Follow up to April 26 meeting

Hello DC/MD support group:

On Thursday evening, April 26, our group met at Potomac Audiology, where we heard an inspiring talk by Dr. Candace Ortiz, a Bethesda audiologist who specializes in tinnitus. She explained that what lies behind the disturbing nature of tinnitus is the nature of the sound being unwanted and out of our control. We learned from her about another instance of this, called auditory hallucinations. Some people – many more than we know – hear voices or music in their heads that won't go away. One of her patients hears the same song in an endless loop, like a radio station with a broken record. "I wouldn't mind the music so much," said this patient, "If I could get it to change the station." Dr. Ortiz said that what these patients share with tinnitus sufferers, is the experience of unwanted noise from inside (subjective, idiopathic), which they cannot change or control.

Dr. Ortiz likened tinnitus to "phantom pain" – the phenomenon in which amputees experience 'pain' from a missing limb. Similarly, when tinnitus occurs with some kind of damage such as hearing loss, there is "something missing" in our hearing spectrum: the tones we can no longer hear from the outside, our system is playing back to us from the inside. So the sound is a lingering symptom, and often perceived by the system as a threat. She talked about separating out our negative emotions connected to the first onset of tinnitus, from our current experience of it, so that the mind can begin to desensitize. She recommended cognitive therapy highly. 

For phantom pain, therapists may fool the brain of an amputee by showing them a mirror image of the existing limb to mimic the missing limb. The phantom pain goes away.  Similarly, sound therapy can be used for tinnitus patients to create a new sound environment that is not perceived as threatening. The rest of her talk centered on sound therapy methods. New sound therapies – from the latest in-ear devices to smartphones – allow customization of sounds to the patient's tastes and preferences. Some "apps" allow you to be your own Sound Designer, as she demonstrated.  She provided a list of apps she recommends (go here for the handout).

When sound that we find pleasant is introduced at a volume low enough to blend with our internal sound, the brain can re-interpret all of it as harmless and start to tune it out. Dr. Ortiz has been able to apply her tinnitus therapy expertise to patients – even those with stubborn auditory hallucinations – and get results. By breaking new ground, she is helping the tinnitus community.