Case #2: 42-year old male; EHS symptoms include disturbed sleep, headaches, painful teeth and gums, ringing in ears, fatigue an

A 42-year old male experienced ringing in his ears (tinnitus), painful teeth and gums, and headaches behind his eyes for which he took over-the-counter medication weekly. He slept poorly and was tired and irritable during the day. These symptoms are consistent with electrical hypersensitivity (Levallois 2002), although he did not use this term. His symptoms began 4 years ago and in May 2004 he installed G/S filters in his home. Readings in his home dropped from an average of approximately 900 to 20 GS units (Table 1). His sleep improved immediately (similar to Case #1) and all his other symptoms have disappeared (Figure 4). Since the filters were installed (seven months ago) he can recall having only two headaches.

Tinnitus, one of his symptoms, is the medical term for the perception of sound in one or both ears or in the head when no external sound is present. It is often referred to as "ringing in the ears," although some people hear buzzing, hissing, roaring, clicking, chirping or whistling. Tinnitus can be intermittent or constant and its perceived volume can range from subtle to shattering according to the American Tinnitus Association (2004).

An estimated 1 out of every 5 people experiences some degree of tinnitus. Of the more than 50 million Americans who experience tinnitus, 12 million seek medical attention, and two million are so seriously debilitated that they cannot function on a "normal," day-to-day basis. There is no known cure for tinnitus and treatments range from biofeedback, to drugs, to cochlear implants. Family doctors may also refer patients, who have no obvious physical damage, to psychiatrists.

Several individuals with tinnitus who have tested the G/S filters have reported a significant reduction in the volume of the sound they hear. Some have noticed that when the buzzing is loud, the dirty electricity in their home is high. If some tinnitus sufferers are able to perceived dirty electricity as "noise" then the removal of the dirty electricity may help alleviate their symptoms. The mechanism for this hearing is not known.

The human auditory response to pulses of radio frequency energy, referred to as RF hearing, is well established for frequencies in the MHz range (2.4 -10,000 MHz) (Elder and Chou 2003). Evidence supports a heating effect, whereby audible sounds are produced by rapid thermal expansion of tissue resulting in a clicking, buzzing, or chirping sound. For this reason, the hearing phenomenon depends on the dimensions of the head and on the energy in a single pulse and not on average power density. In our study, exposure was to frequencies in

the kHz range that are not associated with a heating phenomenon, so it is possible that some other mechanism is involved in producing the sounds heard.