14 ms·

Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy

569 points by maxerickson 5y ago

tester89 5y ago
To be clear, this is FX-322.
gedy 5y ago
I have sensoneural hearing loss, mostly in one ear, and the annoying thing about it is hearing aids don't really help much because of the distorted frequencies and non linear loss. Before I had this I assumed wrongly that hearing loss could always be fixed by making sound louder. (It doesn't, just sounds like a voice disguiser or someone on Helium talking through a bad speaker.) This looks promising.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  There are some interesting avenues of research for sensorineural hearing loss, such as the non-linearity- and distortion-inducing effects of some psychedelic tryptamines such as DiPT. Psychedelics tend to increase neuroplasticity, and these could do it specifically for aural processing.
- julianlam 5y ago
  My understanding of hearing aids is not that it makes sounds louder across the entire spectrum, but only selective frequencies? An audiologist should be able to tune your hearing aids to amplify only those frequencies that need amplification. (Although my understanding is that this is fairly new, and may not be available around the world)
  - gedy 5y ago
    Yes I have tuned hearing aids and unfortunately my SNHL still struggles with speech perception.
  - rini17 5y ago
    Yes hearing aids tuning is a thing, often must be done repeatedly because of discomfort. But the serious problem with hearing loss is the "bandwidth", meaning the damaged cells send less information to the brain even if attenuation is compensated by hearing aid, leading to bad recognition of sounds and speech.
    - rhubarbcustard 5y ago
      With most new hearing aids users, multiple tunings are required as they cannot handle the new volume and intensity of sounds that hey haven't heard for years. An audiologist will typically test someone, see that they need amplications across the range but send them away with a much lower amplification for a weeks to get used to things. Then bring the volume up as time goes by. People amy also need to get used to the aid's noise reduction algorithms as they can seem unatural at first and is a nightmare for anyone who used to wear an old analog hearing aid with no noise reduction. So, yeah, hearing aids are rarely plug-and-play from day one - the user needs time to adjust.
  - navbaker 5y ago
    My hearing loss got to a point where tuning the hearing aid to the point where it sufficiently amplified sound for me to distinguish speech made it so loud that it sounded to my brain like a normal speaking volume, but it caused physical pain in my ear.
- navbaker 5y ago
  I've had two bouts of SSNL, both in the right ear. The first only took my high end frequencies, so a hearing aid did work, but the second just about flatlined my hearing in that ear, so the hearing aid only gives the results you're referencing. I have a date for surgery to implant a bone-conducting hearing aid next month, it should hopefully restore hearing from that side. Definitely talk to your ENT about that option, the processor mounts magnetically (no cochlear implant style port in your head), so you can get away from the feeling of a hearing aid plugging up your ear!
  - gedy 5y ago
    Thanks, I thought bone conducting still depended on the damaged hairs in ear for transferring to nerves though?
    - navbaker 5y ago
      It does, but as long as you have a functioning inner ear on one side, the bone conduction will transmit sound to that side.
- rhubarbcustard 5y ago
  A non-linear loss should not be an issue for any modern hearing aid, they are designed specifically to deal with that. I've never seen an audiogram with a complete flat (linear) loss, I'm sure some have it but its not common. I have a severe sensorineural loss in both ears and wears hearing aids with a lot of success. My loss was the result of some unknown illness when I was younger - a loss resulting from illness or drug reaction tend to present randomly across the frequencies, whereas an age-related loss is almost always a "ski slope" loss, which means the high frequencies are mostly lost and the lowers are mostly fine. Your experience is very common with new hearing aid users. The aids are able to increase volume at specific frequencies as defined by your hearing test(s) and the other features of the aid, e.g. noise reduction and compression are able to give a great quality of sound. The problem is usually in the person's ability to comprehend these new sounds, i.e. their brain, not their ears. A person with a hearing loss typically takes seven years to try out hearing aids, in those years their brain has got used to not hearing certain frequencies and sounds altogether and it can take time and training to get that ability back. There is not really a great set of tools for brain training part of the hearing problem at the moment, in my opinion its badly overlooked by the hearing industry. This is a very interesting book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262045869 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262045869
lr4444lr 5y ago
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 resultant hearing restoration is very real, we mammals just don't have the natural cellular signaling to redifferentiate those base cells - small molecule drugs like FX322 do exactly that. I am optimistic they'll eventually find the right dosing regimen to see reliable and optimal clinical effect, and it will be a seismic advance in medicine.
