My ever present friend and other health issues:

This week I had an appointment with a hearing therapist at Melksham Hospital. The appointment lasted around an hour and covered my history, causes of tinnitus and possible treatments. Tinnitus is a symptom and I have not been able to define a cause for its onset and I don't have any significant hearing loss so a mystery. The therapist drew this simple diagram of the ear, the brain and its connections to the auditory cortex. She gave an explanation of how sound is converted into nerve impulses by the cochlea  that extend my understanding learnt in general science in the 1960's. She said that tinnitus may be the result of damage to some of the fine hairs in the cochlea and the brain over compensating for the loss of the frequency. Fascinating. Of course the most interesting part of the appointment was when she talked about treatments. She told me about 3 categories Distraction, Relaxation and stress management. Distraction. I have a smart phone so she suggested that I ...

About a month ago I had an appointment with an audiologist at the Royal Free Hospital in Bath. The purpose was to discover if, as the majority of tinnitus suffers do I have a hearing loss. I was taken into a sound proof room for the test. After being asked about my hearing and the issues I am having with tinnitus I was handed headphones to put on and a push button. The audiologist explained the test and with head phones he proceeded to test my hearing. This was done by playing sounds at frequencies between 250 hz and 8000 hz. Once over I was shown the results which showed that it is pretty normal across the range in both ears. So this meant that I am not a suitable candidate for a hearing aid. The audiologist suggested the Hearing Therapy should be something I should consider. I agreed and he wrote to St Martin's where the local hearing therapy team is based to ask for me to be seen by one of the therapists.

A few months ago I thought I could hear a noise from a radiator when trying to go to sleep one evening. The noise was so real that I felt that it must have been an actual sound. As the central heating was not on I came to the conclusion that the sound was in my head. That incident was an early sign on my journey to being a tinnitus sufferer. A visit to my GP prompted a response of 'Oh dear' when I told him that I thought that I was suffering from tinnitus. After inspecting my ears he told me that there were three approaches that he could offer me: Do nothing and learn to live with it, see an audiologist to check if I needed a hearing aid or undergo hearing therapy. I chose the audiology appointment as my preferred first step.