Dear All.

After a while you realise that tinnitus is not something that you can fight. You have to adapt your life to this condition. Most people do this successfully. I wonder if you could all contribute your positive personal stories on how you've managed to do this. Perhaps you could include things like the cause of your tinnitus (if known), age (optional, of course!), and your road to getting better.

I remember when I first got tinnitus one year ago. This forum helped me through the first few weeks and months. It'd be great if we could get a positive thread going and try and keep it on the front page.

All the best. Don't give up.

Tinnitus is such an enormous BS that no matter how much I try to adapt I just can't do it.

Maybe if I was like 80, I could accept it, but at the age of 18, NO.

I'm going to be super-cheeky and re-post myself from another thread. That's because I think my story meets your criteria for 'a positive thread'. Hope it helps!

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I found this forum through google as a recent T sufferer, and I thought I'd post here for other googlers/lurkers. Many of you will be familiar with what I have to say already, but because my experience has been so positive, I thought I'd put it here. I also know that people who feel better often don't come back to forums, so I thought I'd break that trend

I have always heard an 'eeeee' in my ears when going to sleep - I thought that was normal. (It isn't.) In early Feb I flew home to Australia, and realised I could hear the sound at about 1 out of 10 most of the time. Then I flew back to the UK, and I could hear it at 2-3 out of 10 *all* the time. Not good.

I went to the Doctor, and she told me there was nothing that could be done. I rejected that (and rightly, as it turns out!) I went on the internet, found out that ginko balboa performs no better than placebo, that double-blind tests have shown caffeine has no effect on T, other useful things.

I also found out about Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT) and related Neurophysiologically-Based Management (NBM). The peer-reviewed journals seem to back it, the best info I found was here (British Tinnitus Association): http://www.tinnitus.org.uk/index.php?q=node/71 (external link, opens new browser window) (external link, opens new browser window)

For the benefit of newbies like me, here is the *basic* idea behind NBT.

Tinnitus is the perception of sounds that aren't there. That perception starts with a signal in the ear. The signal is from damage, most usually in the cochlea. The damage cannot be fixed.

But there are two elements to perception. Part one is receiving the signal, and part two is interpreting it. Part one happens in the ear, but part two happens in the brain.

Part one - the 'hardware' - is unfixable. Part two - the 'software' - can be tweaked. It can be tweaked - in some cases - to the point where the hardware problem doesn't matter. The goal is to get to the point where the signal is still received, but it is not interpreted (or at least, not as much!)

Here's a question: How often do you hear the fake sound your ears make as a real sound from a real source?

Never, right?

Right.

Playing a real sound that matches the fake sound in your ears is pretty much what TRT does. Using a machine, you can work out what the exact frequency & volume of your tinnitus, and listen to it as a real sound. It's basically saying to your brain, 'OK. THIS is a real sound. That stuff you've been perceiving? That is NOT a real sound. This: Real. That: Not real. Learn the difference. And once you've learned the difference, stop feeding me that not-real stuff, I don't need it.'

And that's basically how it works, not too complex at all.

So anyhow. (I'm coming up to the Punchline here, bear with me.) The machines that do this are expensive, because they have to be specially built and Lord knows that anyone with T will pay the money for a shot at silence. The machines have to be able to do highly specific things: They need to generate sound in Hertz, and that sound has to be finely adjustable in frequency and volume. That's pretty specialised.

Gues what else has the ability to generate sound in hertz and is finely adjustable in frequency and volume?

An iphone.

That's right, an iphone can do that. All you need is the software. A piece of Iphone software is called an app. You need an app.

And if you've got this far, here is the punchline: I got my tinnitus down from 2-3 out of 10 constantly to the sound of a gas tap that was left on sometimes, I did it in three days, and I did it with an iphone app. The app is called 'itinnitus pro' and it costs 59 pence from the itunes store.

For me, it worked. It's not a cure, but it helped. A lot. I can't recommend this strongly enough. And if it doesn't work for you, please see your ENT for proper TRT. The theory is solid, the research is positive. Give it a go.

Great that's certainly much better than the last poster's post! Keep em coming forum members.