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Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

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Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#71

Post by jFriedensreich »

d4rkp4ttern wrote: post #65
deelowe wrote: post #5

Hearing loss is one thing but it's the tinnitus that really bothers me. Hope something that can reverse the damage becomes available in my lifetime.

Is there any actual “damage” known to be associated with tinnitus?

tinnitus is a known sideeffect of hearing loss, possibly due to changes in regulation of nerves making up for reduced signals. Another aspect is that often tinnitus and hearing loss are both effects of a "hörsturz"(there seems to be no easy to find translation in english, basically hörsturz is like a stroke inside the ear and results in severe tinnitus and/or hearing loss)

Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#72

Post by zackmorris »

DantesKite wrote: post #16

For anybody suffering with tinnitus I highly recommend the protocol William Shatner went through. You can train your brain so it’s not noticeable any more. Like wearing pants, it fades into the background.

I had tinnitus in my left ear, but it turned out to be related to TMJ, and it resolved after I wore an advanced lightwire functional (ALF) appliance for maybe 3-6 months to move my jaw back into a forward position. I had braces and wore headgear as a kid at the height of some 1980s hysteria about overbites that left millions of people like me with class II malocclusion (baby face) and sleep apnea.

I'm having trouble finding information on it, because there's a lot more money in orthodontics than palatal expansion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_expansion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_palatal_expanders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orthodontic_functional...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mew#Orthotropics

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19416436

Right now I'm wearing Invisalign but have a small 1/2 tooth gap where the new bone has formed and am having trouble finding an orthodontist that will move molars forward to catch up. It's like asking someone who just dug a giant hole to fill it in again. It may require a temporary anchorage devices (TAD) or lever arm to move the teeth without tipping them.

The programmer in me senses a code smell here where the orthodontics profession maybe shouldn't endorse practices it can't undo. But all I can really do is spread the word and encourage anyone considering braces to get a second opinion, especially for children. They may just need to wear a retainer for a year or two and learn good tongue posture habits, especially while they're still growing.

Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#73

Post by adriand »

dazc wrote: post #61
samstave wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have increasing;y bad tinnitus. Will this help with that? I hear a permanent and constant low-volume very high pitch "squeal" in my ears at all times, I was never a big loud music listener, and I have always brought ear-plugs to loud events - and have had no big ear-rupturing moments (such as a gun firing close to my head without protection etc...

I had odd bouts of tinitus as a teenager, like you, no obvious causes. It went away and came back with a vengence about 15 years ago. That lasted a year or so but over time it's become more of a minor irritation than a major handicap. I guess, my brain has trained itself to deal with it? The only tip I can give you is to always have some kind of background sound that you can focus on rather than the buzzing in your o…

The best advice I ever got about my tinnitus was from my mom, who has worse tinnitus than I do: "just forget about it". I know that might sound difficult, but honestly, just try. When you notice it, reassure yourself that it's not really a big problem, and then turn your attention to other things. If you are successful with this, eventually you will only notice it when you remember that you have it and listen for it.

A couple of the things I used to tell myself when it troubled me more than it does now:

- There's nothing you can do about this, so just forget about it.

- We all accumulate damage as we age. None of us are going into the grave in prime condition and if we do, that's a mark of a life not well-lived.

- The fact I can hear this noise means I'm alive: "I hear ringing, therefore I am".

These may not be helpful to you, so invent your own!

The other thing I would recommend is getting a hearing test. If it turns out you have hearing loss, then treatment for that (e.g. hearing aids) may reduce your tinnitus (one theory is that tinnitus is caused by your brain "turning up the gain" on your "audio inputs", so that when you have a hearing aid, your brain no longer needs to do that, and your tinnitus diminishes).

If it turns out you don't have hearing loss, then you can reassure yourself that your tinnitus is not a sign of any damage. I had always assumed my tinnitus was the result of damage due to a lot of music events but it turns out I have excellent hearing, which helps me ignore my tinnitus, because I no longer view it as proof that I hurt myself.

You may also notice that certain things make your tinnitus worse. For instance, if I have a few drinks, mine gets noticeably louder. But because I know the alcohol will wear off, I just ignore it because it's temporary.

Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#74

Post by 124816 »

samstave wrote: post #54
lr4444lr wrote: post #4

Disclosure: I own FREQ stock. The failure of the prior trial was suspected, and I believe it, due to a refractory response by overdosing the inner ear with too frequent administrations of the drug, and then testing for effect too soon. I bet even those candidates of the phase IIa trial though would, if checked on now, show some improvement. Animal research has shown that natural cochlear hair cell regeneration and re…

I have increasing;y bad tinnitus. Will this help with that? I hear a permanent and constant low-volume very high pitch "squeal" in my ears at all times, I was never a big loud music listener, and I have always brought ear-plugs to loud events - and have had no big ear-rupturing moments (such as a gun firing close to my head without protection etc...

