kevin_standlee | Thanks for Playing

Lisa and I had tickets for Saturday night's performance of Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show at the Retrodome, so we skipped Saturday night of BayCon and instead headed out to see the play. As many of you know, I was one of the on-stage contestants (five audience members participate in the play as contestants) in an early "preview" performance of the show. I was interested in seeing what adjustments they'd made to the play. Lisa was interested in seeing it for the first time, but her severe tinnitus makes her terrified of anything that makes noise, because anything can set off her ear and make things worse. She enjoyed some of the play, but indeed the sound was just enormously bad for her and basically she had to hold her hands over her ears much of the play to muffle it just enough to keep from being driven mad with sound overload. Within that severe restriction, she liked what parts she could hear. I had a good time as well, aside from my worry over Lisa's hearing.

I didn't realize that they use different Match Game-style questions for each performance, as they asked the contestants different questions than the ones I had during my turn on stage.

After the show, I was able to make up for missing my photo opportunity from my previous appearance, as Lisa, trying to recover her hearing, was able to snap this photo.

Here I am with Ric Iverson as "Tripp" MacMurray, the host of the Match Game-style game in Act 2 (and the announcer in Act 1) and Lee Ann Payne as "Helen Hart," the hostess in Act 1 but the show sponsor in Act 2. "Tripp" left in a comment in my LJ after my previous appearance at the show. No need to resort to trying to make the Droid work, as we'd brought my real Sony camera, and Lisa was able to get this shot using available light.

Lisa, her ears vaguely returning to what passes for normal with her, took the opportunity as we left to thank the technical crew for their work making the magic happen, which in this case included co-Producer Scott Guggenheim. She did express her continued worry about our ECM-51A microphone, including the fact that the cord had tied itself in a knot during this performance. Although it's only used as a prop during this show, it is of course an important functional part of our own Match Game SF shows (which we expect to return in 2013 in Sacramento at least) and we want it to return in working order.

It's very sad that Lisa's hearing makes it really difficult or impossible for her to really enjoy these shows as much as she would like to do. We both appreciated the acting and hard work that went into making this show a fun evening for all concerned. Lead Sharon Guggenheim said at the end of the show that next weekend's performance is the last of what they're calling the "workshop" stage, and that they intend to retool it and bring it back for another run later this year. I look forward to seeing it a third time, which will make only the second stage production I've seen more than twice live on stage. (The other is 1776.)

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Random thought re: Lisa's tinnitus - I know Lisa has had her hearing checked numerous times regarding her tinnitus... A while ago I was doing some research regarding my own thyroid condition, and I found a few sites that indicated tinnitus could be a symptom of thyroid problems. This got me curious, so I found some symptom checkers online.

I really liked these two -
http://www.everydayhealth.com/symptom-checker
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/symptom-checker/DS00671

There are apparently a LOT of things that can cause tinnitus. It might be worth Lisa seeing a regular doctor (rather then an audiologist) and getting some of the other, less common causes checked out. I know both of you would be thrilled if Lisa could get some relief.

Lisa says, "If it was symmetric, I'd be inclined to believe that. But it's only one ear, and it responds (usually negatively) to physical manipulation of the jaw, so I don't think it's chemical in nature."

We agree that she needs a regular doctor, but Lisa has had so much trouble with doctors in the past that she's very leery of just about all interactions with the medical profession. This makes fixing the problem that much more challenging.

If it responds to physical manipulation of the jaw, she might want to consider finding a good chiropractor.

My mother has tinnitus in one ear too. She attended a tinnitus clinic this week, they tested her and found it was in the inner ear, and they're going to give her a feedback thingy that is designed to cancel out the sound of the tinnitus. Don't know if that might be an option for Lisa.

Lisa wears a device that generates noise to try and mask the tinnitus. She's had many, many tests to try and find where the cause is. She's tried a $2000 hearing aid that generates "masking" sound (it didn't work). She's had an MRI to see if maybe she has a brain tumor. She's had injections in her ear. Nothing has worked so far. She's pretty sure, based on all of the other things, that this is actually triggered by TMJ and a misalignment of bones in her jaw pressuring her ear, but we've as yet been unable to find anyone who can work on that.

I had the impression from my mother that what they're planning to give her is to cancel rather than mask the noise, as with noise cancelling headphones, which sounds a little different from what Lisa's tried if so. If that turns out to be the case, I'll let you know how it works for my mother.

I also heard on the BBC World Service yesterday about a new approach which rather than focusing on distracting the sufferer from the noise, actually gets them to concentrate on it. Sunds counterintuitive but apparently it's had a great success rate. The link is here.

As for actually getting rid of it, when you say you haven't been able to find anyone who can work on that, I'm not sure if mean a class of people or a particular person. If it's a class of people, then I believe what you need would probably be a cranial osteopath. I know several excellent ones in Auckland , but since that's hardly of use to you, the best way to find a good one is to ask around a lot. Personal recommendation's important as it's a field where you really need to know what you're doing to get good results. Proper qualifications are also important:many people claim to do cranial work but aren't actually properly trained. I googled cranial osteopathy in Reno, for example, and found two people claiming to do it who were actually just massage therapists. Cranial osteopaths are more difficult to find in the US than in the UK as it tends to be more of a UK speciality. It is an extra year (at least) of training. However, it's far from impossible. I see the Osteopathic Cranial Academy has a function to find people near you (http://www.cranialacademy.com/agreement.html) which might be of assistance.

I'll leave it to you talking to Lisa in person sometime about "canceling" versus "masking" sound. She'll talk your head off about the subject, and I can't even begin to summarize what she has to say about it, other than to say that she gets very agitated about it.

Thanks for the reference about cranial osteopathy. There aren't any in northern Nevada (the only two that came up in the entire state are in the Las Vegas area) but there are a promising number in the Bay Area, so I'll talk to her about it and we might look into it further.

Thanks for Playing

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