6 ms·

I was hoping to read that it might also help people like myself who suffer from tinnitus. Sadly, no. Still, if it can restore hearing to the deaf, this is a go

I was hoping to read that it might also help people like myself who suffer from tinnitus. Sadly, no. Still, if it can restore hearing to the deaf, this is a good thing.

alecst 7y ago
Even though it wasn't mentioned in the article, a lot of researchers in this field believe that a cure for hearing loss will take care of tinnitus and hyperacusis too, at least for a patient subgroup. There's tinnitus caused by muscle tension/dysfunction (?) which is of an entirely different etiology apparently, but the good news is that that kind seems more treatable than the kind caused by permanent hearing dysfunction.
- heyoni 7y ago
  Tinnitus being caused by muscle tension could explain why ADHD medications have that as a side effect?
hprotagonist 7y ago
Restoration of hair cells may have knock-on effects for tinnitus. If tinnitus is a maladaptive neuroplasticity (your brain "needs" to hear something so if it can't because you're deaf at that frequency it'll invent things for you to hear instead) that makes sense to model as some stable limit cycle of a nonlinear system -- which is one of the leading hypotheses for tinnitus right now -- then it's not totally implausible that restoration of function would change your tinnitus percepts. It's not clear that it'd help, but I'm pretty confident that if we can restore hair cell function, someone's going to try.
- alecst 7y ago
  Yes -- although there are lots of folks with hearing loss who don't have tinnitus. There must be more to the story than just the ghost ringing that you're talking about. But I do think that the hypothesis you quote makes intuitive sense, at least as much as these hypercomplex things can be intuitive.
  - tim333 7y ago
    As you say people can lose hearing without tinnitus. Having mild tinnitus myself and looked up how the hearing system works, I think the lead suspect must be the gizmo that converts the mechanical movement of sound waves into the ion level changes of neural impulses. It looks a bit like a tube that is opened or closed a little by movement of the hair attached to it, letting K+ ions through the hole or not. Damage to that could let ions go through when there is no actual movement of the hair. It's kind of remarkable the things work as well as they do given the difference between 0db where you can just hear and 110db or so where it breaks is a 300,000x or so difference in amplitude. (diagram of movement to ion flow gizmo close up https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-Diagram-of-Stereocilia-MET-Channel-Complex-Proteins_fig3_281394341 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-Diagram-of-Ste... zoomed out a bit https://jcs.biologists.org/content/joces/126/8/1721/F1.large.jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1 https://jcs.biologists.org/content/joces/126/8/1721/F1.large...)
lr4444lr 7y ago
Both of the prior posters are correct from my reading. You should also note that the comorbidity between sensorineural hearing loss and tinnitus is very high, again strongly suggesting that a subgroup will receive significant benefit if the hearing loss is fixed. In my experience, I would also recommend you seek out an ENT or audiologist that will do high frequency hearing testing (8 KHz to 16 KHz or higher). This is not standard in hearing tests, which max out at 8KHz because that is the functional range of speech and most sounds that affect daily life for humans, but loss of frequencies above that can often be present with tinnitus.
- Goronmon 7y ago
  Yeah, I was diagnosed with very early stages of high frequency hearing loss after noticing tinnitus-like symptoms earlier this year. The setup was much more elaborate than the standard hearing tests I have done in the past.
xtracto 7y ago
I myself have tinnitus as well. Curious if you have tried the Notched music approach ( https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=16303582276611856230&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1630358227661185623... ) or the Neighbouring Tones ( https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=10375300529193066681&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1037530052919306668... ) approach. Apparently both of the have had some kind of success in treating tinnitus. Unfortunately for me, they work better for "lower" frequencies. My tinnitus is around 10,000hz for which these "therapies" don't have as much impact.
- zeeed 7y ago
  I’m affected as well, noise damage. Had seen the papers coming out a while ago and desperately waiting for something that becomes available “for the masses”. Do you know of any existing self-treatment (e.g. an app that applies a notch filter on acting as a Spotify client) or do you happen to have any reference to more specific treatments that might be available on the market?
  - thomasknowles 7y ago
    https://www.neuromoddevices.com/ https://www.neuromoddevices.com/ has just released a Neuromodulation gizmo. The first adopters have had it for a few weeks. Currently only in Ireland.
  - bredren 7y ago
    There are sites that let you find and create a proper notch filter for free. You can then play them on loop in iTunes at your desk. Or on speakers as you sleep. I believe this is the only research based treatment for tinnitus right now. I also have it from too many raves. I can’t wear headphones anymore including AirPods. Notch filters work some but healthy living has a big effect for me. Enough sleep, exercise, easy on intoxicants etc. But just reading about and thinking about it is allowing me to hear something I normally tune out okay. It is sad what I’ve done to my hearing though. I wish there was a “cure.”
  - 0xfaded 7y ago
akeck 7y ago
YMMV (from Reddit thread): --- Strong temporary relief from tinnitus: Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a day for as long as necessary to reduce tinnitus. ~ Dr. Jan Strydom, of A2Z of Health, Beauty and Fitness.org.
- dorchadas 7y ago