There can be other causes besides noise exposure, like TMJ/teeth grinding which can affect the nerves.

Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#75

Post by hunter2_ »

maroonblazer wrote: post #39

The article says the treatment focuses on increased speech intelligibility. Speech, depending on how you define it, can occupy a fairly narrow range of the audio spectrum that humans can perceive. My hearing loss is mostly on the high end (10-12K and above) and impedes my ability to hear speech in noisy environments. More troubling has been the inability to enjoy music/sound in those upper ranges, resulting in the mu…

Have you played around with an equalizer (hardware or software, doesn't matter) that offers rather extreme adjustments like +15dB or more, to see if you can approximate a flat source+ear system? Or is your loss more like a brickwall filter than a 12dB/octave slope for example?

I'm an audio engineer, not an audiologist, so I'm just shooting from the hip here as it's something I've been curious about in case I develop a similar issue as I age.

Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#76

Post by theyeenzbeanz »

maroonblazer wrote: post #39

The article says the treatment focuses on increased speech intelligibility. Speech, depending on how you define it, can occupy a fairly narrow range of the audio spectrum that humans can perceive. My hearing loss is mostly on the high end (10-12K and above) and impedes my ability to hear speech in noisy environments. More troubling has been the inability to enjoy music/sound in those upper ranges, resulting in the mu…

I miss being able to hear every little note with full range. A combination of construction noise and some loud music did it for me and I can’t even “imagine” music with full range in my head like I use to before my hearing damage and tinnitus.

Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#77

Post by FLORESFIB »

lr4444lr wrote: post #4

Disclosure: I own FREQ stock. The failure of the prior trial was suspected, and I believe it, due to a refractory response by overdosing the inner ear with too frequent administrations of the drug, and then testing for effect too soon. I bet even those candidates of the phase IIa trial though would, if checked on now, show some improvement. Animal research has shown that natural cochlear hair cell regeneration and re…

No post body was provided.

Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#78

Post by sonicggg »

encoderer wrote: post #67

What the heck is going on with tinnitus? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... I’ve been afflicted with tinnitus after a mild covid case in January and now that I’m looking it seems like this is a growing problem. So many comments here about tinnitus.

I am in the same boat. In my case, I think Covid affected the microcirculation in my ear. I've been having success in addressing it through therapies to promote blood flow and endothelial repair.

Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#79

Post by lr4444lr »

samstave wrote: post #54
lr4444lr wrote: post #4

Disclosure: I own FREQ stock. The failure of the prior trial was suspected, and I believe it, due to a refractory response by overdosing the inner ear with too frequent administrations of the drug, and then testing for effect too soon. I bet even those candidates of the phase IIa trial though would, if checked on now, show some improvement. Animal research has shown that natural cochlear hair cell regeneration and re…

I have increasing;y bad tinnitus. Will this help with that? I hear a permanent and constant low-volume very high pitch "squeal" in my ears at all times, I was never a big loud music listener, and I have always brought ear-plugs to loud events - and have had no big ear-rupturing moments (such as a gun firing close to my head without protection etc...

That is an open question. Tinnitus is NOT well understood. It does have fairly high correlation with SNHL, which IS pretty well understood as a matter of cochlear hair cell destruction. So there is a lot of optimism that if we can treat the latter, the former will go away, but there may be other components to it in the central nervous system. It certainly would only help to fix SNHL in trying to treat tinnitus.

Re: Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

#80

Post by detritus »

Asooka wrote: post #68
detritus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got pretty bad - although not constant - tinnitus in my left ear after a particularly loud NYE too late in life. What I find interesting though, is that I distinctly remember as a young kid living in the countryside that I found it impossible to hear absolute silence. I distinctly remember sitting on a bale of hay on a bright summer's day with not even a breeze and the quieter I perceived things, the louder a 'T…

Wait hold up, you mean that's not normal? Hearing a high pitch noise all the time I mean. I thought it was like when you're in full darkness and you "see" shapes because your brain is trying to interpret the subtle residual signals on neurons lacking direct stimulation.

Apparently not. It's a long-time since, but I remember adults largely couldn't hear it (not too surprising) but I had friends my age who hadn't a clue what I was on about either - a sentiment shared by at least one other neighbouring commenter.
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