the height of each cylinder is 11 inches. the diameters: inside cylinder 5 inches, second cylinder 6.5 inches”, and the third, diameter of about 8 inches. the diameters can vary, as long as the inside cylinder fits around the motor, and there is space between the inside and next cylinder (second), and third cylinder. i have found that three screen cylinders retain all but a few tiny water droplets. along with the few escaping droplets, is water lost to evaporation, so each night i add a couple or three or four tablespoons of water (distilled water) to replenish the fountain.
below is a photo, from top, of two cylinders around the motor (the black rectangle). note the duct tape on each side of the motor. (i have found the duct tape to be virtually water proof.) the untaped side of the motor (at center) is the water intake side, and also the spout height control.
so, visit your kitchen cupboard for a water container (a glass casserole is ideal) and aluminum foil. visit your hardware store for a couple yards of window screening and duct tape, and visit an aquarium store for fountain motors (i paid about $22 per motor). in building my own fountains, i have found that nothing needs to be too exact. just get the materials, think of the sanity you will experience being able to be in bed surrounded by splashing water, start building, and within an hour you will have a fountain that works. refinements will become obvious to you as you build your second and third fountains
please contact me at barthengelman@yahoo.com for any assistance or questions. i would be delighted to be of whatever service i can to you.
the noise in my head is currently about 60-65 decibels, maybe 75% right ear, 25% left. the decibel level used to be more in the 70-85 range. the onset of my tinnitus was in february of 2006, and the early weeks and months were filled with desperation, some suicidal
thoughts, a hopelessness and fear i had not experienced before. to make a long story short, i eventually found ways to cope with the constant noise (a high pitched tone, a “soft siren”
as i have read it referred to). the main coping method i found has been feeding my brain constant water sounds. the water sounds “mask” the tinnitus sound(s). while this masking is going on, i am usually unaware of the tinnitus sound. sometimes, though, the tinnitus sound is right there with the water sound, but the water sound takes the sting out of the tinnitus sound (usually!).
this web site is dedicated to helping those who struggle thru each day with their tinnitus. what i have to offer is simply sharing what has worked for me: feeding my brain water sounds, and this feeding has taken primarily two forms: 1) wearing a walkman headset thru each day, and 2) each night having water fountains beside my bed. in what follows, i will outline these two forms. the relief they have given me is, i think, a relief that can be experienced by anyone suffering from the nightmare of intrusive tinnitus.
(note on recovery programs for making the tinnitus go away: this website is to provide information about a very effective coping strategy for making it thru days and nights as the maddening noise goes on. actually recovering from the tinnitus or making it go away is another matter. i have looked at everything in every direction, and done just about everything that was recommended. the recovery program i am currently following, and have been following since may, is kevin hogan’s “tinnitus reduction program” available at www.kevinhogan.com. if you are looking for good information, volume reduction, emotional relief, long term hope and healing, then get hogan’s “tinnitus reduction program” now!)
back to the two forms of feeding my brain water sounds: briefly, form 1) is wearing a headset throughout each day, listening by cassette tape primarily to babbling brooks and rain. I wear a conventional headset with walkman, with the headset speakers in front of or above my ear canals. and form 2) is surrounding the head of my bed with water fountains that i built (very inexpensively), and having roughly 9:30p to 9:30a filled with the sound of splashing water, masking the noise going on in my head.
FORM 1) i have several sony walkmans, several headsets, a battery charger and 8 rechargeable batteries. from the moment i get out of bed in the morning, leaving behind the water fountains, i put on a headset and begin listening to water. in my car i’ll listen to the radio and road noise, at work i’ll listen to my boombox and headset, both tuned to the same frequency (which is hopefully playing good rock and roll!), but most of the day i am listening to water.
the water sounds i am listening to are a 90 minute cassette tape my son made long ago of a creek rushing under a low, narrow bridge. i dubbed 4 copies of the original and listen to the copies, so as not to wear out or break the original. Click here to download the creek tape. i listen to a number of tapes that I dubbed off cd’s of water sounds, such as rainfall, rain/babbling brook/waterfall. my daughter bought me these cd’s at Target, and for the time being, i have a sufficient collection. the best of the cd’s is “rain and thunder - relaxing waters,” two cd’s of continuous water sounds. (these cd’s and several other nature/water sound cd’s can be found at www.lifescapesmusic.com). call your nearest target store, or your local new age store, get these kinds of cd’s, listen to them on your portable cd-player (i have found such cd players not too durable), dub the cd’s onto cassettes or get them into your ipod, whatever technology works for you. i have found that my brain does not grow weary of listening to water. and i think you will find that, as with my mind, your mind also will crave the “white noise” of rushing, splashing, splattering water as it masks the head noise throughout the day.
