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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

#291

Post by MiroF »

nappy-doo wrote: post #202
pedrocr wrote: post #129

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…

I'm sorry you hurt your hearing. I know quite a few with tinnitus, and some of them are borderline suicidal with how horrible it is for them. I doubt legislation with help. As a drummer from my early teens till mid 30s (some of that time in a partially successful band), and attender of thousands of shows, I KNEW concerts were too loud, and ALWAYS took earplugs (except once to a Weird Al show). I think I still suffer…

> I KNEW concerts were too loud, and ALWAYS took earplugs (except once to a Weird Al show). I think I still suffer from hearing loss, especially with the amount of times I say, "huh" to my kids and wife.

Why are they like this? Do people actually enjoy it?

I find it awful, but it's consistent at every small concert I go to.

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

#292

Post by learc83 »

mdorazio wrote: post #223
learc83 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First to file in the US still has a 1 year grace period. It's not as robust as under first to invent, but it still exists.

My understanding is that it’s not that simple and the grace period isn’t really a guarantee [1]. [1] https://ocpatentlawyer.com/dangers-of-1-yr-grace-period-unde...

It's not that simple, but it's not as bad as the article you posted makes it sound. He's a patent lawyer trying to convince you that you need to file as soon as possible. It's in his interest to convince you that the grace period is worthless.

If you make a public disclosure and someone else tries to file for a patent and the claims are covered by your disclosure (provided the patent examiner is aware of the disclosure), your disclosure will count as prior art and the patent will be denied.

If however you try to file a patent within a year of making a disclosure, your disclosure will not count as prior art.

Here's more reading if you're interested: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2153.html

The problem is that there haven't been many court decisions to clarify the new law and most of these scare articles by patent attorneys are just conjecture. Also note that most of the articles you'll find in a Google search warning about the grace period are more than 5 years old.

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

#293

Post by learc83 »

simiones wrote: post #50
rocqua wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that link: "A person shall be entitled to a patent unless—the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention" It seems to me that the "described in a printed publication, or in public use part" here would suffice to protect the inventor no?

Not sure what you mean, but those clauses describe what can remove your entitlement to a patent. So, if the claimed invention was "described in a printed publication, or in public use" before the filing date, the inventor is no longer entitled to the patent. Of course, complaining of the lost potential money from IP for a life-improving device is preposterous, but it is true that this article may prevent the company…

>but it is true that this article may prevent the company for ever filing a patent application for this idea (unless they have already filed it)

No the inventors generally have a year to file after disclosure. There is a 1 year grace period in that your own disclosure doesn't count as prior art if you are the one filing.

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

#294

Post by bmer »

peheje wrote: 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.

I followed up on the research article this is based on, which is from 2013. In short: it has been reasonably well cited and followed up on with additional studies, and there is statistically significant improvements in tinnitus in experiments---but as of yet, still not enough data to recommend clinical usage. The technique is based on trying to desychronize maladaptively synchronized neurons in the auditory center which create the perception of the tinnitus sound (obviously then, this will only be relevant for those with who do not have tinnitus due to a physical issue). However, the proposed pathophysiological mechanism this treatment technique is trying to address is still somewhat speculative:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26868680

Mathematical modelling provides some support:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31212443

Here's a recent related article from Stanford:

Acoustic coordinated reset therapy for tinnitus with perceptually relevant frequency spacing and levels (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49945-w)

My overall impression: this is cool. There is some valid science going on here, and I would be happy to use it as a placebo effect at the very least. It would be nice to update the sounds provided by the github repo according to recent findings.

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

#295

Post by mdorazio »

learc83 wrote: post #292
mdorazio wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it’s not that simple and the grace period isn’t really a guarantee [1]. [1] https://ocpatentlawyer.com/dangers-of-1-yr-grace-period-unde...

