Troo Heath-Crew, a furniture designer from Little Venice in London, contracted severe Tinnitus at the age of 45.
“I FIRST experienced it – in my case a persistent low-pitched but loud hum in my right ear – during a flight to Sicily which continued through the holiday. A week or so after getting home I started having really intense dizzy spells and headaches accompanying the moments when my tinnitus was at its worst. The dizziness was brief but totally debilitating as I was convinced I was about to fall.
“When lying down I would get the sensation of spinning so violently that I’d almost be sick. The tinnitus combined with the dizzy spells made it impossible to drive and indeed work, as my job involves operating industrial machinery for milling the timber as well as portable power tools and precision hand tools. A dizzy spell and not hearing the machines would have been hazardous. As I was self-employed at the time, stopping work brought with it a whole set of obvious anxieties, “ she explained.
However, tinnitus is also a condition Troo was very familiar with. Her father was a musician and suffered with it for many years. Her partner and friends are also musicians and it is something she knows is very common in the industry.
She added that due to her familiarity with tinnitus, she may have resigned herself, as so many others do, to just get on and live with it, but the dizziness and sickness were unbearable.
So Troo sought help for both the tinnitus from her GP, who put her on the waiting list for a brain scan, hearing tests and a consultation with an ENT specialist, and as an interim measure, prescribed a medicine to help with the symptoms. However she discovered it was also an anti-psychotic drug and decided to steer clear and look for an alternative treatment and she wad referred to Camilla through a friend.
“After less than ten minutes the horrible pressure in my ears and the low-pitched drone subsided considerably. It was the first relief I’d had. At the end of the session when I had to sit, and then stand up, the dizziness was significantly reduced,” said Troo.
Then she was called to the hospital for the hearing test and consultation, passed the test and managed to stand on one leg without falling over.
“But the ENT specialist diagnosed me with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), a condition, he explained, where crystals form in the inner ear cause disturbances in hearing and balance, and which is often associated with tinnitus.
“He said he would carry out a manoeuvre on me which had a good chance of resolving the problem by displacing the crystals. Basically I had to stand on the examination couch and fall backwards into his arms.
He caught me by my neck, then twisted it abruptly to the left and the right. Apart from nearly throwing up and having to be escorted out to a taxi, I felt worse than ever and Camilla’s great work felt totally undone,” she added.
Troo continued her sessions with Camilla. By the eighth, both the tinnitus and dizziness had gone completely.
She went on:
“Camilla’s work was very gentle and seemingly subtle, but the results for me were dramatic. She could locate instantly the tightness in certain points of my head, and neck, and ascertained very quickly that the issue was not an isolated ear condition affecting my balance and hearing, but one that was very much tied in with complaints I had had in my neck and shoulders over the course of many years.
“This holistic view made absolute sense to me, something that traditional medicine often overlooks thanks to the emphasis on medical specialisation and the subsequent analysis of parts of the head and body in isolation.”
Camilla said: When it comes to something like Tinnitus, it is rarely mentioned in medical books or texts, or on websites than cranial can help such a condition. For example, in one article about Chris Martin of Coldplay, it suggests there is no real cure and just advises having natural sounds or a radio on in the background to distract from the noise in the ears.
“I see quite a few people with tinnitus and it’s more common than what you may think. Cranial is an amazing way to loosen the body as it enables you to access all the layers, for example, from the central nervous system and membranes to joints and muscles. If the body is restricted, it’s not going to be able to work properly. It certainly is a viable alternative to more traditional ways of treating tinnitus.”