4 ms·

Awesome to see this on here. I had pulsatile tinnitus for almost two years. I would wear soft headphones to bed so that I could listen to white noise (pink actu

Awesome to see this on here. I had pulsatile tinnitus for almost two years. I would wear soft headphones to bed so that I could listen to white noise (pink actually) to drown out the sound. During that time I saw at least five different doctors: general physician, two ENTs, hearing specialist, and a naturopathic physician (I might have even seen more that I'm not remembering). I even got MRIs. Nobody could fix it or tell me what was causing it. Eventually my wife suggested I get a craniosacral treatment from her yoga instructor -- she saw on the website that it could help with tinnitus. To say that I was dubious would be putting it very mildly. But, I was willing to try just about anything at that point. Long story short, craniosacral therapy is body work, and it's sort of like chiropracty. The practicioner noticed that my jaw muscles were very tight and did what she could to get them to release. Over the course of the next week, my tinnitus steadily decreased and has not been back. That was over a year ago. tl;dr: My specific case of tinnitus was definitely caused by head/neck muscle tension, and was cured. Hope others can find relief as well.

cbd1984 11y ago
http://skepdic.com/craniosacral.html http://skepdic.com/craniosacral.html > Craniosacral therapy (a.k.a. craniopathy and cranial osteopathy) is a holistic therapy that involves the manipulation of the skull bones (the cranium) and the sacrum to relieve pain and a variety of other ailments, including cancer. [snip] > Craniosacral therapists claim to be able to detect a craniosacral "rhythm" in the cranium, sacrum, cerebrospinal fluid and the membranes which envelop the craniosacral system. The balance and flow of this rhythm is considered essential to good health. The rhythm is measured by the therapist's hands. Any needed or effected changes in rhythm are also detected only by the therapist's hands. No instrument is used to measure the rhythm or its changes, hence no systematic objective measurement of healthy versus unhealthy rhythms exists. [snip] > Skeptics note that the skull does not consist of moveable parts (unlike the jaw) and brain cells lack actin and myosin (the things in muscle cells that make them move). The only rhythm detectable in the cranium and cerebrospinal fluid is related to the cardiovascular system, but craniosacral therapists deny craniosacral rhythms are due to blood pressure. When tested, therapists have been unable to consistently come up with the same measurements of the alleged craniosacral rhythm. (Dr. Ben Goldacre says there have been five such published studies and "in none of them did the osteopaths give similar answers.") http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cranial.html http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cranial.ht... https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/alas-poor-craniosacral/ https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/alas-poor-craniosacral/ In case anyone else was curious.
- foxbarrington 11y ago
  My views on craniosacral therapy are complicated. On one hand it seems crazy, and most of it has to be bunk. On the other, I credit the treatment with curing my pulsatile tinnitus. An interesting note is that the practicioner I saw also had low regard for the field as a whole, and I don't think she would give a blanket recommendation for treatment. The practicioner I saw had good knowledge of anatomy and was not into the mystical/rhythm side of things. Most of her work was on muscles and getting them to loosen up.
  - cbd1984 11y ago
    Sounds like a good massage therapist could have done the same thing without the patina of bullshit. The essence of craniosacral therapy is moving the bones in your cranium. That's the top part of the skull which protects the brain. In adults, those bones are fused, and no longer move; they're still distinct pieces, but the only time you're going to get any flexion up there is if your skull has been fractured. So any massaging of that region isn't being done to move the bones, it's being done (whether the practitioner knows it or not) entirely for the benefit of the muscles, which is what helped you.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
cbd1984 11y ago
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Naturopathy/naturopathy.html http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Naturopath... > Naturopathy, sometimes referred to as "natural medicine," is a largely pseudoscientific approach said to "assist nature" [1], "support the body's own innate capacity to achieve optimal health" [2], and "facilitate the body's inherent healing mechanisms." [3] Naturopaths assert that diseases are the body's effort to purify itself, and that cures result from increasing the patient's "vital force." They claim to stimulate the body's natural healing processes by ridding it of waste products and "toxins." At first glance, this approach may appear sensible. However, a close look will show that naturopathy's philosophy is simplistic and that its practices are riddled with quackery [4]. [snip] > Most of the things naturopaths do have not been scientifically substantiated; and some—such as homeopathy—clearly are worthless. In many cases, naturopaths combine sensible dietary advice (based on medically proven strategies) with senseless recommendations for products. Again, for the curious. Oh, and a blog from a former naturopath: http://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/ http://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/ > Naturopathic medicine is not what I was led to believe. I discovered that the profession functions as a system of indoctrination based on discredited ideas about health and medicine, full of anti-science rhetoric with many ineffective and dangerous practices. http://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/about-me-2/ http://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/about-me-2/
- foxbarrington 11y ago
  Yeah, not recommended at all. I was pretty desperate and willing to see just about anybody at the time. I had a friend who went to the ND for diet/allergy, and I figured it was worth a shot. She took my blood and sent it to a lab for allergy testing. That part was fine. She also prescribed me some ridiculous homeopathy stuff, and overall it was too much pseudoscience to stomach.
DanBC 11y ago
Gentle warning to people thinking of getting chiropractic on their neck: it's associated with increased risk of stroke.
ahallock 11y ago
My story parallels yours. I eventually saw a chiropractor (here come the downvotes lol) who performed what's documented here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3081245 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3081245 --I actually pointed him to that webpage and luckily he'd been trained to perform those treatments. After 4 sessions, my tinnitus and TMJ were barely noticeable and the tension in my neck and ears was gone.
- collyw 11y ago
  Its kind of pathetic the way some subjects get downvoted on here when they fall outside of standard well understood science. We aren't very open minded about certain fields.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    People are rightly downvoting dangerous advice. Chiropractic on the neck is associated with increased risk of stroke.
Floegipoky 11y ago
I'm sorry you had to waste so much time, MONEY, and pain-free years of your life on this. It drives me crazy how western medicine derides (at best) any medical practitioner who doesn't wear a lab coat. It's like chronic pain isn't worth the time of a doctor unless they can sell you a pill for it, at least until you finally experience otherwise irreparable damage and they can charge you for surgery. I trust my massage therapist with my health more than any doctor I've ever been granted an audience with. I firmly believe that in the next ~10 years this attitude will change (at least in the US) as payers transition to community outcome-based reimbursement models. It's a lot cheaper to massage someone's SCMs (educated guess, I'd love to know if it was something else) a few times and teach them how to stretch FIRST than it is to send them to go through all that bullshit. Every clinician has the anatomical knowledge required to identify that issue, especially any that specializes in a system located directly at the insertion of this muscle. The fact that not one, but two ENTs missed this just shows how dysfunctional the healthcare industry is.

