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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

#131
post #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.

The brain can also confuse input from nearby muscles for missing sounds in some cases. My own tinnitus can get a lot worse if my upper back and shoulder muscles are tense.

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

#132

Finding a cure or treatment for tinnitus would be awesome. I have a very mild case from a few too many loud concerts. What I find amazing is how we don't attack the source of the problem much that I can see. Concerts, clubs, fireworks, even movies blast away above any reasonable level, causing damage to large parts of the population. We all just get progressively damaged hearing bit by bit. And yet there's very littl…

Go to concerts dude! Just wear protection. You can get these plugs designed for music. Just have a backup pair with you as well.

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

#133
post #132

Finding a cure or treatment for tinnitus would be awesome. I have a very mild case from a few too many loud concerts. What I find amazing is how we don't attack the source of the problem much that I can see. Concerts, clubs, fireworks, even movies blast away above any reasonable level, causing damage to large parts of the population. We all just get progressively damaged hearing bit by bit. And yet there's very littl…

Go to concerts dude! Just wear protection. You can get these plugs designed for music. Just have a backup pair with you as well.

I regularly go to concerts with earplugs, often it sounds better with them in, especially if the volume is too loud or treble is too high.

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

#134

Now to wait 5-8 years for an FDA-approved medical device, which will cost $3000. I wonder if you could achieve the same effect with a vibrating massager? Sticking a repurposed cellphone vibrator motor in an elastic band, like the North Paw, also sounds like it would have potential. https://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/

Just releasing what frequency they're using would be extremely helpful.

For sea sickness some companies offer a wrist band with a pea sized piece of plastic on them to (supposedly) stimulate a nerve in your wrist. I do not think that they require regulation.

I can see a situation where these devices could be sold for sea sickness purposes with little to no regulation.

Vibrating motors are a pretty easy device to get ahold of, phones and game controllers both have them; I don't see why you couldn't build one of these devices from a kit for under $25 + battery.

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

#135
post #132

Finding a cure or treatment for tinnitus would be awesome. I have a very mild case from a few too many loud concerts. What I find amazing is how we don't attack the source of the problem much that I can see. Concerts, clubs, fireworks, even movies blast away above any reasonable level, causing damage to large parts of the population. We all just get progressively damaged hearing bit by bit. And yet there's very littl…

Go to concerts dude! Just wear protection. You can get these plugs designed for music. Just have a backup pair with you as well.

I know this now. The fact that this is needed just further illustrates my point. We first blast music above safe levels and then expect people to compensate for that with hearing protection. That's just insane.

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

#136
post #127

I had a ringing for a weekend and found and used this extensively https://github.com/generalfuzz/acrn I remember it being after some loud event. But I honestly can't remember. It went away. But it might not have been tinnitus and just an ear infection. Or it might have helped, I'm just one sample size.

Interesting. It seems my tinnitus is around freq 8200. I'll give this tool a go when I'm in a more quiet environment.

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

#138
My guess is, the nervous system dampens the signal from the middle ear when it sees obvious noise coming in. IIRC tinnitus also gets diminished in a noisy environment.

(Afaik it's a pretty well-known feature of the nervous system, an example being how the ‘pins and needles’ fade out in a previously-sleeping limb.)

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

#139
post #67

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

> It is hoped that this information generates further research by others within the field of hearing / vestibular dysfunction. I have finished the research for my PhD, this however I feel should be continued with active tinnitus researchers (over to you).

I, in contrast, think this is perfectly reasonable. The title promises nothing, the article describes the methodology in detail, and they give it over to others to study since they can't.

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

#140
I have a double hit of tinnitus.

The first hit started in 2010, a neurological "gift" from the swine flu.

The second hit happened in 2013 while mounting a new tubeless mountain bike tire. The tire blew off the rim and caused permanent hearing damage in my right ear.

I have to sleep with a fan or white noise machine now -- the "sound" I hear in a silent room is enough to keep me awake.

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