Judy and me

 

 

We’ve been together for so long, I say that I no longer do what the voices in my head tell me to do.  Now I do what the voices in Judy’s head tell me to do.

 

Judy doesn’t actually have voices in her head, but she does have music.  Uninvited music.  There is such a thing as Musical Ear Syndrome.  It’s not really well known, but it is real, and it’s annoying.  (And it’s not an earworm.  It’s not that.)  Apparently, as a person loses their hearing, it’s not unusual for the brain to continue to look for that stimulation, and if it can’t find it, it just makes up sounds to play for itself.  It’s usually music, but it can be just increased tinnitus, or roaring.  Whatever a person’s head decides to do.

 

Good hearing aids can counteract Musical Ear Syndrome and tinnitus during the day, but when the hearing aids come out at night, the chaos bursts back to the forefront, which can make it a little hard to sleep.  We’ve been using sound machines for white noise, but that noise can be too consistent to be effective.  It’s too steady to distract the brain, and just turning up the volume doesn’t drown out the noise that originates inside the head.  She sleeps better to the sound of a babbling brook or something else sporadic like that.

 

We’ve found a really cool solution that lets her get the noise she needs at night, without me having to have the same sound.  Pillow speakers.  We got one for her pillow.  She can play a babbling brook track or anything else that works on her iPad and bluetooth it to the pillow speaker.  Mission accomplished!  The sounds she needs in her head, and not in mine!