[real-eyes] Re: On being safely plugged in
- From: "jose" <crunch1@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 02:27:36 -0600
wow what a cool article. I have had this most of my life and I also have
damage to the kokeleeah sorry can't spell that word. the small bones in the
ear have shrunk. They think it's do to ear infections that went untreated.
happy new year to all and thanks again for this info.
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: Friday, December 31, 2010 12:55 AM
Subject: [real-eyes] Re: On being safely plugged in
> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>> go to www.freelists.org/list/real-eyes
>>
>>
>
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