[real-eyes] Re: On being safely plugged in
- From: "V Nork" <ginisd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 22:55:11 -0800
Dear jose and all, Jose, I wish you best of luck on your appointment coming
up. I hope you can find some relief. My friend alen has just noticed his
tinnitus, and hopes he as a milder version and can over time just tune the
hissing sounds out. It bothers him only at night, when he is in a quiet
room, apart from that he is usually not bothered. He uses an air purifier
at night which sort of makes a white noise which masks his tinnitus
mostly. I think I will more closely monitor my own exposure to noise, like
making sure my headphones are moderate in volume when using a screen reader
and watching my noise exposure at concerts. . Anyway, it seems noise from
personal players like the stream and I pod may cause a problem in some
people. As well as issues like hearing loss associated with other factors.
We all deserve peace and quiet. Below is an article that I think is hopeful
and interesting, and I am posting this on a tech list since some forms of
technology in our urban society can cause tinnitus, as well as the fact that
newer technologies can help the issue, and finally I feel as persons with
sight loss we really need our hearing to be protected. Also there is a web
site for Americantinnitusassociation.org , but I have not visited it yet.
Wishing you a great new year, Ginnie
from the wall street journal
Some people hear a high-pitched buzzing sound. Others describe it as a
ringing, roaring,
hissing, chirping, whooshing or wheezing. It can be high or low, single or
multi-toned,
an occasional mild annoyance or a constant personal din.
Tinnitus -- whose Latin root means "to jingle" -- is defined as the
perception of
sound when no external sound is present. It usually accompanies hearing
loss, and
while nobody knows for sure what causes it, many experts believe that when
people
lose the ability to hear in certain frequencies, the brain fills the void
with imaginary
or remembered noise -- like phantom limb pain for sound.
"Those auditory centers are just craving input," says Rebecca Price, an
audiologist
who treats tinnitus in North Carolina. Some 50 million Americans at least
occasionally
experience tinnitus. And 16 million U.S. adults had it frequently in the
past year,
according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some
two
million find it so disturbing that it interferes with sleep, work,
concentration
and relationships.
The incidence is rising along with the aging population and personal music
players
cranked up high. "Now we have 12-year-olds complaining of tinnitus. We never
had
that previously," says Jennifer Born, a spokeswoman for the American
Tinnitus Association,
a nonprofit education and advocacy group. Tinnitus is also the No. 1
service-related
disability among American veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq, due to brain
injuries
from explosive devices.
In Europe, too, tinnitus is on the rise. According to the Scientific
Committee on
Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risk in the European Union, around 10
million
people in Europe are in danger of developing tinnitus and hearing loss as a
result
of excessively loud personal music players.
In the U.K., figures from the Medical Research Council show that 10% of the
population
suffer from tinnitus. One of the sufferers is Ricky Young, a 37-year-old oil
company
worker in Aberdeen, Scotland, who was diagnosed with tinnitus three years
ago. Mr.
Young's problem comes in the form of an electric hum. "I used to lie awake
at night.
It would be like a man was standing right next to me with a church bell. The
sounds
were overtaking my thoughts," he says.
After a private referral, he decided to buy a GBP 3,000 ($4,750) hearing-aid
device
for his left ear, which succeeded in easing the symptoms. Mr. Young's
treatment is
representative of the way the condition is approached in the U.K.
According to Deb Hall, an adviser to the British Tinnitus Association,
treatment
for tinnitus differs considerably across Europe. In the U.K., audiologists
are the
main health-care professionals who help people with tinnitus, she explains.
"Often
they would offer a hearing-aid device to a patient to help with the hearing
loss
and also to reduce the person's awareness of the tinnitus," Ms. Hall says.
Audiologists
also offer counseling to help patients overcome anxiety or depression as a
result
of their tinnitus.
In the rest of Europe, however, tinnitus is more the domain of the ear, nose
and
throat specialist (otolaryngologist) or a neurologist, she says. "They often
prescribe
some drug treatment like antidepressants to help with the associated
symptoms," Ms.
