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There are many possible ways to treat tinnitus. Effective sound therapy like pink noise or white noise can significantly reduce the perceived loudness of tinnitus. Notched audio, however, is the next step beyond generic sound therapy and is tailored precisely to an individual's specific tinnitus frequency. Simply put, notched sound or audio therapy is one type of tinnitus treatment that can reduce the intensity or loudness of tinnitus by listening to special audio tracks on any device whether phone, car stereo, music player, etc. The key change that must be made to the audio track, however, is that the specific tinnitus frequency that is experienced by a given individual must be completely removed from the audio track. By removing this specific sound frequency or “notching“ the audio, the tinnitus itself then supplies the missing frequency sound in the audio track. The theory goes that when an individual turns off the notched audio sound, the brain will hear an absence of sound (obviously)... but more importantly may ALSO turn off the tinnitus sound. In practice, the tinnitus sound does not turn off for most, but does reduce in many tinnitus sufferers. Pink noise contains all the sound frequencies that humans can hear unlike white noise which represents all the frequencies equally. The higher frequencies in pink noise are less intense. For notched white noise samples, listen here: Notched music examples: Free online plot spectrum to evaluate sounds/songs: Treatment protocol: The suggested treatment protocol if your tinnitus frequency is 8,000Hz or less is to listen to the notched sound for long periods of time, ~ 5 hours or more at a time. Notched music appears to work as well as notched white noise. If tinnitus frequency is above 8,000Hz, listen to the notched white noise three times a day, 1 hour each time. Notched music does not appear to work well for tinnitus higher than 8,000Hz. Be aware, there is no research evidence that notched sound therapy works for tinnitus frequencies higher than 13,000Hz. Sleeping with the notched white noise in either situation works well by additionally providing masking. Tinnitus relief with notched sound therapy usually takes weeks to months. For more info and free notched audio files you can download: Tinnitus matching here: Different types of white noise: Acoustic CR Neuromodulation to Treat Tinnitus: Notched at 1000Hz (0:24) Notched at 1500Hz (0:29) Notched at 2000Hz (0:34) Notched at 2500Hz (0:39) Notched at 3000Hz (0:44) Notched at 3500Hz (0:49) Notched at 4000Hz (0:54) Notched at 4500Hz (0:59) Notched at 5000Hz (1:04) Notched at 5500Hz (1:09) Notched at 6000Hz (1:14) Notched at 6500Hz (1:19) Notched at 7000Hz (1:24) Notched at 7500Hz (1:29) Notched at 8000Hz (1:34) Notched at 8500Hz (1:39) Notched at 9000Hz (1:44) Notched at 9500Hz (1:49) Notched at 10,000Hz (1:54) Video created by Dr. Christopher Chang: Still haven’t subscribed to Fauquier ENT on YouTube? ►► References: The Windowed Sound Therapy: A New Empirical Approach for an Effective Personalized Treatment of Tinnitus. Int Tinnitus J. 2009;15(1):51-61. Customized notched music training reduces tinnitus loudness. Communicative & Integrative Biology 3:3, 274-277; May/June 2010 Short and Intense Tailor-Made Notched Music Training against Tinnitus: The Tinnitus Frequency Matters. PLoS ONE 6(9): e24685. Clinical trial on tonal tinnitus with tailor-made notched music training. BMC Neurol. 2016; 16: 38. Counteracting tinnitus by acoustic coordinated reset neuromodulation. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience 30 (2012) 137–159. #tinnitus #notchedaudio #audionotching #audionotch #tinnitustreatment #pinknoise
