Mine is set to my hearing loss according to the audiologist. I saw 83 dB on my left ear. I canât even tell itâs on. Not sure what my right is set at.
As mentioned, they need to be set up precisely for your tinnitus, just having it turned on for your loss just isnât going to work for most people.
What exactly are you expecting to hear? What you need to do is mask for tinnitus, so what kind of ânoiseâ at what frequencies is your tinnitus? White noise,pink,blue or running water, or ringing, screeching?
Honestly your audiologist needs to be very experienced to get these set correctly but since you do your own programming you can adjust them to where you think they should be.
I agree with @tenkan. When I worked with Signiaâs version, I would often cycle through the different types of sound (white, pink, brownian, etc.) until the patient said, âWow!â I wasnât really given much training on this (âtrainingâ being a 4-letter word in my previous company), so I had to play around with it. Iâve seen the masking have instant, dramatic results, and Iâve seen it have zero results. One thing I did learn is that the masking should be set so that it is barely audible. In the beginning, youâre âsupposedâ to hear both the tinnitus and the masking at the same time. Your brain is supposed to start ignoring the tinnitus. From what I understand, itâs more retraining your brain than instant result.
That being said, I have seen it have an instant effect.
Iâm finding it more beneficial then having it set as pink noise since itâs been adjusted. Having it set to my hearing loss is a lot better.
Iâll have to uninstall my Target software and type in the unlock code so I can look at the settings of the Nathos Auto.
The NHS are very good at just setting the hearing aids and thatâs it. As adults we donât get any automatic follow up appointments.
Before I started to self program in 2011, the NHS werenât even sure how to link a Phonak remote control.
Just come back from the hospital. The noise generator control had to be enabled in my programs. I can now hear it. Itâs helping loads.
Since this thread Iâve started noticing my tinnitus again. I think living with it without expecting it to improve, might have worked for me, too. However, since my mother canât sleep because of the noise, it might me nice to put some work into this feature.
Iâve read through the DesktopFittingGuideTinnitusBalance.pdf (370.8 KB) provided with Target (>help>desktopFittingGuides>Tinnitus balance) and it raises some questions.
- On p.1 it says: âthat can be used as part of a recognized tinnitus management
program, either in the context of masking or sound therapy.â
The masking of tinnitus is clear to me, but I have a hard time believing in sound therapy. The fact that it referred to as magic in the advertisement video here doensât really help.
Does anyone has experience with sound therapy? - Phonak only has three features white/pink/audiogram: Just trial and error or is there any better approach. (The idea of the audiogram seems nice, since it starts under my hearing threshold level, so it canât really bother me )
-
The Tinnitus Handicap Inventory can be entered, but is not used in the pre-calculation. Is there a secondary calculation in which it is used? (See image at question 5.)(See post below for answer.) -
On p.3. DataLogging If I set the controls to noise volume, will I still be able to change the program volume with my ComPilot?Nope. Even more, sometimes the volume control gets confused and doesnât have any effect anymore. Pressing the home icon, c.q. switching to another program resets volume control.
- Aside from the coarse or finetuning that can be done, what is the impact of Most troublesome tinnitus in AudioDirect:
- I looked at the green areaâs for pink, white and audiogram noise and I wonder whether all noise profiles are adapted to your hearing loss. Is the difference between profiles the type of noise generated? What kind of noise is than generate in the one attuned to the audiogram?
Pink Noise:
White Noise:
Set to hearing loss:
I find I canât hear the noise if itâs set for my hearing loss. As my loss is conductive, I donât think it takes into account that you need more power to push through the damaged middle ear.
At the moment, Iâve got it set to pink noise and itâs at 83 dB.
Yes, I had to push the volume up a bit, too, when itâs set to my hearing loss. Rather tiring, though! Feel like taking a powernap! Some high frequency tinnitus still dominates, though, until it is set at the max.
Why did you change from hearing loss to pink noise?
I find pink noise more relaxing and by the end of the day, I donât notice my tinnitus or pink noise sounding.
