link between Tinnitus and PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Researchers observed an interesting set of similarities between the way tinnitus and PTSD affect the auditory system: Similarities between the way PTSD and tinnitus influence auditory behaviors include...
Celebrities and Famous People with Tinnitus
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
From time to time, it's helpful to look to others for inspiration when we're having difficulty coping with our tinnitus. Throughout history, many individuals have been afflicted with this condition, and although it poses severe challenges in going about daily life, they can be overcome. You'll note that many of these...
The International Tinnitus Journal
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
The International Tinnitus Journal is a biannual peer reviewed publication that publishes articles on new research efforts in the study of tinnitus. What's particularly good about this journal is that, unlike many other journals, their articles are free to view on-line. Check them out here! Cheers, AudioNotch
Stress and Tinnitus
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
The relationship between stress and tinnitus is an interesting one. The association between tinnitus and anxiety has been well documented. Certainly, this association appears to be causative, given the anecdotal evidence that chronic tinnitus creates a subjective perception of anxiety. In one of several studies that...
Causes of Pulsatile Tinnitus
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: TinnitusTreatment Review
In an earlier post, we discussed the importance of determining whether or not your tinnitus is pulsatile, since pulsatile variants may be more amenable to successful treatment and cure. Here is a link to another article on pulsatile tinnitus (it's a journal article, so you may have difficulty accessing the paper and...
Pulsatile (Pulsating) Tinnitus
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Do you have pulsatile tinnitus? Pulsatile tinnitus is a form of tinnitus that results in a subjectively experienced, rhythmic tinnitus perception that is synchronous with your heartbeat. In order to determine whether your rhythmic tinnitus is truly pulsatile (that is, the tone occurs with every beat of your heart),...
Tips for Managing Tinnitus
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
The American Tinnitus Association is a reputable, non-profit organization that advocates for tinnitus sufferers. A great deal of internet resources on the subject of tinnitus are written by individuals with a commercial interest in tinnitus treatment (such as this blog, for example), and as such, are not a perfectly...
AudioNotch and iOS Devices
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Tags: iOS Transferring mp3's
We've recently had some questions from users who aren't familiar with how to sync their iOS devices with AudioNotch. The short answer is as follows: 1. Download your custom therapy files from the "Step 3 - Listen" page. 2. Open iTunes. 3. Go to "File--> Add File to Library" 4. Select the white noise file you want to...
SSRI's As Tinnitus Treatment
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
In patients who suffer from both tinnitus and depression, there is data indicating that a class of medications called "Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors" (SSRI's) are an effective treatment for both tinnitus and depression. That is to say, there is evidence that tinnitus severity and mood disorder symptoms of...
A Diagnostic Approach to Tinnitus
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
As a medical student, I often use the American Association of Family Physician review article series when I want to get a broad overview on how to approach a certain clinical problem. They offer great summary articles that can provide helpful, accessible information for both patients and physicians. If you read this...
Tinnitus and Depression
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 28, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
The subject of tinnitus and depression is one that is often overlooked by portrayals of the illness in mass media. The correlation between tinnitus and mood disorders such as depression is well established. Presumably, in some patients, there is a causal link between the permanence of the tinnitus tone and the...
Blogging User Questions: Part 4 - Is Our Refund Policy Real?
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Categories: Announcement
Terry Asks: I've had issues with a lot of products purchased on the internet claiming to offer free refunds, then not doing so. How do I know I can trust you? Trust is understandably a very important component of any service being offered. Fortunately, AudioNotch uses PayPal, which makes it extremely easy to refund...
Blogging User Questions: Part 3 - How Loud Should I Listen to Notched Sound Therapy?
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Jerry Asks: How loud should the volume at which I listen to Notched White Noise be? I want to treat my tinnitus effectively, without causing more hearing loss. As far as listening volume, according to the research we've looked at, you should try and listen to the therapy at a level approximately equal to your tinnitus...
DJ's are at High Risk for Tinnitus
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Here is a link to an excellent article on DJ Tech Tools on how best to prevent tinnitus. People for whom DJ'ing is a profession are at high risk - their job demands that they're placed into environments with an absolutely staggering noise exposure. Tinnitus is an increasingly common problem for DJ's, however, with the...
We Love Your Feedback
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Categories: Announcement
Tags: feedback
We've had the good fortune to have highly-engaged users, and we're thankful for their feedback. If you're an AudioNotch customer, and you've got suggestions, don't hesitate to send them our way! We've already implemented multiple suggestions for upgrades to the software, and we're always looking to please our users....
Blogging User Questions: Part 2 - How Accurately Do I Have to Tune?
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Categories: Announcement
Jamie Asks: How accurate does the match have to be? I'm having difficulty matching my tinnitus frequency to the computer generated frequency on the tuner. We do have some tolerance built into our procedure. The notch width is actually based on the average frequency selectivity of a person, and is two equivalent...
Blogging User Questions: Part 1
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
John Asks: What do you mean by the following instructions on the tuner page? Please note: When you think you have found your tone, check the frequency that is half it, and double it, as these may sound very similar due to a phenomenon known as octave confusion. Pick the one that closest matches your tone. The reason...
Tinnitus Research Paper: Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Therapy
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Categories: TinnitusTreatment Review
Tags: rTMS tinnitus treatment
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Therapy (also known as rTMS) is a relatively new technology that has been used to treat a variety of brain based disorders, such as depression. It involves using a device to magnetically stimulate the brain non-invasively. Here is a link to an abstract of a paper that found...
Tinnitus Treatment Paper: Lidocaine
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Categories: TinnitusTreatment Review
Tags: lidocaine Tinnitus tinnitus treatment
Here is a link to an abstract on a paper about the effects of Lidocaine on tinnitus. Lidocaine is a medication that is used as a local anesthetic and an anti-arrhythmic agent (suppressing cardiac arrhythmia) . Via brain imaging, it was found to produce both increases and decreases in the loudness of tinnitus. This...
Clinic Referral Program
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Categories: Announcement
Tags: referral program
Recently, AudioNotch has been getting a lot of queries about how we interface with clinics that might refer their patients who suffer from tinnitus to our service. We're increasingly making inroads into a broader interaction with the outpatient tinnitus treatment setting, and excited to work hand in hand with...
Tinnitus Treatment Paper: Gingko Biloba
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Tags: gingko biloba Tinnitus
Gingko Biloba. Is it a natural cure for tinnitus? A double blind, randomized controlled trial is considered the gold standard in experimental design and the best way to determine if true causation is present (i.e. whether or not a real treatment effect is seen with a given therapy, in a medical context). This type of...
Testimonials Aren't Enough: Correlation Vs. Causation
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 16, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Testimonials have a long a storied history in the world of marketing. Indeed, you'll note that we display one on our landing page. For a variety of consumer products - say, for example, a type of cleaning agent - testimonials might be enough. They might sway you to make a purchase. However, in the field of medical...
Tinnitus Treatment Review: Homeoapthy
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 10, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Homepathic Cure. Tinnitus Treatment. Natural Remedy. These are the keywords that people are searching for when they're looking for tinnitus treatment online, and it's unfortunate. A great deal of tinnitus sufferers are desperate for any type of effective treatment. They're willing to try multiple therapeutic options in...
AudioNotch and D.R.M.
Written by AudioNotch Team on June 8, 2012
Categories: Tinnitus
Astute users will notice that the sound files for Tailor-Made Notched Sound Therapy have absolutely no digital rights management restrictions. This is intentional - we deliberately refused to put any type of digital locks on the files that we provide to our users. Why? The simple reason is flexibility - if a user pays...