- taf2 5y ago
  Looks like FREQ stock got really beat down over the last few months- any idea what happened was it the negative outcome of the study you mentioned?
  - lr4444lr 5y ago
    There was suspected fraud on the part of the C(E?)O that he was soliciting investor money (and sold stock himself) with advance knowledge of the disappointing results of the trial I was mentioning and did not disclose it. Class action suits were filed. The trials preceding the Phase IIa results were all extremely promising, and even the Phase IIa one showed statistically significant effect on a sound discrimination, which many long time hearing sufferers can tell you is even more frustrating a problem than the inability to perceive sound. Biomedical research stocks are inherently risky. I could be deluding myself, but my lay reading of the research, and as someone who has suffered from tinnitus for a long time brought on my noise overexposure, I think there is a very promising shot at this drug. Maybe FREQ will not be the ones to realize it and some other company will take the patent into real life clinical medicine, and FREQ is certainly not the ONLY company pursuing this angle. But their successes so far have kept me holding the stock, and I keep buying more.
    - victor106 5y ago
deelowe 5y ago
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.
- d4rkp4ttern 5y ago
  Is there any actual “damage” known to be associated with tinnitus?
  - deelowe 5y ago
    My understanding is it is often due to damaged hairs/cells in the cochlea.
  - jFriedensreich 5y ago
    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)
    - d4rkp4ttern 5y ago
      Interesting. I have mild tinnitus but my hearing is perfect (was tested)
  - hprotagonist 5y ago
    Tinnitus is a subjective percept that arises from many, often independent, causes. Some of those causes involve hearing loss, hair cell death, hair cell deafferentiation. Some don't.
adampk 5y ago
Does anyone know if this can finally be a treatment for tinnitus? I would love to hear silence again.
- detritus 5y ago
  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 'TV-like wheeee' noise (as I knew it at the time) became to fill the void. I always thought I had a special talent for being able to tell when a TV (CRT) was on anywhere in the hosue, as I could hear its high pitched whirr. Now as an occasional sufferer of fairly bad tinnitus, I often wonder what any of the above means, as there's surely something in it. Only coping strategy I have is to not fixate on it, whereupon it dies down. That's tricky those times it crops up at nighttime and I'm staring at the ceiling at 4am trying desperately to get back to sleep... .
  - smooc 5y ago
    O that's interesting. I was able to do the same (tv, refrigerator, etc). I also lived country side and I have hearing loss (35db) and tinnitus (sometimes? moderate?) in my left ear, but seemingly due to a virus infection. I have never encountered someone else that was able to hear whether a tv was on or not. At what distance could you do that?
    - detritus 5y ago
      At least within the house - we moved around a lot, but I lived in a few three storey stonework houses, and could generally tell from 'the other end' of the house if the TV was on. I don't recall hearing the same noise from fridges though!
      - aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
watchdogtimer 5y ago
> Hair cells die off when exposed to loud noises or drugs including certain chemotherapies and antibiotics. Does this mean this treatment works only for these conditions, and not common aging-related loss?
- maxerickson 5y ago
  They haven't really gotten to the point where they even know it works. The mechanism should work if there are viable progenitor cells present (so I would expect it to be of some use in most cases of hearing loss), but they may not be able to develop this drug into a reliable treatment.
IYasha 5y ago
At least someone talks about more or less natural regeneration, not inventing more crutches (like mechanical organs or nanorobots).
FriendWithMoon 5y ago
Any patients that reported their Tinnitus getting better? It has been a real curse having chronic tinnitus.
wrycoder 5y ago
Related work at Johns Hopkins [2019]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20685944#20688094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20685944#20688094
DantesKite 5y ago
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.