It's not that simple, but it's not as bad as the article you posted makes it sound. He's a patent lawyer trying to convince you that you need to file as soon as possible. It's in his interest to convince you that the grace period is worthless. If you make a public disclosure and someone else tries to file for a patent and the claims are covered by your disclosure (provided the patent examiner is aware of the disclosu…

Thanks for the clarification and link. It's hard to tell what the actual practical outcomes look like without much case law around the new setup.

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

#296

Post by jpindar »

My tinnitus doesn't bother me very often, but when it does, this provides the most amazing instant relief. And the relief lasts for some time even after you stop listening to it.

https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/neuromodulationTonesGenera...

That site also has an extremely wide variety of background noise.

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

#297

Post by analog31 »

debatem1 wrote: post #154
pedrocr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, it isn't. There are three related reasons why. First, we don't exclusively experience a concert through our ears. The reason people use words like "thumping" to describe bass is because it's felt as much as heard. That experience is important to many forms of music, and it isn't possible to get it at low volume. The second is that the relative volume of different instruments is usually more important to the sound…

I'm a musician, and I don't buy it. There are too many situations where it's loud without serving any musical purpose.

People listen to music with earbuds at levels that are driving them deaf, and it's not felt at all.

Jazz groups play too loud, fer cripe's sake.

Restaurants are loud. I took a sound pressure meter to an event at a restaurant, and the crowd noise was above the safe threshold before the band even started playing.

Drums are not irreducibly loud, and in any event, that doesn't explain why events with sound reinforcement are too loud. A competent drummer can play with intensity (even visually) at any volume level. Knowing how to play at an appropriate volume is part of knowing how to play.

I think that volume levels are killing live music.

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

#298

Post by mbrameld »

reeddavid wrote: post #233

There are many calls for personal responsibility here. But I think the average person is not making a choice to sustain permanent hearing damage – most people don't know the risks. I used to own a decible meter. I brought it to a movie theater (large chain) and found sustained volume of 100+ decibels. It was physically painful. I was the only customer who complained to the theater. I asked what sound level they inten…

I served in the Air Force and did a 9 month tour in Afghanistan preceded by 3 months of combat skills training. We were issued ear plugs and used them religiously. Turns out they were defective and now I have permanent hearing loss in my right ear and tinnitus in both ears.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/02/14/...

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

#299

Post by d-d »

Amazing! I'm holding my vibrating iPhone to my head in a certain spot which gets the skull resonating, and it's cutting the tinnitus down by about 70%.

This is definitely doing something beyond masking the sound because when the vibration stops there is a few seconds delay before the tinnitus comes back.

Pretty exciting stuff! I really hope this leads to a reasonable cure. I'm not sure having a thing vibrating on my head would be any less distracting!

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

#300

Post by waterhouse »

ResidentSleeper wrote: post #249
goda90 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gone to two rock concerts that the volume was so loud that is was distorting the music. Of course my ears hurt, so I took to covering them a bit. My friend often goes to concerts and wasn't phased at all. I imagine the people in charge of sound have already lost some hearing, and they don't care if it sounds great or not.

I've had this exact problem attending most concerts (only classical music seems mostly fine). The music sounds very distorted (like a damaged speaker or an audio recording with heavy clipping) and after a while it gets physically painful to listen. Movies are sometimes uncomfortable, but the volume level is less constant which helps a lot. I've asked around and nobody seems to share this experience. I didn't use to g…

A similar data point: I carry earplugs everywhere, and usually wear them when I'm at the movie theater (which is kind of rare) and at parties where there's loud music or talking; I do this because sooner or later I notice my ears hurting from the noise. The earplugs I have are flesh-colored ("Hearos"), and I don't think most people notice them unless I point them out.

I'm not sure whether I'm an outlier in terms of hearing sensitivity, or if it's just that I somehow wired myself to interpret certain stimuli as pain, or what. I also find bright sunlight and spicy food painful, and when I've gotten massages, usually I prefer a much lighter touch than what appears to be normal. I guess smell is the remaining sense; I guess I have evidence that (some) smells bother me more than they bother others.

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