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Comment by y-c-o-m-b | Hacker News Reader

This is pretty cool, but unfortunately I have somatic tinnitus, so this doesn't work as well. The frequency/tone is very dynamic with my version of tinnitus and I can even change it by moving or massaging my neck (especially at the base of my skull) in certain ways. The good news is that also means there are brief windows of time where I have zero tinnitus because my neck and muscles are in a position to temporarily fix whatever underlying issue is causing it.

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I can relate.

I had tinnitus for over 10 years. My tinnitus was not the usual ringing type, it was some sort of humming, low frequency noise. The frequency was not constant, it could vary. It could sometimes stop for 5-10 minutes, e.g. after a hot bath.

Went to see many specialists, tried everything, to no avail.

One day I started experiencing recurrent tension and light pain in my neck and shoulder blades, so I started doing some neck and shoulder blades stretches several times a day.

After a few weeks, the pain was gone, and I realised the tinnitus had stopped. This was maybe 2 years ago (I am still doing those exercises multiple times a day).

I assume that I have somatic tinnitus because my tinnitus seems very associated with tension in my jaw, should and head. But every medical practitioner I talk to about this just seems say "uh...huh...what" and makes no effort to understand or investigate the phenomena.

I have found doing the Alexander Technique helps me quite a bit with the tinnitus.

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