When you break a finger, the X ray shows the break, you get a splint and you are okay. You are assured that in six weeks it will heal.

Same for any broken nose or similar injury. You are shown the X ray and you fairly well know and UNDERSTAND what is wrong and that the doctor will fix it. Knowing and understanding give a sense of relief. Except for worrying about the bill, you don’t make it worse by worrying about the unknown.

When you are told you have diabetes, you pretty much know that your are going to have to watch your diet, lose weight, etc. You feel sad but otherwise you are okay.

But when you don’t know what your problem is, don’t understand it, can’t get any satisfactory answers, then anxiety and “not knowing” adds significantly to your discomfort.

This is particularly true of ringing in the ears, tinnitus.

You are told that there is no objective way to show tinnitus, much less record it. You are told your tinnitus is subjective, like they think your are making it up.
You are told to just live with it; but you are not told what “it” is.
You are afraid to tell your friend about it; they might think you’re crazy.

When you go to the high school prom with a cast on your leg from soccer, people are friendly, come over and bring you drinks and cookies. It’s fun when they write on your cast.
When you show up at the prom and tell people you have ringing in your ears from a soccer injury, people are in a hurry to get away from you.

This unfortunate situation, where not knowing or understanding, and feeling helpless is amplifying the suffering, is not fair. Fortunately now there is a solution.

Even though tinnitus is subjective, it can be identified. The audiologist plays different sounds to find which sound from the machine is like your own tinnitus. Sounds that we can hear are measured by a hertz scale that goes from 250 to 8000 hz. This is similar to the sounds from the piano keys. The audiologist records that your tinnitus is, for example at 4,000 hz. However, the fact that you hear it from the machine, that is also healing – it is almost like seeing the fracture on the x ray, a feeling of knowing what it is, “what it sounds like”.

When you don’t know what something is, your imagination can run wild; you can imagine the worst. Remember how you imagined when you were waiting to find out what your grade was on the big test? How you went from hot to cold? Well, here is a noise in your head and, “What could it be? What will happen?” And the doctor who tells you, “Just live with it.” That doctor adds despair to the feelings!

On my app, Ear Ringing Relief you can hear the human ear sounds that run between 500 and 8000 hz. Again, this is similar to the piano sounds: the 500 on the low tones and the 8000 on the right high tones. You can test and see which sound is like your own tinnitus. Once you identify the sound, you can demonstrate it to someone else. You can even adjust the sound to show someone else the actual volume at which you hear the ringing in your ear. This is almost like showing your friend your x ray.

The fact that your inner sound is available on your iPhone is therapeutic, reduces the stress about it. Isn’t it great that now your partner knows what you are talking about, what you are feeling. You can share.

Best of all, you can play the sound from the app to mask the tinnitus. You hear the outside app sound, so it is no longer your own sound.
You can reduce your own tinnitus:
• Play the app sound at a low volume.
• Relax and let your own tinnitus match the lowered volume of the app.
• Repeat this, each time lowering the app volume and your own to match it.
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Once you have found which of the app sounds matches your tinnitus, you can test yourself for inhibition, where the ringing stops for a short time, inhibited by the app tinnitus sound.
If you play the app for one minute and stop, does your tinnitus stop for a while? If you play the sound for two minutes, is your own tinnitus inhibited for 3 or 4 minutes? You can test various times. Best of all, you can find, for example, that 2 minutes of app sound gives 3 minutes of inhibition – no sound in your head. Through practice you can increase the time of inhibition. Best of all, you can use this inhibition when you go to sleep or if you wake up with the tinnitus during the night.

Now with the Ear Ringing Relief app you have show and tell, where you can show – demonstrate your subjective sounds and others can hear what you are hearing inside your head. This means that you are no longer all alone.

More information at my book, Stressed? Anxiety? Your Cure is in the Mirror.
See www.drgrossantinnitus.com