16 ms·

Tinnitus Treatment from Neuromod

397 points by Mopolo 6y ago

fwsgonzo 6y ago
OK. That is interesting. Every so often something incredible comes out, like this. I assume that this only relieves certain types of sources of Tinnitus, as I know there are several causes. So, the question is, what percentage of people can be relieved with this?
- dt3ft 6y ago
  I got mine from war, having survived mortar round blasts as a child on several occasions from as near as 3 meters (for example, one shell exploded right above our living room window while I was playing cards with my cousin, another exploded killing a woman and injuring several others while I was lying down behind an apple tree, having heard the sound made when a mortar shell is launched). I highly doubt that this would work on me, but I wouldn't mind trying it out.
  - abfan1127 6y ago
    your inner ear hairs are likely badly damaged. But this is a nerve treatment, so it might be able to train your brain to ignore the false signals from the broken ear hairs.
  - kinleyd 6y ago
    Wow. May I ask which battle zone this was?
    - dt3ft 6y ago
      Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was 10 when the war begun. I spent 4 years in city of Gorazde, under siege, without electricity, communications and running water. I started to write a book (in english) about these 4 years but it got too difficult to re-live so I put it on hold for a while. Not sure anyone would ever want to read this.
      - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
        >Not sure anyone would ever want to read this. I would read such a book. Sharing your experiences can help others begin to understand what survivors like you have gone through. My emails in my profile if you'd like to chat with me.
      - mattmanser 6y ago
        My dad was in the Canvey Island Floods (1950s, killed 2,500 people in Europe, 58 people on Canvey Island, an island on the Thames in the UK). he lost two baby brothers. He's never, ever, talked to me or my sister about it. But has been on TV more than once about it. I can't even begin to imagine what you went through, but the brain has strange defence mechanisms when it comes to dealing with stuff like that. I'm sure people would read it, but that doesn't mean you have to write it if you don't want to.
      - kinleyd 6y ago
        Thank you. Just the news from that time was so shocking. I can't imagine being caught in the middle of it.
  - c2xlZXB5Cg 6y ago
    Yeah, the moment I read your comment I knew this could only be one place and time. I was transported back to my 8 year old self learning about speed of sound by looking at smoke appearing in the distance and counting seconds until I hear the explosion and multiplying by 300 to get the distance. Also learning the different sounds explosions make depending on where they land (soft ground, hard target, different calibre or type of munitions)..
- ehsankia 6y ago
  More interestingly, is there an easy way to figure out if it is for you. Do you pay if it doesn't work?
quaffapint 6y ago
I've often wondered why sometimes it's worse than others. It's always there. I always hear the ringing, but most times I can ignore it, but there are other times it just seems so much louder. I would like to know what all those triggers are so I can try to avoid them. Some are obvious - real loud noises, heavy exercise, etc, but others not so much.
- Thaxll 6y ago
  I have really strong tinnitus either when: - I did not sleep enough - I wake up in the middle of my sleep - I drink a lot of alcohol - There is a lot of noise arround me - In few cases it's just random and get stronger for no apparent reasons
  - m463 6y ago
    I notice it when I've stayed awake too long, and am exhausted. So I agree.
    - masklinn 6y ago
      Meh. I notice it most when the insomnia is acting up and I lay in bed waiting for sleep which doesn't want to come.
      - lilSebastian 6y ago
        I can relate, it's just awful.
    - ozborn 6y ago
      That's how it started for me, now it is constant. I'd look into high frequency hearing loss if it becomes more persistent.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Cactus2018 6y ago
joewrong 6y ago
I wonder if I could lick a 9 volt battery and play back some high frequency tones through my headphones to get a similar effect?
- ozten 6y ago
  May have similar results as overwriting your bootloader binary with the same number of bytes from /dev/random.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Just make sure your batteries are at least 80% charged or you are plugged in. Power loss during a firmware update like that can be catastrophic.
- monoideism 6y ago
  Probably not. It's become apparant that the timing component is critical. The electric pulses have to have certain timing characteristics.
zdw 6y ago
How was this discovered? Did someone lick the terminals of a 9V battery and realize their tinnitus changed for the better?
- beambot 6y ago
  Backstory was published in Science: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/electric-shocks-tongue-can-quiet-chronic-ringing-ears https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/electric-shocks-tong...
  - Defenestresque 6y ago
    Thanks! For those who are busy: >Hubert Lim, a biomedical engineer at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, hit on the role of the tongue in tinnitus by accident. A few years ago, he experimented with using a technique called deep brain stimulation to restore his patients’ hearing. When he inserted a pencil-size rod covered in electrodes directly into the brains of five patients, some of those electrodes landed slightly outside the target zone—a common problem with deep brain stimulation, Lim says. Later, when he started up the device to map out its effects on the brain, a patient who had been bothered by ringing ears for many years, said, “Oh, my tinnitus! I can’t hear my tinnitus,” Lim recalls.
loceng 6y ago
Related, another a sound therapy that's been around for 50+ years called Berard AIT - Auditory Integration Training - that uses modulation/oscillation that helps treat many things including tinnitus; a book called "Hearing Equals Behaviour: Updated and Expanded" is on Amazon. I definitely want to dive deeper into Lenire to see how or if it differs.
lnx01 6y ago
This and all the comments sound like garbage to me. This is a neurological disease, no amount of nerve stimulation will ever help. I am a sufferer. The older comments here are quite suspicious.
- antiterra 6y ago
  Skepticism is likely warranted, but it reads as if you are suggesting nerves are not related to neurological disease. That’s extra confusing since a neurological disorder affects the nervous system of which nerves are a part.
- hedberg10 6y ago
  This is something sufferers don't want to hear. (haha)
- loceng 6y ago
  Read the book "Hearing Equals Behaviour: Updated and Expand" found on Amazon - maybe it'll give you something to look into, a treatment that may help you dramatically.
- s5300 6y ago
  You're... very incorrect. Tinnitus can be caused by a neurological disease Tinnitus can also be caused by incredibly tight/weak neck muscles such as the scalenes/SCM Tinnitus can also be caused by high blood pressure - literally from hearing the blood. Tinnitus can also be caused by compression of blood vessels - such as the subclavian artery (subclavian bruit) - often due to induced turbulent flow through the area. Tinnitus can also be caused by something such as a cerebrospinal fluid leak. Educate yourself. Many people cured of CSF leaks or something like Thoracic Outlet Syndrome in which a scalene muscle is cut report decades of tinnitus being somewhat or completely relieved after surgery. Tinnitus is caused by many, many things - some of which are cured from random things that people don't realize is going to have effect. However, if you do have one of few neurological disease causes/damaged hairs, that shit definitely sucks and I don't think there's much hope yet aside from earbuds playing a matched frequency. I've actually heard of a good amount of success for some with supposed damaged hairs in that line of treatment - have you ever attempted to try it? Not my intent to sound like a dick. I've had pretty severe tinnitus for now half of my life and I'm quite young. Shit sucks.