Some time ago I tried all three pink, white and audiogram. I also had to push gains up in all three to hear the tinnitus generator.
What I remember was a constant noise at a constant frequency. My tinnitus is a bunch of different frequencies so the tinnitus generator did not help much. I did try it for a few days at gains loud enough to hear. What I noticed was it hurt my speech recognition so I turned it off.
I should try it again some time. I read it should be a very subtle sound almost not heard that takes time to get results. I did not do that.
@Raudrive If youâre willing to sacrifice volume control, you can let it control the noise level. Works quite nicely. You could also skew the profile to more highs or lows if you find that there are still tinnitus frequencies that are not masked. If that doesnât work, you can try to pinpoint the frequency of your most annoying sound and manually input it into your AudioDirect page. However, I donât see the possibility to put more than one into it.
My first day results are:
- Less problems being part of the diner table conversations with noisy children present. (Two instances: 1) 3 kids&3adults 2) 2 kids&4 adults.) My speculation is that the higher background noise puts me in a different frame of mind than the sudden switch from calm to noise that keeps happening with children. (Especially, my oldest of 7, who just got her first Roger Focus aids, is not quite aware of her volume level.)
- Some high frequency tinnitus that is not masked with the âhearling lossâ profile, but seems less apparent with pink noise.
- I am getting very tired. Itâs much less obvious after two red and lasagna, but I couldnât get up to go to the gym this afternoon. If this keeps up, the tinnitus generator is a no-no for me.
- Massive tinnitus, mirroring the generator almost perfectly as soon as I take out my aids. (Which I had to do to switch from âhearing lossâ to âpink noiseâ.
- After half a day of âpink noiseâ I didnât have an noticeable increase in tinnitus while in bed.
Does any of this sound familiar? What are your experiences?
Looking at the THI_Questionnaire.pdf (60.2 KB) and especially the way the index is calculated at the bottom, I think they would be hard pressed to make adjustments based on this inventory.
I read through the tinnitus attachment.
At the end the results got a smile out of me. I didnât need to do the questionnaire to get the results. The results spoke for themselves.
Been thinking about this, wasnât sure how to reply.
The tinnitus generator affected you differently than me.
My thoughts on it was it didnât help me, period. I did not notice tinnitus to be worse from using it. The generator did lessen word understanding. It was just more noise that confused my ability to understand words.
Experience so far
After a few days with white noise, I feel that the most that has happened is that I am more aware of tinnitus and that I have more tinnitus while the hearing aids are off (in bed).
Most Troublesome Tinnitus (MMT)
Iâve tried to match the tinnitus to a frequency using online tools. I found this page helpful.
I found it quite impossible to assess the frequency based on a comparison. Around 5880 the generated sound seemed to dip in loudness. That seemed a nice criterion to choose that frequency. Also the noise is at my hearing threshold, so I choose 55dB as the loudness.
For those that felt that they didnât hear the sound generator with choosing âhearing lossâ: It is a lot louder with MTT enabled in the audiogram page in Target.
Without MMT
With MMT at 5.9kHz, 55dB
Interesting.
Seems I remember other members trying the tinnitus generator and having similar results as yours. Their tinnitus actually being worse from using the tinnitus generator.
I had thought about trying it again but now realize probably wonât. After 45 years of it why bother.
At least it is true to its name. Otherwise they would have called it tinnitus masking or sound therapy.
The impact is not that heavy and it was said in advance that it would require tinkering. So Iâll look at it for another few days with the hearing loss profile and switch it to pink noise after that. I like a complete set of results, I guess.
As I am experiencing rather strong tinnitus at the moment it seems that my criterion was off: At 7700 Hz pure tone it sounds the same as my tinnitus. If I make it rather loud, the tinnitus keeps quiet for about ten seconds before it starts again. I can even repeat these results. Quite interesting!
The true side of a DIY type person.
I canât find the Tinnitus balance app anywhere. Google or Apple store itâs not there. My Boots audiologist told me that itâs not linked to her firmware. So she canât activate a manual programme. And she doesnât know about the Tinnitus Balance App
Any advice appreciated