  I can anecdotally confirm this. When my tinnitus starts up, I do this immediately. Like, stop whatever I'm doing immediately (obviously not driving), and it does give me some relief. It's really weird hearing quiet afterwards, though.
  - ddingus 7y ago
    Same. Mine is mild and high frequency. Mostly not annoying. Tried this and it works well. Sometimes I get hours. But, one strong jaw clench, and it comes back.
- randlet 7y ago
  Have tried this a couple of times with zero relief unfortunately. I have conductive hearing loss due to otosclerosis (plaque buildup on stapes) so that might be why it doesn't work for me.
  - spiderpug 7y ago
    Same here. My hearing is getting worse and I might have an operation in a few month. Luckily only one side is affected (for now, chances are not good it remains that way)
  - WilTimSon 7y ago
    I'm fairly certain this is a case-by-case kind of "remedy". A friend of mine had terrible tinnitus and this did not help him at all. I wonder if this has something to do with bone structure or, perhaps, depends on the severity of the condition. Still, it's solid advice that should be spread wide in case it helps some people.
tw1010 7y ago
Would those who regained hearing have tinnitus? I mean, in theory, wouldn't you be able to recover from tinnitus if you made yourself deaf and ate the proteins. Maybe stupid question, but why not?
- tempestn 7y ago
  Some tinnitus is comorbid with hearing loss, but some isn't. If you have hearing loss and tinnitus, it's possible that improving the hearing loss would also reduce or eliminate the tinnitus, as they would appear to be related. If your tinnitus is unrelated to hearing loss though, it seems to me unlikely that giving yourself and then curing hearing loss would have an effect. (Not to rule it out completely, given that the causes of tinnitus are not well understood.)
nosianu 7y ago
So... okay, I did not want to go public at first and emailed privately, but since there are others, and why not: I too had tinnitus for a long time and it all went away after chelation treatment against chronic mercury poisoning from amalgam fillings after being lucky that it was diagnosed (I had to actively search for a rare researcher/university clinic doctor specialist, nearly no chance with normal doctors). See my post history, I mention it a few times. I could write a few more pages about it all but in this format I'll leave it at that, people with the problem can decide for themselves if this is relevant for them. I was reluctant to post because I know a lot - most? - people don't take low-dose heavy metal poisonings seriously at all. I had people wanting to buy an espresso machine off of me despite me having revealed that I planned to scrap it because the water coming out of it had twice the official limit for lead in it (and the medical limit is zero so any lead would have been bad). Because "how bad can it be, such a tiny amount sure does not matter". OP is from Scotland and I though it might be relevant because it seems they use that stuff according to this very recent document: https://www.gov.scot/publications/amalgam-dental-fillings-action-plan/ https://www.gov.scot/publications/amalgam-dental-fillings-ac... PS/EDIT: By the way, my tinnitus went away within year one of chelation treatment. However, after almost a decade (of continued occasional chelation because it still helped) I had a lot of activity all of sudden for a few weeks around both ears. For the last decade I had shifting activity patterns in various areas, so that wasn't a surprise, I had expected something like that since that was a major impacted area. For weeks I could not listen to music and definitely not use a headset. Something was going on there and it wanted quiet.. Anyway, long story short - I can now hear much better than a decade ago! I first noticed because I've had the exact same MP3 player with the exact same songs for well over a decade, and the same in-ear headset for just as long. Suddenly I had to turn the (numerically adjusted) volume much farther down, into regions where previously I could not hear a thing apart from "music plays". Now I have to play everything on about 10-20% less volume than before, and it all happened exactly after those weeks of activity (where I even had to go to a doctor to get the ears cleaned, there was way more ear wax than usual during that time).
- sparkzilla 7y ago
  This is very interesting. Can you point me to some articles or further resources?
zackmorris 7y ago
There are many kinds of tinnitus, and I had some coming on last year from too many concerts and power tools. But, after a few months of wearing an A.L.F. appliance for sleep apnea, my TMJ opened up a bit and relieved some of the pressure on my skull, and most of my tinnitus went away. I would say the "volume" of it is less than 1/4 what it was, and low enough that I wouldn't say I have it now. So it's not a guaranteed fix, but I highly recommend talking to a TMJ specialist about your tinnitus and see if there is anything they can do. I think there also may be connections with blood pressure, vitamins/minerals, hydration, etc that could affect programmers sitting in chairs all day. Hope this helps, YMMV.
- tsmarsh 7y ago
  I have a similar thing. For me it is exacerbated by sinus pressure. Sinus care, exercise, even losing weight all have positive effects on my perception of tinnitus. At its worse I could hear it over the sound of 2 stroke marine diesel engine (around 60dB ambient), its currently around 20dB. I also have TMJ, I'll look into getting a specialist. Thanks for the tip!
biggc 7y ago
> I was hoping to read that it might also help people like myself who suffer from tinnitus. Sadly, no. It depends, I have tinnitus and high-frequency hearing loss. It's not at the point where I need hearing aids, but anecdotally a friend of mine who got hearing aids reported that his tinnitus goes away when using them.
foxyv 7y ago
It's kinda funny. I really enjoy my tinnitus. The pulsing ring in my left ear merges with the buzzing in my right and it "Sounds like Quiet" to me. Maybe because I've had it since I was a baby I'm more adapted to it. Then again I don't think mine is nearly as bad as some people's.