oakmad 6y ago
Interesting. I recently had mine evaluated and they suggested fractal tones (zen tones from widex). Mines stress related and I’m sure plays into my misophonia so I’m excited to learn about this treatment
deeesstoronto 6y ago
Also see https://www.audionotch.com/ https://www.audionotch.com/
- cpeterso 6y ago
  That's really cool. I read about notched sound therapy years ago, but it required expensive tests in an audio lab and proprietary white noise device. AudioNotch is a mobile app that lets you tune your notch parameters on your phone and then apply your filter to your own music. I usually listen to broadband white or brown noise while a work. My favorite is this simulation of spaceship engine hum https://youtu.be/TvUHt54Ucrg https://youtu.be/TvUHt54Ucrg but I'm going to check out AudioNotch since it can be tuned to my particular tinnitus frequency.
- ksaj 6y ago
  I tried something like this once. For me, it just made the tinnitus pitch change. That was pretty frustrating. It can be quite persistent.
abfan1127 6y ago
I've had chronic tinnitus in my left ear since doing a hand-stand pushup over a year ago. I'd really enjoy not having this ringing. I wonder when/if it will make it to the United States.
bearjaws 6y ago
I really wish I had access to this, I have chemotherapy induced tinnitus and it has been mostly unchanged since finishing chemo 5 years ago. My Oncologist said it would get better over time, and it has, but its still far off from where I was when I started.
adultSwim 6y ago
Has anyone tried this kinds of treatments? The internet seems full of snake oil cures. To my knowledge the only medically accepted treatment for tinnitus is antidepressants, so you don't feel so bad about having tinnitus.
- Causality1 6y ago
  HN covered a study that was looking for a motion sickness cure but found that holding a vibrator to the skull behind the ear stopped tinnitus for a lot of people.
  - MegaDeKay 6y ago
    This thread on a tinnitus forum discusses a subsequent trial of that vibrator in a controlled setting. Doesn't sound at all promising. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/head-mounted-device-for-motion-sickness-reduces-tinnitus.36129/ https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/head-mounted-device-for...
dasb 6y ago
I've been following tinnitus research and the most promising treatment is FX-322 [1]. It's a drug that will treat hearing loss, but it could also help diminish tinnitus. It's currently in phase 2a [2] and results come out next year [3]. [1] https://hear2tell.com/2020/09/29/frequency-therapeutics-fx-322-a-potential-hearing-loss-treatment-on-the-horizon/ https://hear2tell.com/2020/09/29/frequency-therapeutics-fx-3... [2] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04120116 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04120116 [3] https://www.hearinglosstreatmentreport.com/estimated-fx-322-phase-2a-study-completion-date-may-21-2021/ https://www.hearinglosstreatmentreport.com/estimated-fx-322-...
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  I get it when my right ear has way too much earwax. J lose some hearing and the ringing wont stop. Just a bit annoying so Im usually wearing headphones with nice soothing music until I can get that wax out.
  - furyofantares 6y ago
    Are you using cotton swaps in your ears? What might be happening is that you shove wax in, clogging your ears and giving you tinnitus. That used to happen to me - the ear wax wasn't the problem, trying to clean it was.
    - modeless 6y ago
      To clean your ears yourself you need something like this: https://www.japantrendshop.com/coden-ear-scope-13000-standard-p-2756.html https://www.japantrendshop.com/coden-ear-scope-13000-standar... I thought it was ridiculous when I first saw it but I took a chance on it and it is actually a great product. You can clearly see everything and clean without damaging your ear. If you've ever had to go to the doctor to clear a blocked ear, you need one of these. With occasional use (~once/month) your ears will never be blocked again.
      - dmoy 6y ago
mrtksn 6y ago
I debugged my own Tinnitus, most doctors don't know anything and don't care about it. It turned out to be related to my neck, so I wonder on what subset of Tinnitus sufferers this treatment is even relevant. A short story about my debugging after frustration with the conventional medicine. One day after I came back from work it started in one ear, lasted for half an hour and went away for few minutes and came back to stay. I had no other symptoms, no pain, nothing. Visited a few ENT, a neurologist, had MRIs - all clean, no tumours no other problems. No hearing loss, no other problems with the ears. The only thing that seemed to help was a nice hot shower. According to the articles I read on reputable sources, it must have been the running water sound that's masking it but I was better for a period of time after the shower and I couldn't reproduce the effect with recorded water sound. So I conducted an experiment: I would use cold water to see if it helps. It did not. It wasn't the sound it was the heat that was helping, the relaxation of the cold shower. But I did not had any neck problems? Yes, lately my posture wasnt great and I was having longer than usual time in front of the computer but I had no pain or anything like that. Anyway, I looked for massages and so on and discovered this technique on Youtube about tapping behind your head with your fingers. The method did not work for me but as I was trying it out I discovered that if I do a massage to a specific parts of my neck the tinnitus will get much less louder and even change tonne. So one day I had a stiff neck, It lasted for days so I went to a doctor and she gave me muscle relaxants and painkillers. Wow, it turns out the muscle relaxants not only make my neck mobile again but the tinnitus got much better! Now I was sure, it must be about my neck! Previously noticed that the tinnitus got better on vacation but I speculated that it was about the stress. Now I start thinking that it was about my sitting position. Got myself an external keyboard, a nice monitor and laptop stand so I began using my computer the way that those leaflets about proper sitting position recommend. I did the neck exercises too and the tinnitus that no one was able to do anything about almost disappeared if few months. Every now and then it will come back but I know exactly where to rub to make it go away. It's not completely gone and at some sleeping positions it would come back louder but before finding a way to manage it I was thinking that my life is over because I coldn't think anything without thinking about the sound in my ears. Pay attention to your sitting position people! It's no joke. The pain is nothing, you can be tough and not care, you can take painkillers and manage it but Tinnitus is something different. It is in your head, you can't cut it off and you can't take a pill to make it go away for a while. It's one of the most horrible things, it consumes you, makes you worse person because you couldn't sleep well since years, you cannot engage in deep thinking where one ide takes you to another idea. It's like working in an open office space next to the server room. Get yourself a nice stand if you are using a laptop, use external keyboard a mouse/trackpad so that you can sit straight.
viburnum 6y ago
This worked for me. You don't hear about it much because they're nothing to sell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNjDBOJfMfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNjDBOJfMfY
- hn_saver 6y ago
  Or because of the... tinnitus ;)
ghastmaster 6y ago