Hall says
While many sufferers are told there is no cure, treatment options are
proliferating.
And brain-imaging studies are shedding new light on how some peoples' brains
are
wired with unusual connections between the auditory cortex that governs
hearing and
the centers for attention, emotion and executive function.
"We have always wondered why some people find tinnitus so distressing. Now
we can
see it," says Jay Piccirillo, an otolaryngologist at Washington University
in St.
Louis who is studying a new treatment for tinnitus that targets magnetic
pulses at
patients' brains to redirect abnormal connections.
The first step in treating tinnitus is usually to determine if a patient has
hearing
loss and to identify the cause, which can run the gamut from ear-wax buildup
to infections,
accidents, aging, medication side effects and noise exposure. "At least half
of the
time, if we can reduce the hearing loss, we can dramatically reduce the
tinnitus
or make it so that the patient doesn't care," says Sujana Chandrasekhar, an
otolaryngologist
in New York.
Surgery may be helpful in some cases. Frank Scalera, a 42-year-old
pipefitter in
New York, had tinnitus ever since a firecracker blew out his eardrum at age
15. Ten
surgeries have helped restore his hearing and reduce the ringing he's heard
for years.
A variety of tinnitus treatments use sound therapy -- soothing external
sounds to
drown out the ringing from within. Some people find relief by running a fan,
a humidifier,
a machine that mimics waves or waterfalls or even a radio tuned to static,
especially
at night when tinnitus is often most noticeable and frequently disrupts
sleep.
Several brands of hearing aids also mix in soft "shhhsssing" tones to mask
tinnitus
sounds and help users relax. Another variation is the Oasis device by
Neuromonics
Inc., which looks like an MP3 player but plays baroque and New Age music
customized
to provide more auditory stimulation in patients' lost frequencies as well
as a "shower"
sound to relieve the tinnitus. Users listen to the program for two hours
daily for
two months, then the shower sound is withdrawn for four more months of
treatment,
gradually training the brain to filter out the internal noise, according to
the company.
"You get used to hearing the music and then your brain fills in with sounds
that
aren't as irritating," explains Michael Gillespie, a Duke University
professor who
found the device helpful after an ear infection left him with tinnitus.
Cleared by
the Food and Drug Administration in 2005, the Neuromonics device has been
used by
4,500 patients in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. The cost
is roughly
$4,500.
For some patients, it's not the noise itself that's so distressing, but the
anxiety
that comes along with it. Researchers long theorized -- and have now seen on
brain
scans -- that the limbic system, the brain's primitive fight-or-flight
response,
is highly activated in some tinnitus sufferers.
Some patients find that antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs can bring
relief. Many
find their tinnitus is worse during times of stress, so yoga, acupuncture,
deep breathing,
biofeedback or exercise -- may also be helpful.
A new magnetic pulse treatment -- called repetitive Transcranial Magnetic
Stimulation
-- seeks to break the tinnitus cycle in a different way. Researchers first
conduct
scans of patients' brains. In people with severe tinnitus, "we notice that
communication
between parts of the brain responsible for hearing and maintaining attention
are
abnormal," says Dr. Piccirillo. A magnetic coil placed over the auditory
cortex outside
the head sends pulses through the skull and attempts to disrupt the faulty
communications.
"We hypothesize that given half a chance, the brain can establish more
normal connections,"
he says.
One of the most effective treatments is cognitive behavioral therapy, which
treats
patients' emotional reactions to tinnitus, not the noise itself. "The goal
is to
make your tinnitus like your socks and shoes -- you're wearing them, but
you're not
actively thinking about them," says Dr. Chandrasekhar.
---
Javier Espinoza contributed to this article.