cbd1984 11y ago

http://skepdic.com/craniosacral.html http://skepdic.com/craniosacral.html > Craniosacral therapy (a.k.a. craniopathy and cranial osteopathy) is a holistic therapy that involves the manipulation of the skull bones (the cranium) and the sacrum to relieve pain and a variety of other ailments, including cancer. [snip] > Craniosacral therapists claim to be able to detect a craniosacral "rhythm" in the cranium, sacrum, cerebrospinal fluid and the membranes which envelop the craniosacral system. The balance and flow of this rhythm is considered essential to good health. The rhythm is measured by the therapist's hands. Any needed or effected changes in rhythm are also detected only by the therapist's hands. No instrument is used to measure the rhythm or its changes, hence no systematic objective measurement of healthy versus unhealthy rhythms exists. [snip] > Skeptics note that the skull does not consist of moveable parts (unlike the jaw) and brain cells lack actin and myosin (the things in muscle cells that make them move). The only rhythm detectable in the cranium and cerebrospinal fluid is related to the cardiovascular system, but craniosacral therapists deny craniosacral rhythms are due to blood pressure. When tested, therapists have been unable to consistently come up with the same measurements of the alleged craniosacral rhythm. (Dr. Ben Goldacre says there have been five such published studies and "in none of them did the osteopaths give similar answers.") http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cranial.html http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cranial.ht... https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/alas-poor-craniosacral/ https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/alas-poor-craniosacral/ In case anyone else was curious.