radio shack has been my main supplier for equipment. i don’t have an ipod or an intact portable cd player, just the walkmans. i dub the cd’s onto blank cassettes. as for headsets, radio shack sells individual headsets for about $8, and they have a more treble sound than the headsets that usually are included with a new walkman. i like the more treble (higher frequency) sound than the more mid-range sound of the included-with-walkman headsets. i have tried and do not like the ear-plug variety head sets, for two reasons: the ear-plug speakers block out lots of environmental sounds, and to me they seem to hold in some of the head noise.
buy a battery charger and maybe 8 rechargeable batteries. they will pay for themselves in maybe a couple months; at least they did for me, because my walkman is going 8 to 9 hours per day. and in case your battery (batteries) die while you are away from home, carry an extra set with you.
getting back to headsets, i wear only the standard, over the head variety headsets, and i never cover my ears, or more specifically, my ear canals. the ear canals must be open to all surrounding sounds. i wear the headset speakers a centimeter or two or three in front of or above my ear canals (refer to the above photo).
try to keep the volume of the sound emitted by the speakers the same as the volume in your head. this will force the brain to make a decision between equal volumes, and it will choose the water. the other two volume options are to have the speaker volume (slightly) more or less than the head noise volume. sometimes i am feeling so intimidated by the tinnitus that i up the headset volume a little above the tinnitus volume. other times i down the headset volume a little below the tinnitus volume, with the sense that this will strengthen my brain’s ability to latch onto the pleasant sound and ignore the unpleasant. from the literature, in particular kevin hogan’s book “turning down the volume,” (which is included in his “tinnitus reduction program”) i have read that over time, and with the constant competition of pleasant sounds, the brain “habituates” to the tinnitus; the brain becomes used to it and uninterested, and gravitates with increasing strength to the more pleasant sounds; for example,white noise.
FORM 2) water fountains. i have made 3, and the series of photos that follow will illustrate the building process, and how inexpensive and easy it is to have fountains around your bed at night (fountains that do not splash water droplets all over the place).
These four photos illustrate the building process. in the first is the fountain motor, duct-taped to the bottom of the glass casserole dish. a flat-bottomed plastic or stainless steel container would also do the trick. the fountain motor is taped so that the spout is at the center of the dish. note that the cord is taped to the bottom and side of the container.
The motor is a “mini-jet” MN606 made by Aquarium Systems, with a maximum water-spout height of about 6 to 7 inches. aquarium systems also makes a MN404, but the maximum water-spout height of the 404 is only about 3 inches. the higher spout height means more decibels. according to my decibel meter, when my ear is about a foot and a half from the 7 inch spout, my ear is receiving about 70-75 decibels of sound, which masks my 60-65 decibel head noise. call your local aquarium store, or call Aquarium Systems at (216) 255-1997.
follow the instructions that come with the motor as to how to adjust the spout height, how much water to put in the container, etc. after putting the sufficient amount of water (i use distilled water) into the container, plug in the motor. see for yourself how high the water spout is and what it sounds like. one thing you will quickly notice is that the falling water splatters all over the place. so... how to keep the splattering droplets in the container while letting all the sound out... refer back to the title-page photos to see the screen cylinders, made with aluminum window screening from a hardware store. these screen cylinders keep the water droplets in, and let all the splashing sound out.
at left is a photo of the second cylinder around first. and around maybe 2/3 of this second cylinder i put aluminum foil to totally prevent droplet escape: the unfoiled third of the cylinder is aimed at my head. i have each of my fountains at the head of my bed: one at pillow-left, one at pillow-right, and one at pillow-top. since the tinnitus in my head is mostly in the right ear, i sleep on my back with my right ear about 12 to 16 inches from the pillow-right fountain. as i mentioned, with my head at this close distance to the fountain, i am getting about 70-75 decibels of wonderfully tinnitus-masking noise. i also put a piece of foil on top of the inside cylinder to prevent upward escape of droplets.
above is a photo of the inside cylinder with crunched up aluminum foil acting as spacers to insure that there is space between the cylinders. i form the cylinders by connecting the edges of a screen rectangle (cut out with scissors) with duct tape, needle and thread, or straightened out paper clip threaded thru the screen.