I've been following frequency therapeutics as well. I don't think the Neuromod treatment would provide much help to me. My tinnitus does not bother me in any meaningful way. The bothersome thing for me is hearing loss. Noisy environments interfere with my ability to hear conversation. Some frequencies I simply cannot hear. Some noises, cheap/bad audio in the higher frequencies for instance, actually hurt my ears. When the hair clippers get close to my ear, it is nearly painful. A lot of people think that is odd because hearing loss should mean I don't hear it. As a musician and audio lover, I would pay a relatively large amount of money to have normal hearing.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dreamcompiler 6y ago
  Took me a while to understand based on my own hearing loss that it's not about decreased sensitivity to sound. Hearing is about sound volumes that occur between two limits: The threshold of sensitivity (above which you discern that the sound exists), and the threshold of pain (above which the sound is painful). Between those limits lies hearing. In age-related "hearing loss," the threshold of sensitivity rises while the threshold of pain stays the same or even decreases slightly. So the range of volumes you can comfortably discern becomes narrower. This explains why simply increasing the volume often does more harm than good. What's really needed to treat hearing loss is frequency-specific volume compression.
  - michaelmior 6y ago
    Of course prolonged exposure to loud sounds which are not explicitly painful can still cause hearing damage.
- dylan604 6y ago
  I was in a T-bone accident where another car hit me centered right in between the driver and passenger doors. My left ear now has tinnitus, and I too have a hard time hearing conversation in large groups of people. However, after the wreck, I visited hearing specialist several times. I always passed their tests of the faint frequencies. They cannot explain where the ringing originates.?!?! It's one of those things it is hard to get a doctor to believe you since they can't actually see anything wrong. No broken bones, no lacerations, not bruising, nothing. Just ringing that they cannot hear.
afita 6y ago
I think my tinnitus is caused by my microbiome. When I eat poorly (sweets, sugar, junk food, refined carbs, etc), I suspect that some bad bacteria multiply too much in my gut and they create some toxins that cause me tinnitus. When I eat more salads (vegetables, green leaves), lots of fiber, my tinnitus dissapears completely.
- loceng 6y ago
  It simply could be from the inflammation that sugars/carbs cause in the body, as well is if your body is reacting to certain foods you're eating - it will impact your nervous system; inflammation has a depressant effect.
monkpit 6y ago
If this can be reverse engineered and made into an rpi zero or something... I would be all over that. Also, I really hate reading about tinnitus because it just reminds my brain to stop ignoring that ringing sound...
ecommerceguy 6y ago
I have very noticeable ringing in my ears ever since I can remember. 2 things 1 Hearing tests have always indicated I have excellent hearing. 2. The ringing doesn't bother me, even in extremely quiet environments. Speaking of, the most peaceful quiet I've encountered was in a bamboo forest somewhere in middle China. I'll never forget the utter silence.
- dstick 6y ago
  Same for me, the tinnitus is actually comforting. Like the noise when showering vs taking a bath. As long as my hearing is fine, I’m fine. The only solution for tinnitus is habituation. Fighting it puts it into focus and makes it worse without fail.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sinoue 6y ago
Interesting treatment thread on Reddit using the tongue to deliver sound. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/jc5m6y/new_research_could_help_millions_who_suffer_from/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/jc5m6y/new_researc...
todd_t 6y ago
There was a post [1] here a few months ago that mentioned a medical device built for motion sickness iirc, but patients reported that it also reduced or eliminated their tinnitus. My tinnitus is fairly minimal but I'd love to try both of these devices. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21572827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21572827
robertlf 6y ago
I'm tired of all of these "masking" type treatments that supposedly help your body to stop noticing Tinnitus. I want to see something that actually stops the problem at the source. Tinnitus usually gets worse over time so at some point, it becomes difficult to ignore. I've been dealing with it for over 20 years and I'm fed up.
- baron_harkonnen 6y ago
  I'm about 15 years of constant tinnitus. The trouble with curing it is that it seems to be a problem with your brain not receiving the signal it expects form from the auditory nerve. This famous reddit trick[0.] for at least temporarily curing tinnitus seems to lend credence to this idea. It essentially involves making noise near the skull, which presumably does temporarily stimulate the auditory nerve even if the ear drum itself is not able to correct create a signal. My tinnitus has nothing to do with my ear drum, and interestingly enough this trick does not work for me. I suspect curing tinnitus would require understanding a lot more about how nerves work and how to simulate sending an auditory signal without actually sending one. 0. https://np.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3l3uri/these_guys_lighting_a_mortar_shell_in_their_garage/cv3474n/ https://np.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3l3uri/these_guys_light...
jhallenworld 6y ago
I worked at a place that had a cube farm with white noise generators to suppress background noise. These things triggered the small amount of tinnitus I have, also some co-workers complained. The frequencies they put out definitely matters- ones with no high pitch output are definitely better. (pretty sure my Tinnitus was from a certain Metallica concert..)
- dstick 6y ago
  It’s the same with ANC. It’s still noise pumped into your ear. So even though you may perceive it as silence because it cancels out the sound waves entering your ears, it’s still sound entering, and thus facilitating tinnitus when exposed to it too long. Even though you feel it’s been 8 hours of silence.
  - jimmyswimmy 6y ago
    The way you wrote that, doesn't make sense. The idea behind ANC is that you have some signal, sin(wt+p) from ambient noise, and to it you add -sin(wt+p). The sum of these is zero. You perceive it as silence because it is: you have added the exact opposite of some signal to cancel it out, and the result is zero, no signal whatsoever. It would be easy to test and demonstrate that the ANC system is properly band-limited and doesn't cause any short term (perhaps imperceptible) noise spikes. I would think any engineer designing this kind of gear would be wary of causing hearing damage by making a design that works the way you suggest.
wazoox 6y ago
I have tinnitus since I've been on beta blocker treatment. I switched to some other molecule for a while, and it disappeared (however it induced other problems, like constant tachycardia, so I got my previous treatment back). It's not clearly indicated as a side effect, but it's very clearly the cause.
kazinator 6y ago
Previous related submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24711004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24711004
mmaunder 6y ago
AirPods Pro caused both tinnitus and vertigo for me. Went away after a few days as soon as I switched to the older AirPods.
- scarlac 6y ago
  What you experienced may be a baseline change when using noise cancellation. It happens with all noise cancelling headphones after long use (for me). I am NOT an authoritative source on it but what I heard was that the brain makes a baseline for the background / silence and when that noise is removed (active noise cancelled) then the brain recalibrates which may cause the same symptom as tinnitus as the brain tries to cancel it out but supposedly without the permanent damage. I consider it "possible" but I haven't seen hard science on it.