I was hoping to read that it might also help people like myself who suffer from tinnitus. Sadly, no. Still, if it can restore hearing to the deaf, this is a good thing.

alecst 7y ago

Even though it wasn't mentioned in the article, a lot of researchers in this field believe that a cure for hearing loss will take care of tinnitus and hyperacusis too, at least for a patient subgroup. There's tinnitus caused by muscle tension/dysfunction (?) which is of an entirely different etiology apparently, but the good news is that that kind seems more treatable than the kind caused by permanent hearing dysfunction.

heyoni 7y ago
Tinnitus being caused by muscle tension could explain why ADHD medications have that as a side effect?

hprotagonist 7y ago

Restoration of hair cells may have knock-on effects for tinnitus. If tinnitus is a maladaptive neuroplasticity (your brain "needs" to hear something so if it can't because you're deaf at that frequency it'll invent things for you to hear instead) that makes sense to model as some stable limit cycle of a nonlinear system -- which is one of the leading hypotheses for tinnitus right now -- then it's not totally implausible that restoration of function would change your tinnitus percepts. It's not clear that it'd help, but I'm pretty confident that if we can restore hair cell function, someone's going to try.

alecst 7y ago
Yes -- although there are lots of folks with hearing loss who don't have tinnitus. There must be more to the story than just the ghost ringing that you're talking about. But I do think that the hypothesis you quote makes intuitive sense, at least as much as these hypercomplex things can be intuitive.
- tim333 7y ago
  As you say people can lose hearing without tinnitus. Having mild tinnitus myself and looked up how the hearing system works, I think the lead suspect must be the gizmo that converts the mechanical movement of sound waves into the ion level changes of neural impulses. It looks a bit like a tube that is opened or closed a little by movement of the hair attached to it, letting K+ ions through the hole or not. Damage to that could let ions go through when there is no actual movement of the hair. It's kind of remarkable the things work as well as they do given the difference between 0db where you can just hear and 110db or so where it breaks is a 300,000x or so difference in amplitude. (diagram of movement to ion flow gizmo close up https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-Diagram-of-Stereocilia-MET-Channel-Complex-Proteins_fig3_281394341 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-Diagram-of-Ste... zoomed out a bit https://jcs.biologists.org/content/joces/126/8/1721/F1.large.jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1 https://jcs.biologists.org/content/joces/126/8/1721/F1.large...)

