The AudioNotch Tinnitus Treatment Blog

Recently, we received a surprising e-mail from one of our users. To our shock and dismay – she indicated that she suspected that we had not actually been providing a correctly notched product. Of course, we take any concerns about our integrity extremely seriously. Therefore, we’ve provided a handy step-by-step guide on how to use independent, third party software to verify that the Notched Sound Therapy you purchase from AudioNotch is indeed “notched” by our sound processing algorithm. It is as follows:

1. Download Audacity, the free audio processing program.
2. From within the program, open the Notched Sound Therapy file you’ve … Continue Reading
   

It’s not surprising that tinnitus can trigger or induce depression. There are many anecdotal reports of the onset of depression following the acquisition of tinnitus, and multiple studies show an association between the two – although it is not necessarily clear which way the causality lies. There are even tragic anecdotal reports of individuals committing suicide – driven mad by their tinnitus. And of course, there’s the famous story of Van Gogh cutting off his ear in an effort to alleviate his own tinnitus.

For many of these individuals, the most difficult thing is dealing with a perceived absence of hope. … Continue Reading

An exciting new avenue for research is Vagal Nerve Stimulation (click here to see a wikipedia article on the Vagus Nerve). Consider the following:
In another paper in the journal Experimental Neurology, Kilgard led a team that paired vagus nerve stimulation with audio tones of varying speeds to alter the rate of activity within the rats’ brains. The team reported that this technique induced neural plasticity within the auditory cortex, which controls hearing.
This is exciting news because there is strong evidence that tinnitus is induced by persistent changes to the central nervous system (neural plasticity). The problem … Continue Reading

Although we consider AudioNotch to be the best current available tinnitus treatment, we realize that it may not be right for everyone. Some individuals may have types of tinnitus (for example, atypical tinnitus tones, such as a cyclical whooshing) that is not presently amenable to treatment with AudioNotch (although we’re working on changing that). Alternatively, they may have severe hearing loss that precludes them from receiving effective auditory input – meaning Notched Sound Therapy cannot function. For individuals in these categories, there are other options, although they are not necessarily categorized as treatments – only has therapeutic coping mechanisms.

One such … Continue Reading

Veterans, given their increased exposure noise-induced hearing damage, are at a significantly increased risk of developing tinnitus. Common exposure risks are typically explosions and gunfire. Being in the vicinity of warzone entails exposure to a variety of risks. Fortunately, various measures are oftentimes taken in order to prevent the development of hearing loss and associated tinnitus. Hearing protection is increasingly a standard that has been adopted by many professional armies. However, it’s not only combat-related noise trauma that can induce tinnitus – any type of constant exposure to a loud enough auditory stimulus can cause long term hearing damage. You … Continue Reading

A lot of people might dismiss this story as farcical, even ridiculous. A lot of criticism has been levied at the the prevalence of spurious litigation in the American court system. That said, there’s little doubt in my mind that this woman’s story is true:
An Oregon woman has filed a $9.2 million lawsuit against pop star Justin Bieber, alleging she suffered permanent hearing loss at his Portland concert two years ago…
The lawsuit says Betts has been seeing ear specialists because of hearing loss; severe tinnitus, or noise or ringing in the ears; and hyperacusis, a sensitivity … Continue Reading

New research indicates that listening to pink noise from a pair of computer speakers can enhance the quality of your sleep. Sound waves are still processed by the brain during a person’s sleep:
To see how pink noise would affect human sleepers, Zhang and his team recruited 50 people and exposed them to either pink noise or no noise during nighttime sleep and daytime naps while monitoring their brain activity. The results: An impressive 75% of study participants reported more restful sleep when exposed to pink noise. When it came to brain activity, the amount of “stable … Continue Reading

One of the most insidious forms of hearing loss occurs through what appear to be relatively benign objects: headphones. Headphones, when playing music with a high enough volume, can cause noise induced hearing loss. It’s particularly concerning given that people use headphones on a regular basis. Youth in particular are at high risk for this sort of behaviour – that’s why it’s important, even when listening to Notched Sound Therapy, to keep the volume below 85 dB, which is the level at which permanent hearing loss can occur via sustained listening.

A new research paper has announced … Continue Reading

Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) is a tinnitus treatment that seeks to help people cope with their tinnitus through habituation. It was first proposed in 1993, making it much older than notched sound therapy, which was proposed in 2009.

So how much does tinnitus retraining therapy cost? That depends on the clinic that you were to go to, however the cost is usually expensive–around $3000. Tinnitus retraining therapy usually takes between 12 to 24 months!
TRT uses a combination of counselling and sound therapy with patients, to try and reduce a patient’s focus on tinnitus. The sound therapy that TRT uses is usually … Continue Reading

One thing that we get asked a lot at AudioNotch is: are we like Neuromonics? AudioNotch is different from Neuromonics in several ways. We use notched sound therapy, which is a new form of tinnitus treatment, and is based on completely different principles.

We also charge a lot less than Neuromonics. How much does Neuromonics cost? $4500 according to the UCSF medical center! That makes Neuromonics almost 50 times as expensive as AudioNotch!

We also offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means, that if you’re not satisfied with AudioNotch, just contact us and we’ll give you … Continue Reading