bgorman 6y ago
It would be interesting if this technique could be adapted towards treating visual snow.
jsarlo 6y ago
Susan Shore and her team at the University of Michigan are working on a similar device. They have an animal model that they are able to test under. They have reportedly had success in humans as well: https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/10/422/eaal3175.full https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/10/422/eaal3175.full
ineedasername 6y ago
Edit: I stand corrected, there is a specialized CE certification that reviews limited fitness for purpose, although it does not seem very comparable to something like FDA requirements for double blind testing etc., so I'm still highly skeptical. Original comment: There may be something here, but their presentation leaves a "snake oil" impression. Mostly because of their repeated emphasis on "CE" certification, as though that had any bearing on the effectiveness of this treatment. They even say it has "CE-mark certification for the treatment of tinnitus", which is really misleading, as CE simply means it complies with certain regulations regarding the construction of electronic devices, nothing at all about fitness for a given medical purpose.
- becurious 6y ago
  No, there is CE marking for medical devices in the EU which means it has achieved conformity for the Medical Devices directive. Generally equivalent to FDA regulation.
  - Unibod 6y ago
    Just beware there is an EU CE and Chinese export C E. They are different. I probably can't post a link but the search you need is this: CE eu markings CE china export. CE is a mark of quality assurance and compliance. C E is not the same. [edit for spelling]
    - wlonkly 6y ago
      If the space is meant to represent the gap between the C and E, then you have this backwards: the European mark has one letter-width space between the C and E, and the forged mark from China has the C and E right next to each other.
    - lgats 6y ago
      Link for those curious https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export Though I believe neuromod is advertising CE compliance not ‘China Export’
jsarlo 6y ago
There are multiple threads on TinnitusTalk about this. This one, in particular, focuses on actual experiences with the device: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/lenire-—-user-experiences-and-reviews.35776/ https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/lenire-—-user-experienc...
anonymousab 6y ago
Hopefully something will work out eventually. Each of my ears has tinnitus of various pitches and while you get used to it, its disconcerting to hear a sudden new pitch every couple of months and know that you've permanently lost some kind of hearing (and gained a new persistent aural 'tone').
tbenst 6y ago
I’m a neuroscientist and just read their “phase 2b protocol” paper. As far as I can tell, there are no actual control groups. Registering a trial with clinicaltrials.gov is a nice step, but they don’t compare at all to patient improvements in people that don’t receive treatment let alone a sham. Thus, the study does not appear designed to prove efficacy even though they will surely claim it.
- analyte123 6y ago
  The trial was divided into three groups. Group 1 got simultaneous tongue stimulation and audio tone and each tone was correlated to a separate electric lead on the device. Groups 2 and 3 had no association between the tones and which leads were activated (I think they were just random, or they used them all? Can't tell) Group 2 had a small delay between tone and stimulation, group 3 had a longer one (0.5s+) and also used a much narrower subset of tones. All 3 groups showed improvement and any differences were well within the error bands. Definitely a sloppy design, changing so many variables between the groups. No active control (maybe vibration on the tongue or something). To me the conclusion is that the general method probably works, but almost everything the actual device is overkill, from the 32 different leads to the "proprietary algorithm" and you could do the same thing with just one lead and probably some random tone played over airpods.
  - tbenst 6y ago
    Maybe it does something, but tinnitus tends to simple improve over time, too: [1]. Again not a great study as unclear what treatment options people sought, but they have zero evidence of efficacy as I understand it. It’s inaccurate to call these “double-blind” because there is no control group. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC128822/#!po=32.0513 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC128822/#!po=32....
- urgentresearch 6y ago
  Bingo.
Corinthian 6y ago
This is going to sound silly to most people, but I've been suffering from Tinnitus for a long time. This technique won't cure it but it certainly brings relief for me, to the point where I can ignore it. When my Tinnitus is particularly piercing, I imagine it as a radiant bright white line in my head. I then mentally begin to reduce the radiance of the light until it is gone. This dulls the sound immensely, I'm still aware of it but it no longer hinders me. For bonus points, I use a similar technique for getting rid of ear worms. In that case, I mentally put the song into a wooden box, close the lid and let it fall into the sea. Works every time.
- vldr 6y ago
  There are several of these kinds of mindful/imagination techniques. https://rewiringtinnitus.com/ https://rewiringtinnitus.com/ also provides some in book and audio form, where you visualize your tinnitus as a knob you can turn or a person making the noise. Doesn't really work for me though, though sometimes it does seem like I can "tune" my tinnitus a bit.
  - Corinthian 6y ago
    Interesting, thank you.
Tipewryter 6y ago
A question to the people among you who have tinnitus: When you put a finger in each ear and create overpressure or underpressure, does the pitch change? Does it change when you clench your teeth? Is it louder on one side then on the other? Maybe there are different types of tinnitus that we could describe better if we had some dimensions/categories like the above in which we could categorize our specific type of tinnitus?
- vldr 6y ago
  I think there are many different forms (probably with different causes). My tinnitus is exclusively on the left and varies in loudness. Clenching my teeth has always given me a tinnitus-like experience but it never bothered/interested me until I got "real" tinnitus. I understand this form of tinnitus is related to the temporomandibular joint For me, alternating frequencies give some relieve but fortunately. I use the "tonal tinnitus therapy" app for this. I'm not sure if this is part of the mentioned new therapy (which includes electrical stimulation of the tongue?) Judging from other peoples experiences, my tinnitus is relatively mild anyway (but still bothers me) Als, my ENT doctor, when looking into my tinnitus complaints, asked if there's a difference when heartrate increases (and possibly bloodpressure?). This does seem to be an indication of some specific cause. For me it doesn't.
- bluescrn 6y ago
  There's definitely different types. Mine is a constant high-pitch whine in one ear, a very constant frequency, unaffected by mouth movements or poking at my ear. Others get very different or varying frequencies, or pulsatile tinnitus - https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/pulsatile-tinnitus https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/pulsatile-tinnitus It can seem loud when I'm somewhere quiet, but with a bit of background noise and while focused on something else, my brain seems to manage to tune it out. (The absolute worst thing for it seems to be reading about and thinking about tinnitus... so it's probably time to go and read something else...)
- goku99 6y ago
  Yes Yes No
hypefi 6y ago
Well maybe we should treat the source of the problem, which is electromagnetic pollution

