Severe GET (Tinnitus) — Anyone tried the exercise?

[bob_neuroma]

About two months post op I started noticing a severe Gazed Evoked Tinnitus. Prior to discovering the AN on my right side I experienced tinnitus on and off and managed to cope with it. It bothered me only at times but not overall. Yet this GET that started two months ago is severe and so intense I am having trouble not noticing it during the day.

I ran into this exercise:

Thus, the patient was asked to make repetition exercises of gaze movement in vertical direction (up and downwards) and horizontal one (right and left) twice a day. Each movement should be repeated 10 times in each direction starting from and ending in central position, remaining for 1 second in each direction.

Copied from here: http://arquivosdeorl.org.br/additional/acervo_eng.asp?id=451

The exercise continues and advances from 1 second to 5 to 30 and should be — according to the page — done twice a day.

Has anyone tried this and has it worked? Is it OK to do it more than 2 times a day? Will it be counter productive? I am eager to do it all day long if it helps and I just discovered it.

Apart from this exercise I am meditating with the twist that I focus on the tinnitus instead of the breath. I try to notice it and if I wander (ignore the ringing) I go back to it. The similarity is that I am evoking the tinnitus or focusing on it.

Any other tips or tricks? I thought the worst was over after surgery and this has really put me down but I hope it will get better.

[donjehle]

Hi bob_neuroma!

Thank you for posting about your experience!  I am not familiar with Gazed Evoked Tinnitus.  So, it is helpful for me when you shared what is going on with you.

The exercise you recommend is quite similar to what my vestibular therapist has me do for my balance.  Even though I have now regained my balance, she recommended that I still do the gaze exercises every day, both vertically and horizontally.  And it really helped my balance.  So, I continue to do them.  However, I have not noticed any change in my tinnitus.  But then agin, I don't have GET like you do, so maybe you will have better success with it than I did for your tinnitus.

It is interesting that you are now focusing on your tinnitus instead of your breath.  Usually, the advice is to do the opposite where you focus on something else and not the tinnitus.  That way your brain is trained to ignore the tinnitus.  My tinnitus is constant, but I have learned to ignore it most of the time.  But I am very interested to find out how your experiment works.  Will it become better? Or will it become worse by consciously noticing the tinnitus?  Please keep posting your results.  That could be very helpful to the ANA community.

Thanks,
Don

[bob_neuroma]

Hi donjehle,

Interesting that this very exercise was given to you for balance and it helped with that — good to know since I also have some balance issues.
When it comes to treating tinnitus the exercise however is specifically for GET. I don't believe it helps with other kinds of tinnitus.

Focusing on the tinnitus instead of the breath came from this site: https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/52976-Tinnitus-and-meditation-a-success-story but I have seen it being mentioned elsewhere so I assume it is something being practiced here and there.

I'm very eager to know if the GET-exercise has helped anyone and I will of course post here again in a month or two if it has helped me as I truly hope it will because there must be something that can be done about this or else I hope I get accustomed to it as I did with "normal" tinnitus.