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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

#101

Post by tim333 »

_8j7i wrote: post #81

Is it possible that tinnitus is actually just a person's inability to ignore natural noise in the hearing systems? More of a physchological issue like chewing fingernails or having OCD, but which can be amplified by legitimate physical hearing damage? I ask this because for all the life I can remember, I've always been able to perceive a high-pitched tone, even in completely quiet environments. If I actually focus on…

My experience as a moderate tinnitus sufferer the high-pitched tone you hear is basically the same thing but at a lower level - I think most people have it to some extent. But in sufferers the tone is much louder, normally after some damage to the ear from excessively loud sounds or similar.

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

#103

Post by frenchyatwork »

_8j7i wrote: post #81

Is it possible that tinnitus is actually just a person's inability to ignore natural noise in the hearing systems? More of a physchological issue like chewing fingernails or having OCD, but which can be amplified by legitimate physical hearing damage? I ask this because for all the life I can remember, I've always been able to perceive a high-pitched tone, even in completely quiet environments. If I actually focus on…

Part of this is a problem of trying to figure out what we're actually talking about. Tinnitus is a symptom that probably has at least several causes. It's generally believed to be a result of some form of damage to they hearing system. It includes:

1. The ear organ, which largely exists to protect the sensory tissue, and make things work smoothly.

2. The sensory tissue which is composed of hairs and mechanoreceptors (this is technically part of the ear).

3. The neurons that connect these mechanoreceptors to the brain.

4. The aural (audio) parts of the brain.

I think the theory is that the damage from tinnitus happens in 2, 3, or 4. If it is a problem in the brain, it's often impossible to tell if it's "psycological" or not, and that may be a false dichotomy. I think that some degree of tinnitus is normal in the healthy population, so maybe it's just a natural state that sometimes goes off the rails and gets bad enough to be labelled "disease".

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

#104

Post by reuben_scratton »

_8j7i wrote: post #81

Is it possible that tinnitus is actually just a person's inability to ignore natural noise in the hearing systems? More of a physchological issue like chewing fingernails or having OCD, but which can be amplified by legitimate physical hearing damage? I ask this because for all the life I can remember, I've always been able to perceive a high-pitched tone, even in completely quiet environments. If I actually focus on…

I remember reading that many years ago radical surgery was performed for a few particularly severe tinnitus cases in which the auditory nerve was completely severed, yet even that didn't fix the tinnitus. So yes, I think there is something in your interpretation.

(I suffered tinnitus for a few years, the 'pulsatile' form which is definitely not psychological and is basically when the blood flow in your head is too close to your inner ear. Fortunately for me it cleared up.)

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

#105

Post by hawski »

_8j7i wrote: post #81

Is it possible that tinnitus is actually just a person's inability to ignore natural noise in the hearing systems? More of a physchological issue like chewing fingernails or having OCD, but which can be amplified by legitimate physical hearing damage? I ask this because for all the life I can remember, I've always been able to perceive a high-pitched tone, even in completely quiet environments. If I actually focus on…

I have a mild tinnitus, so I can sometimes tune it out. But when I'm tired it's much louder. It was much worse when it started and I couldn't tune it out. In my case my daughter's scream brought my this and I had trouble with balance at first and hearing in one ear. Balance was out like I was flowing through water.

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

#106

Post by blotter_paper »

_8j7i wrote: post #81

Is it possible that tinnitus is actually just a person's inability to ignore natural noise in the hearing systems? More of a physchological issue like chewing fingernails or having OCD, but which can be amplified by legitimate physical hearing damage? I ask this because for all the life I can remember, I've always been able to perceive a high-pitched tone, even in completely quiet environments. If I actually focus on…

I'm really skeptical of this. I've been dumb enough to fire a decent amount of ammunition without hearing protection, and I've had my (undiagnosed) tinnitus get worse over time in a way that seemed related to this. I'm also very aware of background noises (like 60 cycle hums), and get annoyed by them frequently. The tinnitus sounds very different than those, and I can concentrate on other tasks way easier with my tinnitus acting up than I can sitting close to flourescent lights and other appliances that emit noticable 60 cycle hums. Sometimes it actually helps, by masking out other background noises.

Edit: I'm not saying that personal annoyance doesn't factor into who notices that they have tinnitus, I just suspect that there is actual hearing loss (and subsequent over-amplication to correct for this) involved.

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

#107

Post by mistermann »

mettamage wrote: post #42
hvidgaard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it like described here ( https://thoughtbrick.com/wim-hof-method/wim-hof-method-power... )? I've had tinnitus for 25 years, and sometimes I wish I could be free of it, if only for a while.

Edit: if you are going to do this by yourself, please do let us know in this thread how it went for you! I hate to be an anecdotal n = 1 'experiment'. Note: this technique has some risks. Especially when you practice by yourself. The biggest one is that scientifically speaking, experts are a bit unfamiliar with it. I can only offer anecdotal experience. There are some articles written about it [1], but I wonder if th…

> Note: this technique has some risks. Especially when you practice by yourself. The biggest one is that scientifically speaking, experts are a bit unfamiliar with it. I can only offer anecdotal experience.

I will also offer an anecdotal experience. I went to a "breathwork" seminar once that involved doing a form of hyperventilation (but without the breath holding part which is what Wim Hof also incorporates I believe?). I've always been a severe skeptic about this sort of spirituality woo woo, but of 10 people in the room, a significant number experienced what could only be described as full on psychedelic experiences, and my experience was similar enough that I don't doubt for a second that what they were saying was true, it was an eye opening experience to say the least.

That said, after the session was over, the instructor quietly mentioned that during the process, I had gone into some sort of a mini-seizure, and for over a month after that I had pretty severe and constant migraine headaches, as well as significantly elevated blood pressure.

I never bothered to research it afterwords, and I certainly will not be engaging in that practice again (as much as I would like to), but has anyone else ever heard of such a possibility for some minority of people?

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

#108

Post by tim333 »

aazaa wrote: post #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 th…

Re commercialisation he's "Spencer Salter, wellness technology researcher at Jaguar Land Rover" so I guess they'd have first dibs.

That said I'm guessing is must be something like a phone vibrate unit in box strapped behind your ear - probably not so hard to give it a shot at making one. Googling vibrators gives a lot of them for sale though mostly designs what would be embarrassing to strap to your head ;)

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

#109

Post by mrandish »

beloch wrote: post #67

Always be wary of researchers who go straight to the publicity mill instead of seeking verification via a sample size >1.

Sure, but that seems a little harsh in this case as the OP is essentially 'open sourcing' the observation because he's moving on from his Phd. There's no product on offer or apparent benefit to the author.

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

#110

Post by KirinDave »

_8j7i wrote: post #81

Is it possible that tinnitus is actually just a person's inability to ignore natural noise in the hearing systems? More of a physchological issue like chewing fingernails or having OCD, but which can be amplified by legitimate physical hearing damage? I ask this because for all the life I can remember, I've always been able to perceive a high-pitched tone, even in completely quiet environments. If I actually focus on…

Most tinnitus sufferers learn to ignore their noises to some degree. You're like me, where you have figured out how to turn it out. We're lucky sufferers, our noise is fairly constant. Some folks perceive more patterns in their noise, and that makes it much harder to ignore.
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