397 points by Mopolo 6y ago

OK. That is interesting. Every so often something incredible comes out, like this. I assume that this only relieves certain types of sources of Tinnitus, as I know there are several causes. So, the question is, what percentage of people can be relieved with this?

dt3ft 6y ago
I got mine from war, having survived mortar round blasts as a child on several occasions from as near as 3 meters (for example, one shell exploded right above our living room window while I was playing cards with my cousin, another exploded killing a woman and injuring several others while I was lying down behind an apple tree, having heard the sound made when a mortar shell is launched). I highly doubt that this would work on me, but I wouldn't mind trying it out.
- abfan1127 6y ago
  your inner ear hairs are likely badly damaged. But this is a nerve treatment, so it might be able to train your brain to ignore the false signals from the broken ear hairs.
- kinleyd 6y ago
  Wow. May I ask which battle zone this was?
  - dt3ft 6y ago
    Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was 10 when the war begun. I spent 4 years in city of Gorazde, under siege, without electricity, communications and running water. I started to write a book (in english) about these 4 years but it got too difficult to re-live so I put it on hold for a while. Not sure anyone would ever want to read this.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
      >Not sure anyone would ever want to read this. I would read such a book. Sharing your experiences can help others begin to understand what survivors like you have gone through. My emails in my profile if you'd like to chat with me.
    - mattmanser 6y ago
      My dad was in the Canvey Island Floods (1950s, killed 2,500 people in Europe, 58 people on Canvey Island, an island on the Thames in the UK). he lost two baby brothers. He's never, ever, talked to me or my sister about it. But has been on TV more than once about it. I can't even begin to imagine what you went through, but the brain has strange defence mechanisms when it comes to dealing with stuff like that. I'm sure people would read it, but that doesn't mean you have to write it if you don't want to.
    - kinleyd 6y ago
      Thank you. Just the news from that time was so shocking. I can't imagine being caught in the middle of it.
- c2xlZXB5Cg 6y ago
  Yeah, the moment I read your comment I knew this could only be one place and time. I was transported back to my 8 year old self learning about speed of sound by looking at smoke appearing in the distance and counting seconds until I hear the explosion and multiplying by 300 to get the distance. Also learning the different sounds explosions make depending on where they land (soft ground, hard target, different calibre or type of munitions)..
ehsankia 6y ago
More interestingly, is there an easy way to figure out if it is for you. Do you pay if it doesn't work?

quaffapint 6y ago

I've often wondered why sometimes it's worse than others. It's always there. I always hear the ringing, but most times I can ignore it, but there are other times it just seems so much louder. I would like to know what all those triggers are so I can try to avoid them. Some are obvious - real loud noises, heavy exercise, etc, but others not so much.

Thaxll 6y ago
I have really strong tinnitus either when: - I did not sleep enough - I wake up in the middle of my sleep - I drink a lot of alcohol - There is a lot of noise arround me - In few cases it's just random and get stronger for no apparent reasons
- m463 6y ago
  I notice it when I've stayed awake too long, and am exhausted. So I agree.
  - masklinn 6y ago
    Meh. I notice it most when the insomnia is acting up and I lay in bed waiting for sleep which doesn't want to come.
    - lilSebastian 6y ago
      I can relate, it's just awful.
  - ozborn 6y ago
    That's how it started for me, now it is constant. I'd look into high frequency hearing loss if it becomes more persistent.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Cactus2018 6y ago

joewrong 6y ago

I wonder if I could lick a 9 volt battery and play back some high frequency tones through my headphones to get a similar effect?

ozten 6y ago
May have similar results as overwriting your bootloader binary with the same number of bytes from /dev/random.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Just make sure your batteries are at least 80% charged or you are plugged in. Power loss during a firmware update like that can be catastrophic.
monoideism 6y ago
Probably not. It's become apparant that the timing component is critical. The electric pulses have to have certain timing characteristics.

zdw 6y ago

How was this discovered? Did someone lick the terminals of a 9V battery and realize their tinnitus changed for the better?

beambot 6y ago
Backstory was published in Science: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/electric-shocks-tongue-can-quiet-chronic-ringing-ears https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/electric-shocks-tong...
- Defenestresque 6y ago
  Thanks! For those who are busy: >Hubert Lim, a biomedical engineer at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, hit on the role of the tongue in tinnitus by accident. A few years ago, he experimented with using a technique called deep brain stimulation to restore his patients’ hearing. When he inserted a pencil-size rod covered in electrodes directly into the brains of five patients, some of those electrodes landed slightly outside the target zone—a common problem with deep brain stimulation, Lim says. Later, when he started up the device to map out its effects on the brain, a patient who had been bothered by ringing ears for many years, said, “Oh, my tinnitus! I can’t hear my tinnitus,” Lim recalls.

loceng 6y ago

Related, another a sound therapy that's been around for 50+ years called Berard AIT - Auditory Integration Training - that uses modulation/oscillation that helps treat many things including tinnitus; a book called "Hearing Equals Behaviour: Updated and Expanded" is on Amazon. I definitely want to dive deeper into Lenire to see how or if it differs.

lnx01 6y ago

This and all the comments sound like garbage to me. This is a neurological disease, no amount of nerve stimulation will ever help. I am a sufferer. The older comments here are quite suspicious.

antiterra 6y ago
Skepticism is likely warranted, but it reads as if you are suggesting nerves are not related to neurological disease. That’s extra confusing since a neurological disorder affects the nervous system of which nerves are a part.
hedberg10 6y ago
This is something sufferers don't want to hear. (haha)
loceng 6y ago
Read the book "Hearing Equals Behaviour: Updated and Expand" found on Amazon - maybe it'll give you something to look into, a treatment that may help you dramatically.
s5300 6y ago
You're... very incorrect. Tinnitus can be caused by a neurological disease Tinnitus can also be caused by incredibly tight/weak neck muscles such as the scalenes/SCM Tinnitus can also be caused by high blood pressure - literally from hearing the blood. Tinnitus can also be caused by compression of blood vessels - such as the subclavian artery (subclavian bruit) - often due to induced turbulent flow through the area. Tinnitus can also be caused by something such as a cerebrospinal fluid leak. Educate yourself. Many people cured of CSF leaks or something like Thoracic Outlet Syndrome in which a scalene muscle is cut report decades of tinnitus being somewhat or completely relieved after surgery. Tinnitus is caused by many, many things - some of which are cured from random things that people don't realize is going to have effect. However, if you do have one of few neurological disease causes/damaged hairs, that shit definitely sucks and I don't think there's much hope yet aside from earbuds playing a matched frequency. I've actually heard of a good amount of success for some with supposed damaged hairs in that line of treatment - have you ever attempted to try it? Not my intent to sound like a dick. I've had pretty severe tinnitus for now half of my life and I'm quite young. Shit sucks.

