Tinnitus

[PaulaO2]

Ear wax happens "outside" the area of the ear that CPAP has anything to do with. It is like saying the CPAP causes dandruff.

I will say that I have had more trouble with ear wax issues since I started using CPAP. Since I sleep so well, I sleep in one position a long time. If that position is on my side, that ear tends to get warmer and the wax shifts around. So, yeah, in a way, I guess CPAP did cause it.

[DocWils]

To the latter, no, wax is an ear canal substance and there is no way that PAP pressure could have an influence on it.
To the former, as I said, pressure build up could cause discomfort or pain, but swallowing or popping your ears would deal with that. Also, with habituation, the incidences of pressure build up will lessen.

okay because I read an article that talked about CPAP therapy causing problems with excessive wax, hence, my question.

I cannot see how that would be possible - perhaps because you would move less and be in a deeper sleep, there could be greater possibility for wax build-up, or perhaps some of the head gears rub in just the right way, but even then, it seems remote. More likely the article reported anecdotal evidence that has no basis in fact. The leakage of higher pressure air into the middle ear takes a bit of time to clear in the morning, which may make the hearing a bit dull for the first hour or so, and give the impression of wax build up, but other than that, or the head remaining still longer, I can see no real possibility. I might remind you also that the substance, although we call it ear wax, is not a wax at all, and does not behave in any way like wax.

As for Tinnitus, again the pressure can cause short term TInnitus that ceases when the pressure is equalised (yawning or swallowing does it), but that type is hardly harmful and again, the body learns to adjust to the extra pressure in the throat and the problem eases. Beyond that, please refer to my earlier description of the various routes Tinnitus can take, and the dangers of taking extreme action to deal with it.

[givememoresleep]

gumbloid

First thing to do is find an ENT that specializes in tinnitus. Second thing is to go to this site ata.org (American Tinnitus Association).

Tinnitus can have an adverse effect on your psychological well being and can have many of the same symptoms as PTSD and new studies are showing that in a lot of cases tinnitus and PTSD co-exist in patients. I am one of these patients. To make a long story short there are medications that can help with some of the physiological symptoms(anxiety and hyper-arousal) caused by Tinnitus which in turn may take the ringing down a couple notches. My ENT put me on amitriptyline for the anxiety and my sleep Dr. put me on low dose clonazepam to help with hyper-arousal and nightmares. From my experience it's a catch 22, the more you think about tinnitus the louder the ringing gets-the louder the ringing gets the more you think about it. And yes time does help.

[DocWils]

Again, it does depend on the source of the Tinnitus, but if it helps, then it helps. There is no fast and hard general therapeutic approach for Tinnitus, it has to be cut and stitched for each case.

[bwexler]

Doc
Does that mean if I come to visit, you will get out your scissors, needle and thread and stitch up my tinnitus and make it all gone?

[DocWils]

Nope, wish I could, but there are few "cures" to Tinnitus, and most of the therapies revolve about developing coping mechanisms. Tinnitus isn't just one type of problem, it is a symptom of something else and unfortunately, so far we have dozens of something elses as the cause, and figuring out which one is tough. I to date have never cut anyone's auditory nerve, in fact I would probably refuse to do it unless there was no other way to spare the person pain or save their life, and any microsurgery for relieving Tinnitus has a spotty record, because we often don't perfectly fix on the cause of the Tinnitus in the first place.

So no stitching alas.....

[bwexler]

I was not holding out much hope for your scissors an thread.
After 50 + years of dealing with it i have learned to accept it and mostly ignore it.
My biggist concern is my wives complaint when i turn up the volume on TV and radio.

[DocWils]

Just curious - does the volume really help to overcome the interference from the Tinnitus? Or are we talking about plain old hearing loss on that score?

I ask because if it is the former, it can indicate one possible cause for your Tinnitus, localising it in the cochlea and being a by-product of damage to the hairs of the cochlea. If there is a specific more or less consistent frequency, there are devices that project an "anti-frequency" that teach the brain to ignore that specific frequency. You do lose that frequency for all sound, but usually it is narrow enough that it matters little, and you can get on with things in better comfort - it doesn't always work, but neuroplasticity is amazing (I did one of my doctorates on that) and you would be surprised what you can train your brain to hear or ignore. That is one reason I have worked with a Tomatis therapist here for a while, developing a method, based on their technology, that helps to do just what I mentioned. It doesn't always work well, but when it does, it does a good job.

[bwexler]

I have never actually analyzed it from that point of view.
The background buzz seems to always be there, but i don't always pay attention to it, therefore i don't always "hear" it.
When the volume is low i can here but not understand the dialogue. With the volume up i can usually understand the dialogue. On my TV i can raise the volume and repeat what i missed, especially if they are talking quietly or mumbling. The worst is when the background music is louder than the dialogue. That is very difficult to overcome.

[DocWils]

On modern TVs you can choose to suppress background music and noise in favour of dialogue. You need to go into the audio set up menu. On some set-top boxes this is also possible (KISS boxes, for example, and some from Siemens). I suspect in your case the reason for having difficulty separating the dialogue from background is not Tinnitus related, but part of the hearing deterioration that you have, and is also often a natural part of the ageing process. However, there are methods of training the ear to pick things out better, since a part of this deterioration is not in the ear itself, but the brain getting worse at filtering things out, and that can be retrained.