foxbarrington 11y ago
My views on craniosacral therapy are complicated. On one hand it seems crazy, and most of it has to be bunk. On the other, I credit the treatment with curing my pulsatile tinnitus. An interesting note is that the practicioner I saw also had low regard for the field as a whole, and I don't think she would give a blanket recommendation for treatment. The practicioner I saw had good knowledge of anatomy and was not into the mystical/rhythm side of things. Most of her work was on muscles and getting them to loosen up.
- cbd1984 11y ago
  Sounds like a good massage therapist could have done the same thing without the patina of bullshit. The essence of craniosacral therapy is moving the bones in your cranium. That's the top part of the skull which protects the brain. In adults, those bones are fused, and no longer move; they're still distinct pieces, but the only time you're going to get any flexion up there is if your skull has been fractured. So any massaging of that region isn't being done to move the bones, it's being done (whether the practitioner knows it or not) entirely for the benefit of the muscles, which is what helped you.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

cbd1984 11y ago

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Naturopathy/naturopathy.html http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Naturopath... > Naturopathy, sometimes referred to as "natural medicine," is a largely pseudoscientific approach said to "assist nature" [1], "support the body's own innate capacity to achieve optimal health" [2], and "facilitate the body's inherent healing mechanisms." [3] Naturopaths assert that diseases are the body's effort to purify itself, and that cures result from increasing the patient's "vital force." They claim to stimulate the body's natural healing processes by ridding it of waste products and "toxins." At first glance, this approach may appear sensible. However, a close look will show that naturopathy's philosophy is simplistic and that its practices are riddled with quackery [4]. [snip] > Most of the things naturopaths do have not been scientifically substantiated; and some—such as homeopathy—clearly are worthless. In many cases, naturopaths combine sensible dietary advice (based on medically proven strategies) with senseless recommendations for products. Again, for the curious. Oh, and a blog from a former naturopath: http://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/ http://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/ > Naturopathic medicine is not what I was led to believe. I discovered that the profession functions as a system of indoctrination based on discredited ideas about health and medicine, full of anti-science rhetoric with many ineffective and dangerous practices. http://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/about-me-2/ http://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/about-me-2/

foxbarrington 11y ago
Yeah, not recommended at all. I was pretty desperate and willing to see just about anybody at the time. I had a friend who went to the ND for diet/allergy, and I figured it was worth a shot. She took my blood and sent it to a lab for allergy testing. That part was fine. She also prescribed me some ridiculous homeopathy stuff, and overall it was too much pseudoscience to stomach.

DanBC 11y ago

Gentle warning to people thinking of getting chiropractic on their neck: it's associated with increased risk of stroke.

ahallock 11y ago

My story parallels yours. I eventually saw a chiropractor (here come the downvotes lol) who performed what's documented here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3081245 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3081245 --I actually pointed him to that webpage and luckily he'd been trained to perform those treatments. After 4 sessions, my tinnitus and TMJ were barely noticeable and the tension in my neck and ears was gone.

collyw 11y ago
Its kind of pathetic the way some subjects get downvoted on here when they fall outside of standard well understood science. We aren't very open minded about certain fields.
- DanBC 11y ago
  People are rightly downvoting dangerous advice. Chiropractic on the neck is associated with increased risk of stroke.

Floegipoky 11y ago

I'm sorry you had to waste so much time, MONEY, and pain-free years of your life on this. It drives me crazy how western medicine derides (at best) any medical practitioner who doesn't wear a lab coat. It's like chronic pain isn't worth the time of a doctor unless they can sell you a pill for it, at least until you finally experience otherwise irreparable damage and they can charge you for surgery. I trust my massage therapist with my health more than any doctor I've ever been granted an audience with. I firmly believe that in the next ~10 years this attitude will change (at least in the US) as payers transition to community outcome-based reimbursement models. It's a lot cheaper to massage someone's SCMs (educated guess, I'd love to know if it was something else) a few times and teach them how to stretch FIRST than it is to send them to go through all that bullshit. Every clinician has the anatomical knowledge required to identify that issue, especially any that specializes in a system located directly at the insertion of this muscle. The fact that not one, but two ENTs missed this just shows how dysfunctional the healthcare industry is.