oakmad 6y ago

Interesting. I recently had mine evaluated and they suggested fractal tones (zen tones from widex). Mines stress related and I’m sure plays into my misophonia so I’m excited to learn about this treatment

deeesstoronto 6y ago

Also see https://www.audionotch.com/ https://www.audionotch.com/

cpeterso 6y ago
That's really cool. I read about notched sound therapy years ago, but it required expensive tests in an audio lab and proprietary white noise device. AudioNotch is a mobile app that lets you tune your notch parameters on your phone and then apply your filter to your own music. I usually listen to broadband white or brown noise while a work. My favorite is this simulation of spaceship engine hum https://youtu.be/TvUHt54Ucrg https://youtu.be/TvUHt54Ucrg but I'm going to check out AudioNotch since it can be tuned to my particular tinnitus frequency.
ksaj 6y ago
I tried something like this once. For me, it just made the tinnitus pitch change. That was pretty frustrating. It can be quite persistent.

abfan1127 6y ago

I've had chronic tinnitus in my left ear since doing a hand-stand pushup over a year ago. I'd really enjoy not having this ringing. I wonder when/if it will make it to the United States.

bearjaws 6y ago

I really wish I had access to this, I have chemotherapy induced tinnitus and it has been mostly unchanged since finishing chemo 5 years ago. My Oncologist said it would get better over time, and it has, but its still far off from where I was when I started.

adultSwim 6y ago

Has anyone tried this kinds of treatments? The internet seems full of snake oil cures. To my knowledge the only medically accepted treatment for tinnitus is antidepressants, so you don't feel so bad about having tinnitus.

Causality1 6y ago
HN covered a study that was looking for a motion sickness cure but found that holding a vibrator to the skull behind the ear stopped tinnitus for a lot of people.
- MegaDeKay 6y ago
  This thread on a tinnitus forum discusses a subsequent trial of that vibrator in a controlled setting. Doesn't sound at all promising. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/head-mounted-device-for-motion-sickness-reduces-tinnitus.36129/ https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/head-mounted-device-for...

dasb 6y ago

I've been following tinnitus research and the most promising treatment is FX-322 [1]. It's a drug that will treat hearing loss, but it could also help diminish tinnitus. It's currently in phase 2a [2] and results come out next year [3]. [1] https://hear2tell.com/2020/09/29/frequency-therapeutics-fx-322-a-potential-hearing-loss-treatment-on-the-horizon/ https://hear2tell.com/2020/09/29/frequency-therapeutics-fx-3... [2] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04120116 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04120116 [3] https://www.hearinglosstreatmentreport.com/estimated-fx-322-phase-2a-study-completion-date-may-21-2021/ https://www.hearinglosstreatmentreport.com/estimated-fx-322-...

vagrantJin 6y ago
I get it when my right ear has way too much earwax. J lose some hearing and the ringing wont stop. Just a bit annoying so Im usually wearing headphones with nice soothing music until I can get that wax out.
- furyofantares 6y ago
  Are you using cotton swaps in your ears? What might be happening is that you shove wax in, clogging your ears and giving you tinnitus. That used to happen to me - the ear wax wasn't the problem, trying to clean it was.
  - modeless 6y ago
    To clean your ears yourself you need something like this: https://www.japantrendshop.com/coden-ear-scope-13000-standard-p-2756.html https://www.japantrendshop.com/coden-ear-scope-13000-standar... I thought it was ridiculous when I first saw it but I took a chance on it and it is actually a great product. You can clearly see everything and clean without damaging your ear. If you've ever had to go to the doctor to clear a blocked ear, you need one of these. With occasional use (~once/month) your ears will never be blocked again.
    - dmoy 6y ago

mrtksn 6y ago

I debugged my own Tinnitus, most doctors don't know anything and don't care about it. It turned out to be related to my neck, so I wonder on what subset of Tinnitus sufferers this treatment is even relevant. A short story about my debugging after frustration with the conventional medicine. One day after I came back from work it started in one ear, lasted for half an hour and went away for few minutes and came back to stay. I had no other symptoms, no pain, nothing. Visited a few ENT, a neurologist, had MRIs - all clean, no tumours no other problems. No hearing loss, no other problems with the ears. The only thing that seemed to help was a nice hot shower. According to the articles I read on reputable sources, it must have been the running water sound that's masking it but I was better for a period of time after the shower and I couldn't reproduce the effect with recorded water sound. So I conducted an experiment: I would use cold water to see if it helps. It did not. It wasn't the sound it was the heat that was helping, the relaxation of the cold shower. But I did not had any neck problems? Yes, lately my posture wasnt great and I was having longer than usual time in front of the computer but I had no pain or anything like that. Anyway, I looked for massages and so on and discovered this technique on Youtube about tapping behind your head with your fingers. The method did not work for me but as I was trying it out I discovered that if I do a massage to a specific parts of my neck the tinnitus will get much less louder and even change tonne. So one day I had a stiff neck, It lasted for days so I went to a doctor and she gave me muscle relaxants and painkillers. Wow, it turns out the muscle relaxants not only make my neck mobile again but the tinnitus got much better! Now I was sure, it must be about my neck! Previously noticed that the tinnitus got better on vacation but I speculated that it was about the stress. Now I start thinking that it was about my sitting position. Got myself an external keyboard, a nice monitor and laptop stand so I began using my computer the way that those leaflets about proper sitting position recommend. I did the neck exercises too and the tinnitus that no one was able to do anything about almost disappeared if few months. Every now and then it will come back but I know exactly where to rub to make it go away. It's not completely gone and at some sleeping positions it would come back louder but before finding a way to manage it I was thinking that my life is over because I coldn't think anything without thinking about the sound in my ears. Pay attention to your sitting position people! It's no joke. The pain is nothing, you can be tough and not care, you can take painkillers and manage it but Tinnitus is something different. It is in your head, you can't cut it off and you can't take a pill to make it go away for a while. It's one of the most horrible things, it consumes you, makes you worse person because you couldn't sleep well since years, you cannot engage in deep thinking where one ide takes you to another idea. It's like working in an open office space next to the server room. Get yourself a nice stand if you are using a laptop, use external keyboard a mouse/trackpad so that you can sit straight.

