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Comment by peheje | Hacker News Reader

I had a ringing for a weekend and found and used this extensively https://github.com/generalfuzz/acrn

I remember it being after some loud event. But I honestly can't remember.

It went away. But it might not have been tinnitus and just an ear infection. Or it might have helped, I'm just one sample size.

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I followed up on the research article this is based on, which is from 2013. In short: it has been reasonably well cited and followed up on with additional studies, and there is statistically significant improvements in tinnitus in experiments---but as of yet, still not enough data to recommend clinical usage. The technique is based on trying to desychronize maladaptively synchronized neurons in the auditory center which create the perception of the tinnitus sound (obviously then, this will only be relevant for those with who do not have tinnitus due to a physical issue). However, the proposed pathophysiological mechanism this treatment technique is trying to address is still somewhat speculative:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26868680

Mathematical modelling provides some support:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31212443

Here's a recent related article from Stanford:

Acoustic coordinated reset therapy for tinnitus with perceptually relevant frequency spacing and levels (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49945-w)

My overall impression: this is cool. There is some valid science going on here, and I would be happy to use it as a placebo effect at the very least. It would be nice to update the sounds provided by the github repo according to recent findings.

Are there any downsides to listening to this ?

I coincidentally had a 13khz whistle while reading your comment in a quiet room. Tried the protocol, and now I can hear how quiet it is here - the whistle is gone. So that’s a sample of two now. Thank you so much for posting it!

Hello ay. Glad to spread this if it can help anyone.

Could you elaborate a bit more on your experience? The 13khz whistle how long have you been hearing that? How much did you use the tool? Is the whistle permanently gone?

Interesting. It seems my tinnitus is around freq 8200. I'll give this tool a go when I'm in a more quiet environment.

Mine seems to be 9880 or thereabouts - up that high it seems to be difficult to differentiate slightly higher or lower tones.

Been living with that high a tone for decades now and it's always been extremely noticeable.

I always coped with it by convincing myself "that's just my brain's CPU frequency" - sounds a bit nutty but that's a coping mechanism which worked for me.

Tried seeing my doctor about it a couple of years ago (UK, NHS GP) but at the time he dismissed it saying "nothing can be done" :/

This tone therapy - I'll try this and see how it goes.

Same! I'm going to try to nail it down really exactly, but so far 8,236 is as close as I've got while on a conference call :)

I remember when I used it the ringing totally stopped in between the calibration sounds.

Does it do that to you as well?

The sounds were pretty annoying but at least I could control their intensity and while going to sleep I could gradually make it lower and lower until I slept.

Can you update and tell us what happened ?

Update: I tried it twice. Both times it failed. There were times between the beeps were I swore it was gone, but when I took off the headset (or muted the volume), it was indeed still there. Perhaps you have to continuously do it?

Hi. In original post I wrote I had ringing for a weekend. It was in fact a week. I used it 1-3 times a day. Mostly while getting to sleep or walking, I could lower the volume more and more until I slept.

The ringing was totally gone in between the tones but as you know it's really a short span.

You say you're used it twice and it failed, I don't think you can conclude that. You can read section 2.5 in the paper. Here it mentions treatment of 4-6 hours a day not split into sections shorter than an hour and over ~12 weeks.

If you fall asleep with some earphone in maybe that also counts the time?

Then it's easier to get such a high number therapy. E.g. one walk session a day for 1 hour. And then 3 hours at night until you wake up groggily and take of the earpieces and continue sleeping.

I am scared of trying it because of some unknown side effects:/

That's quite interesting. worth a shot for people suffering with that for sure.

If you just have ringing in one ear, do you only put one earbud in and go from there?

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