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We ‘may’ have discovered a potential remedy for tinnitus

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Re: We ‘may’ have discovered a potential remedy for tinnitus

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? Doesn't that have first amendment protection?

The US specialized in medical quackery for a hundred years, so there are direct restrictions on speech around claiming medical benefits. The free speech laws permit that, as IIRC societal welfare trumps your right to claim that (for example) mercury and cocaine soda will cure all ills. EDIT: Commenters are right, you have to try to profit to be prosecuted. If you give away poison and call it a cure, as long as you ha…

It is perfectly legal to publicly claim that mercury and cocaine soda will cure all ills. You can post a video or shout it on a street corner or whatever. This is 1st Amendment protected free speech as affirmed case law.

What isn't legal is selling a product and making false or unverified claims about medical benefits.

Re: We ‘may’ have discovered a potential remedy for tinnitus

#62
post #2

This reminds me of the technique that went viral via Reddit a couple of years ago: https://lifehacker.com/this-weird-trick-might-give-you-brief... I don't suffer from tinnitus, but I know people who do and some of them have said that this helped them.

Trust me, It never helped me. Edit: never knew telling your experiences gets you downvotes.

> never knew telling your experiences gets you downvotes

I think this case is more specific than that: expressing personal experience as something that must therefore be true for everyone often gets you downvotes, at least here, unless you experience agrees directly and completely with local group-think (and even then some who disagree with the local group consensus will downvote without explanation).

Frame personal experience as personal experience that might inform others usefully, rather than framing personal experience as solid undisputable globally applicable fact. You'll likely still get some downvotes of course, no matter what you say or how you frame it.

Re: We ‘may’ have discovered a potential remedy for tinnitus

#65

I wrote this relatively recently in another comment. I think it applies here: I have tinnitus. I got it from going out too much. I wasn't the biggest party-hardy individual, but there were moments where I went out quite a bit. During that time I lived in Amsterdam and loved parties for: music, social experimentation and doing whatever. I wasn't too much into the drugs/alcohol thing. I think during my 'going out phase…

> I have tinnitus. It was 6 months of agony, then I started to ignore it. It wasn't a conscious decision, the ignoring happened automatically. I only have the high pitched ringing in my ears when it's quiet. It literally feels like a curse though, I can't hear silence. My tinnitus generally doesn't bother me on a psychological level, so I feel fairly lucky in that regard. I just wish I didn't have it all the time and…

My tinnitus is high pitched but not loud enough to ruin my life, It took almost 6 months to overcome the mental trauma.

Making some hard-ruled habit worked, I meditate every day morning and have a good walk of an hour in evening. I almost never skipped walk unless it is raining. I have same desire for experiencing silence, silence is golden.

Re: We ‘may’ have discovered a potential remedy for tinnitus

#66
I have something related to tinitus: I sometimes get a ringing in my ear(s) when I'm deep in thought. It's not always both ears.

The article suggests to me that tilting your head sideways could be a way to cure tinitus - e.g. try various tilting movements (different speeds, angles, repetitions) to tune in and out of the parts of your inner ear that cause the tinnitus, taking note of any phenomenon that arise during various movement patterns. And don't forget the tension/relaxation variable! E.g. large, fast movements increase base tension, while slow, small movements decrease it.

I've quite a bit of experience loosening and tightening my joints from martial art; I imagine a similar process can be applied to nerve connections.

(In fact I've been trying to apply it to muscle growth via nerve stimulation because my room is on the small side for doing exercise. Burnt out a lot of nerve cells trying, now focussing on nutrition before I continue.)

Re: We ‘may’ have discovered a potential remedy for tinnitus

#68
Interesting, but the article doesn't give enough information for third parties to duplicate it. The referenced paper "Less sickness with more motion and/or mental distraction" uses a completely different device.

Nor does the article indicate how long the relief persists after removal of the device. The article is also vague about how many people have reported relief.

There's also the question of controls. Assuming the effect is general and real (a stretch at this point), there could be something about the device besides its vibration that leads to relief of symptoms. Nothing along these lines is reported.

I get that this is a blog post and that the author is probably in the process of commercialization, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The article does little to convince.

Re: We ‘may’ have discovered a potential remedy for tinnitus

#69

I would urge anyone that suffers from tinnitus to get their hearing checked if they haven't already. Getting hearing aids has given me significant relief from tinnitus and if my hearing aid battery dies the tinnitus comes back fairly quickly. It's as if my ear is trying to compensate for the lack of sound. Of course, there are multiple reasons for tinnitus to occur so your mileage may very, but it's absolutely worth…

>It's as if my ear is trying to compensate for the lack of sound.

As I understand it, this is exactly what tinnitus is. Your ear becomes insensitive to a certain frequency, so your brain "equalizes" it, if you will, and over compensates to the point that you're hearing something that's not there.

Re: We ‘may’ have discovered a potential remedy for tinnitus

#70

I get the sense that tinnitus is so different for so many people there will never be a single solution. I think it can only be stopped at its source in the hearing centers of the brain itself, but good luck getting that accomplished. I can only describe mine as the sound of a dump truck full of chandeliers going by the house. There are low-pitched rumbles, high-pitched wails and everything else in between if I really…

> I'm not sure exactly why I'm not despondent about it, but for whatever reason, I simply choose to ignore it and it doesn't impact my life in any way Actually, I've read that the best way to cope with tinnitus is to... just not worry so much about it. I suppose it's possible to catastrophize if you have it, but if you go about your day and don't mind it it won't bother you nearly as much. I actually have fairly soft…

Tinnitus is weird. It can change from being fairly soft and presenting no issue at all to really very distracting by just thinking about it (in my case).

I've found that thinking about it more than usual in, say, the morning, can result in your mind focusing on the specific frequencies the tinnitus manifests in, with these conscious-subconscious feedback loops resulting in it sounding far louder than usual for the rest of the day. Then, the next day, it's back to normal.

I'd be interested in finding out more about this conscious-subconscious connection with tinnitus, because it's quite amazing how it can be forgotten about for a seemingly arbitrarily long period of time until the thought comes up.

edit: or perhaps I shouldn't, for exactly this reason ;)

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