viburnum 6y ago

This worked for me. You don't hear about it much because they're nothing to sell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNjDBOJfMfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNjDBOJfMfY

hn_saver 6y ago
Or because of the... tinnitus ;)

ghastmaster 6y ago

I've been following frequency therapeutics as well. I don't think the Neuromod treatment would provide much help to me. My tinnitus does not bother me in any meaningful way. The bothersome thing for me is hearing loss. Noisy environments interfere with my ability to hear conversation. Some frequencies I simply cannot hear. Some noises, cheap/bad audio in the higher frequencies for instance, actually hurt my ears. When the hair clippers get close to my ear, it is nearly painful. A lot of people think that is odd because hearing loss should mean I don't hear it. As a musician and audio lover, I would pay a relatively large amount of money to have normal hearing.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dreamcompiler 6y ago
Took me a while to understand based on my own hearing loss that it's not about decreased sensitivity to sound. Hearing is about sound volumes that occur between two limits: The threshold of sensitivity (above which you discern that the sound exists), and the threshold of pain (above which the sound is painful). Between those limits lies hearing. In age-related "hearing loss," the threshold of sensitivity rises while the threshold of pain stays the same or even decreases slightly. So the range of volumes you can comfortably discern becomes narrower. This explains why simply increasing the volume often does more harm than good. What's really needed to treat hearing loss is frequency-specific volume compression.
- michaelmior 6y ago
  Of course prolonged exposure to loud sounds which are not explicitly painful can still cause hearing damage.
dylan604 6y ago
I was in a T-bone accident where another car hit me centered right in between the driver and passenger doors. My left ear now has tinnitus, and I too have a hard time hearing conversation in large groups of people. However, after the wreck, I visited hearing specialist several times. I always passed their tests of the faint frequencies. They cannot explain where the ringing originates.?!?! It's one of those things it is hard to get a doctor to believe you since they can't actually see anything wrong. No broken bones, no lacerations, not bruising, nothing. Just ringing that they cannot hear.

afita 6y ago

I think my tinnitus is caused by my microbiome. When I eat poorly (sweets, sugar, junk food, refined carbs, etc), I suspect that some bad bacteria multiply too much in my gut and they create some toxins that cause me tinnitus. When I eat more salads (vegetables, green leaves), lots of fiber, my tinnitus dissapears completely.

loceng 6y ago
It simply could be from the inflammation that sugars/carbs cause in the body, as well is if your body is reacting to certain foods you're eating - it will impact your nervous system; inflammation has a depressant effect.

monkpit 6y ago

If this can be reverse engineered and made into an rpi zero or something... I would be all over that. Also, I really hate reading about tinnitus because it just reminds my brain to stop ignoring that ringing sound...

ecommerceguy 6y ago

I have very noticeable ringing in my ears ever since I can remember. 2 things 1 Hearing tests have always indicated I have excellent hearing. 2. The ringing doesn't bother me, even in extremely quiet environments. Speaking of, the most peaceful quiet I've encountered was in a bamboo forest somewhere in middle China. I'll never forget the utter silence.

dstick 6y ago
Same for me, the tinnitus is actually comforting. Like the noise when showering vs taking a bath. As long as my hearing is fine, I’m fine. The only solution for tinnitus is habituation. Fighting it puts it into focus and makes it worse without fail.

deleted 6y ago

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sinoue 6y ago

Interesting treatment thread on Reddit using the tongue to deliver sound. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/jc5m6y/new_research_could_help_millions_who_suffer_from/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/jc5m6y/new_researc...

todd_t 6y ago

There was a post [1] here a few months ago that mentioned a medical device built for motion sickness iirc, but patients reported that it also reduced or eliminated their tinnitus. My tinnitus is fairly minimal but I'd love to try both of these devices. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21572827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21572827

robertlf 6y ago

I'm tired of all of these "masking" type treatments that supposedly help your body to stop noticing Tinnitus. I want to see something that actually stops the problem at the source. Tinnitus usually gets worse over time so at some point, it becomes difficult to ignore. I've been dealing with it for over 20 years and I'm fed up.

baron_harkonnen 6y ago
I'm about 15 years of constant tinnitus. The trouble with curing it is that it seems to be a problem with your brain not receiving the signal it expects form from the auditory nerve. This famous reddit trick[0.] for at least temporarily curing tinnitus seems to lend credence to this idea. It essentially involves making noise near the skull, which presumably does temporarily stimulate the auditory nerve even if the ear drum itself is not able to correct create a signal. My tinnitus has nothing to do with my ear drum, and interestingly enough this trick does not work for me. I suspect curing tinnitus would require understanding a lot more about how nerves work and how to simulate sending an auditory signal without actually sending one. 0. https://np.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3l3uri/these_guys_lighting_a_mortar_shell_in_their_garage/cv3474n/ https://np.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3l3uri/these_guys_light...

jhallenworld 6y ago

I worked at a place that had a cube farm with white noise generators to suppress background noise. These things triggered the small amount of tinnitus I have, also some co-workers complained. The frequencies they put out definitely matters- ones with no high pitch output are definitely better. (pretty sure my Tinnitus was from a certain Metallica concert..)

dstick 6y ago
It’s the same with ANC. It’s still noise pumped into your ear. So even though you may perceive it as silence because it cancels out the sound waves entering your ears, it’s still sound entering, and thus facilitating tinnitus when exposed to it too long. Even though you feel it’s been 8 hours of silence.
- jimmyswimmy 6y ago
  The way you wrote that, doesn't make sense. The idea behind ANC is that you have some signal, sin(wt+p) from ambient noise, and to it you add -sin(wt+p). The sum of these is zero. You perceive it as silence because it is: you have added the exact opposite of some signal to cancel it out, and the result is zero, no signal whatsoever. It would be easy to test and demonstrate that the ANC system is properly band-limited and doesn't cause any short term (perhaps imperceptible) noise spikes. I would think any engineer designing this kind of gear would be wary of causing hearing damage by making a design that works the way you suggest.

wazoox 6y ago

I have tinnitus since I've been on beta blocker treatment. I switched to some other molecule for a while, and it disappeared (however it induced other problems, like constant tachycardia, so I got my previous treatment back). It's not clearly indicated as a side effect, but it's very clearly the cause.

kazinator 6y ago

Previous related submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24711004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24711004

mmaunder 6y ago

AirPods Pro caused both tinnitus and vertigo for me. Went away after a few days as soon as I switched to the older AirPods.