-----Original Message-----
From: real-eyes-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:real-eyes-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of jose
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 11:10 AM
To: real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [real-eyes] Re: On being safely plugged in
I have had tinnitus, for years. I never new what it was for most of my
life. It does suck. I am about to be tested for a rare condition
that acts
allot like minears. When I go to be tested I will ask the audiologist what
he thinks of prolong use of headphones.
i am wondering if using a screen reader with headphones can make your
hearing worst.Anyway I get tested on Jan 4th and if my memory don't fails me
I will ask about this and post the reply on the list.
I too like to not chat with people sometimes when I am out. Sometimes I will
put on the headphones and not even tern the victor on. It's a good way to
let people know to buzz off.
Jose Lopez, President
Lopez Language Services, LLC
"We Speak Your Language"
Call us anytime at 888.824.3022
----- Original Message -----
From: "V Nork" <ginisd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 11:26 AM
Subject: [real-eyes] On being safely plugged in
> Hello friends, Below is an amusing but thought provoking article from a
> British newspaper on safely using headphones. I found it a good reminder
> for myself, since I sometimes fall asleep while wearing my headphones
> while listening to my victor reader stream, and even radio broadcasts.
> The occaision of my finding this article was doing a search on Proquest on
> tinnitus, a sometimes maddening condition that features constant ringing
> or
> hissing in the ears. A friend of mine unfortunately seems to have
> suddenly
> developed tinnitus. It is. not clear what the triggers were in his case.
> But it does appear that often tinnitus occurs as a hearing loss in the
> higher frequencies that can happen after exposure to excess noise.
> Anyway,
> I pass this on not to nag, but just as a note of caution since we all
> depend
> so much on our hearing. My question is, in general, are ear buds a
> slightly safer choice than headphones since some sound may escape with the
> ear buds and the headphone seems a more of a direct channel to the
> ear?Best, Ginnie
>
>
> Turn down those headphones
>
>
>
> By Alisa Bowman
>
>
>
> Copyright Tribune Publishing Company Sep 6, 2010
>
>
>
> A few months ago, while at an airport, I experienced a moment of weakness
> and I plunked
>
> down more money than I care to admit on a set of noise-reduction
> headphones.
>
> I love them because I'm not a particularly social person. When on a plane
> or
> a bus,
>
> I prefer to stay lost in my thoughts than to talk to the person next to
> me.
> Whenever
>
> I put on those big honking headphones, no one talks to me. They are an
> introvert's
>
> nirvana.
>
> But now that I have them, I find that I listen to music a lot more often
> than I once
>
> did. On the Bieber bus, for instance, I once used to nap or read as I
> traveled to
>
> and from New York. Now I put on my headphones, plug them into my iPhone
> and
> listen
>
> to Pandora. I even wear them when walking to and from my destination in
> the
> city.
>
> Let me tell you: New York City really comes alive when it's set to a tune
> by
> the
>
> Beastie Boys.
>
> When I'm listening to an awesome song (the theme song from "Flashdance"
> comes to
>
> mind and, yes, I have eclectic tastes in music) it's, of course, tempting
> to
> keep
>
> turning up the volume.
>
> Yet doing so could be risky. A recent study of 8,710 teens showed that
> high-frequency
>
> hearing loss doubled and the incidence of tinnitus (ringing, buzzing,
> hissing in
>
> the ears) tripled as the use of personal music players rose. Girls who
> used
> personal
>
> listening devices like iPods were 80 percent more likely to have hearing
> loss than
>
> girls who did not use them.
>
> It's quite sobering news.
>
> It's not necessarily that the headphones themselves are the problem, but
> that we
>
> tend to listen to music at a much higher volume through headphones than we
> would
>
> if we weren't wearing them. After all, with the headphones on, no one else
> in the
>
> house (or on the Bieber bus) is going to yell, "Turn down that stupid
> Donna
> Summer
>
> song. It's driving me crazy!"
>
> To save your hearing, keep your music volume to roughly the same volume as
> conversational
>
> speech.
>
> Alisa Bowman writes for The Morning Call's
>
>
>
>
>
> To subscribe or to leave the list, or to set other subscription options,
> go to www.freelists.org/list/real-eyes
>
>
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