Tinnitus? Try This: An Online Tone Generator and a Pitch Discrimination Game

Woman listening with headphones; tone generator for tinnitus

Over a decade ago, Tomasz P. Szynalski in Poland, developed mild tinnitus.

While the volume wasn't high (overpowered by the refrigerator, or the sound of water flowing in the bathroom), he could "often hear it over his PC (several very quiet fans + quiet 7200 rpm hard drive) or during a conversation in a quiet room when nobody is talking."

Szynalski created a tinnitus frequency matching online tone generator.

"If you have pure-tone tinnitus this online frequency generator can help you determine its frequency," he writes.

"Knowing your tinnitus frequency can enable you to better target masking sounds and frequency discrimination training. When you find a frequency that seems to match your tinnitus, make sure you check frequencies one octave higher (frequency × 2) and one octave lower (frequency × ½), as it is easy to confuse tones that are one octave apart."

He also created a pitch discrimination game called Plasticity. As with his online tone generator, Szynalski made this game this to treat his tinnitus.

"The idea was to re-wire the auditory cortex in my brain through repeated training in order to change my perception of the tinnitus sound," he writes.

"The name 'Plasticity' refers to cortical plasticity – the ability of the cortex to reorganize in response to stimuli. Did Plasticity help my tinnitus? Well, I no longer have a tinnitus problem, though I am not sure to what extent Plasticity contributed to the improvement. If you have tinnitus (especially pure-tone tinnitus), you might as well give it a try."

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