scarlac 6y ago
What you experienced may be a baseline change when using noise cancellation. It happens with all noise cancelling headphones after long use (for me). I am NOT an authoritative source on it but what I heard was that the brain makes a baseline for the background / silence and when that noise is removed (active noise cancelled) then the brain recalibrates which may cause the same symptom as tinnitus as the brain tries to cancel it out but supposedly without the permanent damage. I consider it "possible" but I haven't seen hard science on it.

bgorman 6y ago

It would be interesting if this technique could be adapted towards treating visual snow.

jsarlo 6y ago

Susan Shore and her team at the University of Michigan are working on a similar device. They have an animal model that they are able to test under. They have reportedly had success in humans as well: https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/10/422/eaal3175.full https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/10/422/eaal3175.full

ineedasername 6y ago

Edit: I stand corrected, there is a specialized CE certification that reviews limited fitness for purpose, although it does not seem very comparable to something like FDA requirements for double blind testing etc., so I'm still highly skeptical. Original comment: There may be something here, but their presentation leaves a "snake oil" impression. Mostly because of their repeated emphasis on "CE" certification, as though that had any bearing on the effectiveness of this treatment. They even say it has "CE-mark certification for the treatment of tinnitus", which is really misleading, as CE simply means it complies with certain regulations regarding the construction of electronic devices, nothing at all about fitness for a given medical purpose.

becurious 6y ago
No, there is CE marking for medical devices in the EU which means it has achieved conformity for the Medical Devices directive. Generally equivalent to FDA regulation.
- Unibod 6y ago
  Just beware there is an EU CE and Chinese export C E. They are different. I probably can't post a link but the search you need is this: CE eu markings CE china export. CE is a mark of quality assurance and compliance. C E is not the same. [edit for spelling]
  - wlonkly 6y ago
    If the space is meant to represent the gap between the C and E, then you have this backwards: the European mark has one letter-width space between the C and E, and the forged mark from China has the C and E right next to each other.
  - lgats 6y ago
    Link for those curious https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export Though I believe neuromod is advertising CE compliance not ‘China Export’

jsarlo 6y ago

There are multiple threads on TinnitusTalk about this. This one, in particular, focuses on actual experiences with the device: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/lenire-—-user-experiences-and-reviews.35776/ https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/lenire-—-user-experienc...

anonymousab 6y ago

Hopefully something will work out eventually. Each of my ears has tinnitus of various pitches and while you get used to it, its disconcerting to hear a sudden new pitch every couple of months and know that you've permanently lost some kind of hearing (and gained a new persistent aural 'tone').

tbenst 6y ago

I’m a neuroscientist and just read their “phase 2b protocol” paper. As far as I can tell, there are no actual control groups. Registering a trial with clinicaltrials.gov is a nice step, but they don’t compare at all to patient improvements in people that don’t receive treatment let alone a sham. Thus, the study does not appear designed to prove efficacy even though they will surely claim it.

analyte123 6y ago
The trial was divided into three groups. Group 1 got simultaneous tongue stimulation and audio tone and each tone was correlated to a separate electric lead on the device. Groups 2 and 3 had no association between the tones and which leads were activated (I think they were just random, or they used them all? Can't tell) Group 2 had a small delay between tone and stimulation, group 3 had a longer one (0.5s+) and also used a much narrower subset of tones. All 3 groups showed improvement and any differences were well within the error bands. Definitely a sloppy design, changing so many variables between the groups. No active control (maybe vibration on the tongue or something). To me the conclusion is that the general method probably works, but almost everything the actual device is overkill, from the 32 different leads to the "proprietary algorithm" and you could do the same thing with just one lead and probably some random tone played over airpods.
- tbenst 6y ago
  Maybe it does something, but tinnitus tends to simple improve over time, too: [1]. Again not a great study as unclear what treatment options people sought, but they have zero evidence of efficacy as I understand it. It’s inaccurate to call these “double-blind” because there is no control group. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC128822/#!po=32.0513 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC128822/#!po=32....
urgentresearch 6y ago
Bingo.

Corinthian 6y ago

This is going to sound silly to most people, but I've been suffering from Tinnitus for a long time. This technique won't cure it but it certainly brings relief for me, to the point where I can ignore it. When my Tinnitus is particularly piercing, I imagine it as a radiant bright white line in my head. I then mentally begin to reduce the radiance of the light until it is gone. This dulls the sound immensely, I'm still aware of it but it no longer hinders me. For bonus points, I use a similar technique for getting rid of ear worms. In that case, I mentally put the song into a wooden box, close the lid and let it fall into the sea. Works every time.

vldr 6y ago
There are several of these kinds of mindful/imagination techniques. https://rewiringtinnitus.com/ https://rewiringtinnitus.com/ also provides some in book and audio form, where you visualize your tinnitus as a knob you can turn or a person making the noise. Doesn't really work for me though, though sometimes it does seem like I can "tune" my tinnitus a bit.
- Corinthian 6y ago
  Interesting, thank you.

Tipewryter 6y ago

A question to the people among you who have tinnitus: When you put a finger in each ear and create overpressure or underpressure, does the pitch change? Does it change when you clench your teeth? Is it louder on one side then on the other? Maybe there are different types of tinnitus that we could describe better if we had some dimensions/categories like the above in which we could categorize our specific type of tinnitus?

vldr 6y ago
I think there are many different forms (probably with different causes). My tinnitus is exclusively on the left and varies in loudness. Clenching my teeth has always given me a tinnitus-like experience but it never bothered/interested me until I got "real" tinnitus. I understand this form of tinnitus is related to the temporomandibular joint For me, alternating frequencies give some relieve but fortunately. I use the "tonal tinnitus therapy" app for this. I'm not sure if this is part of the mentioned new therapy (which includes electrical stimulation of the tongue?) Judging from other peoples experiences, my tinnitus is relatively mild anyway (but still bothers me) Als, my ENT doctor, when looking into my tinnitus complaints, asked if there's a difference when heartrate increases (and possibly bloodpressure?). This does seem to be an indication of some specific cause. For me it doesn't.
bluescrn 6y ago
There's definitely different types. Mine is a constant high-pitch whine in one ear, a very constant frequency, unaffected by mouth movements or poking at my ear. Others get very different or varying frequencies, or pulsatile tinnitus - https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/pulsatile-tinnitus https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/pulsatile-tinnitus It can seem loud when I'm somewhere quiet, but with a bit of background noise and while focused on something else, my brain seems to manage to tune it out. (The absolute worst thing for it seems to be reading about and thinking about tinnitus... so it's probably time to go and read something else...)
goku99 6y ago
Yes Yes No

hypefi 6y ago

Well maybe we should treat the source of the problem, which is electromagnetic pollution