lr4444lr 7y ago

Both of the prior posters are correct from my reading. You should also note that the comorbidity between sensorineural hearing loss and tinnitus is very high, again strongly suggesting that a subgroup will receive significant benefit if the hearing loss is fixed. In my experience, I would also recommend you seek out an ENT or audiologist that will do high frequency hearing testing (8 KHz to 16 KHz or higher). This is not standard in hearing tests, which max out at 8KHz because that is the functional range of speech and most sounds that affect daily life for humans, but loss of frequencies above that can often be present with tinnitus.

Goronmon 7y ago
Yeah, I was diagnosed with very early stages of high frequency hearing loss after noticing tinnitus-like symptoms earlier this year. The setup was much more elaborate than the standard hearing tests I have done in the past.

xtracto 7y ago

I myself have tinnitus as well. Curious if you have tried the Notched music approach ( https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=16303582276611856230&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1630358227661185623... ) or the Neighbouring Tones ( https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=10375300529193066681&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1037530052919306668... ) approach. Apparently both of the have had some kind of success in treating tinnitus. Unfortunately for me, they work better for "lower" frequencies. My tinnitus is around 10,000hz for which these "therapies" don't have as much impact.

zeeed 7y ago
I’m affected as well, noise damage. Had seen the papers coming out a while ago and desperately waiting for something that becomes available “for the masses”. Do you know of any existing self-treatment (e.g. an app that applies a notch filter on acting as a Spotify client) or do you happen to have any reference to more specific treatments that might be available on the market?
- thomasknowles 7y ago
  https://www.neuromoddevices.com/ https://www.neuromoddevices.com/ has just released a Neuromodulation gizmo. The first adopters have had it for a few weeks. Currently only in Ireland.
- bredren 7y ago
  There are sites that let you find and create a proper notch filter for free. You can then play them on loop in iTunes at your desk. Or on speakers as you sleep. I believe this is the only research based treatment for tinnitus right now. I also have it from too many raves. I can’t wear headphones anymore including AirPods. Notch filters work some but healthy living has a big effect for me. Enough sleep, exercise, easy on intoxicants etc. But just reading about and thinking about it is allowing me to hear something I normally tune out okay. It is sad what I’ve done to my hearing though. I wish there was a “cure.”
- 0xfaded 7y ago

akeck 7y ago

YMMV (from Reddit thread): --- Strong temporary relief from tinnitus: Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a day for as long as necessary to reduce tinnitus. ~ Dr. Jan Strydom, of A2Z of Health, Beauty and Fitness.org.

dorchadas 7y ago
I can anecdotally confirm this. When my tinnitus starts up, I do this immediately. Like, stop whatever I'm doing immediately (obviously not driving), and it does give me some relief. It's really weird hearing quiet afterwards, though.
- ddingus 7y ago
  Same. Mine is mild and high frequency. Mostly not annoying. Tried this and it works well. Sometimes I get hours. But, one strong jaw clench, and it comes back.
randlet 7y ago
Have tried this a couple of times with zero relief unfortunately. I have conductive hearing loss due to otosclerosis (plaque buildup on stapes) so that might be why it doesn't work for me.
- spiderpug 7y ago
  Same here. My hearing is getting worse and I might have an operation in a few month. Luckily only one side is affected (for now, chances are not good it remains that way)
- WilTimSon 7y ago
  I'm fairly certain this is a case-by-case kind of "remedy". A friend of mine had terrible tinnitus and this did not help him at all. I wonder if this has something to do with bone structure or, perhaps, depends on the severity of the condition. Still, it's solid advice that should be spread wide in case it helps some people.

tw1010 7y ago

Would those who regained hearing have tinnitus? I mean, in theory, wouldn't you be able to recover from tinnitus if you made yourself deaf and ate the proteins. Maybe stupid question, but why not?