- notRobot 5y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation, will look it up. I have friends who suffer from tinnitus and I hope it can help them.
  - dazc 5y ago
    https://www.hear-it.org/Tinnitus-Retraining-Therapy https://www.hear-it.org/Tinnitus-Retraining-Therapy
- neals 5y ago
  Thanks, now I feel my pants
  - gumby 5y ago
    In this work from home world, who wears pants anymore? Perhaps you are experiencing the “phantom pants“ phenomenon.
  - derekp7 5y ago
    Reminds me of the Aware of Tongue Peanuts cartoon strip from way back when.
    - yesenadam 5y ago
      Your comment reminded me that I can see my nose.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  What is the scientific evidence regarding said "protocol"? I don't get my medical advice based off what some guy who starred in a low-budget sci-fi space soap for three seasons thinks.
incomingpain 5y ago
>drug candidate stimulates the growth of hair cells in the inner ear. Oh I don't have trouble growing hair in my ears. I have trouble hearing.
- eezynow 5y ago
  i am an audiologist and see an inordinate amount of ear hair. funny, thanks.
- d4rkp4ttern 5y ago
  “Hair in inner ear” — they’re talking about microscopic cilia in the cochlear passages
  - SixDouble5321 5y ago
    You'll have to SHOUT or he won't hear you.
sn00tz00t 5y ago
I've heard anecdotal evidence that psilocybin can help those hard of hearing
- armedpacifist 5y ago
  You might be referring to a quote from Paul Stamets. I am not an expert, so here's my anecdotal take on it: when I drink alcohol, my mild tinitus completely fades away. I'm highly suspecting it has something to do with lowering blood pressure. Psylocybine is also known to affect blood pressure, (both rising and lowering). Then again, so is trying to relax. Being a micro doser myself, I have become very sceptical about the psylocybine craze lately. It's being advocated as a panacea, which it's obviously not. I know you are referring to an anecdote, but it's not far off from what I've seen being pushed by these so called 'institutions' without any substantial evidence. The quackery going on is pretty worrysome and will end up damaging the image of psylocybine yet again, imho.
Karawebnetwork 5y ago
I really hope this could also help revert tinnitus. This is a life wrecking condition that currently has no cure (suicide attempts 9% for women with severe tinnitus and 5.5% for men).
- nanidin 5y ago
  9% of women with tinnitus attempt suicide, or 9% of women that attempt suicide have tinnitus? I find it curious since I've had tinnitus since I was very young and it isn't life wrecking - but maybe that's because it is just part of my default life experience.
  - Karawebnetwork 5y ago
    "Suicide attempts happened with 9% of women with severe tinnitus."
- depressionalt 5y ago
  Can people please stop posting this in every tinnitus thread? It’s an actual trigger that makes tinnitus worse for others. There’s nothing useful brought upon by falsely correlating suicidal and tinnitus, and in fact it creates some major negative externalities by making folks have massive tinnitus flare ups or even trigger suicidal ideation.
  - Karawebnetwork 5y ago
    Tinnitus is mentionned in the first paragraph of the article. Talking about the suicide rate is usually a simple way to get people who know nothing of the condition to understand how serious it is, most people imagine the faint temporary noise that happens after listening to a loud movie but it's much more worst than that. I grant you, some people who use "trigger warnings" would have added one before talking about suicide rates. I however do not use them outside mental health forums and such.
- ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 5y ago
  It’s funny to me seeing everyone in this thread acting like tinnitus is the worst shit ever and they’re suffering everyday. Look up Meniere’s disease. It can be so much worse. And yes, I understand that suffering is relative and that there are worse things than Meniere’s disease, thank you.
maroonblazer 5y ago
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 music lacking a certain sparkle and brilliance. I hope this therapy regenerates hair cells across the entire spectrum.
- theyeenzbeanz 5y ago
  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.
