Today has been a very interesting day of validations and revelations with regard to my misophonia. Firstly, as I mentioned in my previous post, I had a theory that the pain killer I had been taking after my car accident (Tramadol) - even at a half dose - somehow lessened my sensitivities to triggers. This morning I received an email from one of the doctors with whom I've been communicating - who is knowledgeable about misophonia and neurology. He confirmed that my assumptions were correct. That, "There is definitely a correlation between [a] brain's conscious state and the intensity of [the] 'experienced' trigger." Unfortunately, I decided on Friday that I no longer wanted to take the Tramadol at all because it was becoming too difficult to wake up in the morning. So, after three days of not being on the medication, this morning I found my sensitivity back to "normal" when a whistling commercial came up during the morning news. Even in my bleary-eyed state, I scrambled to mute or change the channel again - whereas last Wednesday and Thursday I was able to listen to to the entire commercial. (The sound still bothered me then but not enough to make me mute or change the channel.)
The second momentous occasion this morning occurred when a sales rep came in to demonstrate a set of noise masking speakers. My assistant has long known about how I suffer with misophonia and she had learned of these devices while working with this rep on another project - where the dividing wall between offices in this one company's facilities was not sound-proof enough to mask conversations. (The company works with very sensitive information so having good sound proofing between the offices was very important.
The rep was not familiar with what misophonia is, so I played him the 20/20 video report to help him understand what it's like to have these sensitivities. He seemed fascinated by the condition and was able to set up a small speaker system around my desk to create my own little sound masking "bubble." He went on to say that his office has these devices, because it allows for people to individually control their
The second momentous occasion this morning occurred when a sales rep came in to demonstrate a set of noise masking speakers. My assistant has long known about how I suffer with misophonia and she had learned of these devices while working with this rep on another project - where the dividing wall between offices in this one company's facilities was not sound-proof enough to mask conversations. (The company works with very sensitive information so having good sound proofing between the offices was very important.
The rep was not familiar with what misophonia is, so I played him the 20/20 video report to help him understand what it's like to have these sensitivities. He seemed fascinated by the condition and was able to set up a small speaker system around my desk to create my own little sound masking "bubble." He went on to say that his office has these devices, because it allows for people to individually control their
A noise masking speaker and its volume control. environment, but there are other systems that work on a larger scale - where the noise masking sound is more office-wide. This particular system is the Cambridge Sound Management Sonet QT system and the rep is letting me borrow it this week to see how it helps me. So far, so good. I didn't wear my earbuds at all today and I didn't seemed to be bothered by triggers. Granted, I hadn't heard any soda cans opening, but I don't know if it's because of the Sonet devices or that maybe people weren't drinking soda today. The Cambridge Sound Management site also has some other, larger systems but for this blog post, I wanted to focus on what the rep loaned me to test out.
The speakers played a brown noise (I think that was the color) and I could adjust the volume to my own level of comfort. The devices are meant to be portable, which would be very good for people who travel. What's interesting is that when I walked away from my desk, I really didn't hear the masking sound, and no one complained about it either. It actually sounded like the air ducts I'm used to hearing in the office, only louder.
The speakers played a brown noise (I think that was the color) and I could adjust the volume to my own level of comfort. The devices are meant to be portable, which would be very good for people who travel. What's interesting is that when I walked away from my desk, I really didn't hear the masking sound, and no one complained about it either. It actually sounded like the air ducts I'm used to hearing in the office, only louder.
The rep also mentioned another company called Lencore, who also offers sound masking devices. I haven't had a chance to look into their website in great depth but between the case studies on the Cambridge Sound Management's "LEARN" webpage and the information on Lencore's website, I'm going to have a lot of reading to do and asking the rep questions before reporting my findings on this blog. I will provide updates as I discover them. (If anyone has experience with these devices, feel free to send comments too.)
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