tempestn 7y ago
Some tinnitus is comorbid with hearing loss, but some isn't. If you have hearing loss and tinnitus, it's possible that improving the hearing loss would also reduce or eliminate the tinnitus, as they would appear to be related. If your tinnitus is unrelated to hearing loss though, it seems to me unlikely that giving yourself and then curing hearing loss would have an effect. (Not to rule it out completely, given that the causes of tinnitus are not well understood.)

nosianu 7y ago

So... okay, I did not want to go public at first and emailed privately, but since there are others, and why not: I too had tinnitus for a long time and it all went away after chelation treatment against chronic mercury poisoning from amalgam fillings after being lucky that it was diagnosed (I had to actively search for a rare researcher/university clinic doctor specialist, nearly no chance with normal doctors). See my post history, I mention it a few times. I could write a few more pages about it all but in this format I'll leave it at that, people with the problem can decide for themselves if this is relevant for them. I was reluctant to post because I know a lot - most? - people don't take low-dose heavy metal poisonings seriously at all. I had people wanting to buy an espresso machine off of me despite me having revealed that I planned to scrap it because the water coming out of it had twice the official limit for lead in it (and the medical limit is zero so any lead would have been bad). Because "how bad can it be, such a tiny amount sure does not matter". OP is from Scotland and I though it might be relevant because it seems they use that stuff according to this very recent document: https://www.gov.scot/publications/amalgam-dental-fillings-action-plan/ https://www.gov.scot/publications/amalgam-dental-fillings-ac... PS/EDIT: By the way, my tinnitus went away within year one of chelation treatment. However, after almost a decade (of continued occasional chelation because it still helped) I had a lot of activity all of sudden for a few weeks around both ears. For the last decade I had shifting activity patterns in various areas, so that wasn't a surprise, I had expected something like that since that was a major impacted area. For weeks I could not listen to music and definitely not use a headset. Something was going on there and it wanted quiet.. Anyway, long story short - I can now hear much better than a decade ago! I first noticed because I've had the exact same MP3 player with the exact same songs for well over a decade, and the same in-ear headset for just as long. Suddenly I had to turn the (numerically adjusted) volume much farther down, into regions where previously I could not hear a thing apart from "music plays". Now I have to play everything on about 10-20% less volume than before, and it all happened exactly after those weeks of activity (where I even had to go to a doctor to get the ears cleaned, there was way more ear wax than usual during that time).

sparkzilla 7y ago
This is very interesting. Can you point me to some articles or further resources?

zackmorris 7y ago

There are many kinds of tinnitus, and I had some coming on last year from too many concerts and power tools. But, after a few months of wearing an A.L.F. appliance for sleep apnea, my TMJ opened up a bit and relieved some of the pressure on my skull, and most of my tinnitus went away. I would say the "volume" of it is less than 1/4 what it was, and low enough that I wouldn't say I have it now. So it's not a guaranteed fix, but I highly recommend talking to a TMJ specialist about your tinnitus and see if there is anything they can do. I think there also may be connections with blood pressure, vitamins/minerals, hydration, etc that could affect programmers sitting in chairs all day. Hope this helps, YMMV.

tsmarsh 7y ago
I have a similar thing. For me it is exacerbated by sinus pressure. Sinus care, exercise, even losing weight all have positive effects on my perception of tinnitus. At its worse I could hear it over the sound of 2 stroke marine diesel engine (around 60dB ambient), its currently around 20dB. I also have TMJ, I'll look into getting a specialist. Thanks for the tip!

biggc 7y ago

> I was hoping to read that it might also help people like myself who suffer from tinnitus. Sadly, no. It depends, I have tinnitus and high-frequency hearing loss. It's not at the point where I need hearing aids, but anecdotally a friend of mine who got hearing aids reported that his tinnitus goes away when using them.

foxyv 7y ago

It's kinda funny. I really enjoy my tinnitus. The pulsing ring in my left ear merges with the buzzing in my right and it "Sounds like Quiet" to me. Maybe because I've had it since I was a baby I'm more adapted to it. Then again I don't think mine is nearly as bad as some people's.