- hunter2_ 5y ago
  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.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    Another thing they could try would be a different eq curve overall. I always find The Sound of Music as reproduced on older narrow band with am radios and phonographs interesting. A lot of that gear doesn't really produce anything over 10 khz. But, where they emphasized frequencies in the spectrum is different from Modern equipment, which basically is shooting for flat response. My grandfather's old radio, when played in a room have a comfortable volume, sounds really good. It's present. And even when I use the little transmitter to send it an idealized signal, it had a roll off starting around 8khz, the absolute high-end was maybe 12khz. I never took the time to analyze it in detail, and kind of wish I had. The usual 62-100 hurts emphasis, like what you'll find on your typical loudness button on a 70's or 80's stereo was there. But it also shaped the sound in 3 to 8khz range. The end result was a very natural sound the didn't overpower, felt like it should be there in the room with all the other sounds. Wish I could say more but I'm not where I have any detail information. I can say the enjoyment of the music is different, and fulfilling. It's not bright, like those higher frequencies bring to the overall feel of the program being produced. Robust, full, seem descriptive... clear is another one. Often, when I hear high bandwidth audio, through limited devices, it seems muddy, unclear, not precise. Those older radios are not like that. Well, the better ones anyway. In any case, the eq is different, and that impacts our perception related to the overall feel of the sound. Sorry for the typos. I'm doing this with the voice dictation. I may actually go back and revisit this myself. As I age up I'm getting be expected, natural roll off most all of us get in our later years.
Workaccount2 5y ago
I wonder if this will treat hidden hearing loss at all. I check all the boxes for tinnitus behavior (loud blasting music hours a day for years) but only have mild tinnitus at worst. I do however have hidden hearing loss, where I absolutely cannot understand what people are saying if there is too much ambient noise. Bars are hopeless situations for conversation, even a fan on in a room can make conversing difficult. It would be nice to revert this (and secretly go back to occasionally blasting music so loud your organs feel it).
- magnetic 5y ago
  AFAIK hidden hearing loss is due to synaptopathy (see Liberman's work). This work helps regrow hair cells, though. Does your Pure Tone Audiometry show any losses at all on your audiogram? It would be surprising that such an auditory insult had no damaging effect on your hair cells, so you may still benefit from this if it works.
civilized 5y ago
We recently learned that my daughter is completely deaf in one ear. She is a very happy healthy girl otherwise, but it makes me sad to know that currently we have no therapy and she could live her whole life like this. But maybe there will be something for her in a few years.
- kradeelav 5y ago
  Hey there - speaking as somebody who was born profoundly deaf but has been hearing 30+ years later thanks to the use of a cochlear implant (CI) and auditory-verbal training, and almost always at the point that people off the street don't realize that I have it ... there's options out there, she doesn't have to live with that constraint. Would highly encourage you to look into the technology there at bare minimum. (The earlier that people have the training/implant, the more exceptional results tend to happen, given there's less delay in speech.) Happy to share my story and some resources - my email's in the profile. Best of luck to you and your family, and I feel for you.
  - civilized 5y ago
    Thank you so much! I am very interested in CI. Currently we're waiting for our appointments with the ENT but I hear so much good about it, I'm hoping we can move this forward as soon as possible. I will definitely be in touch.
    - kayjayem 5y ago
      I lost my hearing in one ear 9 years ago when I was 15 as the result of an illness. I could get a CI but choose not to. Honestly, being deaf in one ear has barely affected me. There are some situations (if it is a loud environment and the person is on my left) where I struggle to hear people and I cannot tell the direction sound is coming from but I do not find this has a major impact on my life. Personally I am concerned that a CI would not improve my quality of life and may even make it worse. My understanding is that the hearing from a cochlear implant is not the same as "normal" hearing so I worry it may effect my current experience in a negative way. Speak to the doctor but I would personally be a bit cautious about it, especially if your daughter is not at an age where she can properly communicate her experience of hearing with you.
kradeelav 5y ago
I foresee this being wicked cool in combination with current cochlear implant (CI) technology which is already quite mature (30-40+ years). Not a scientist, but something makes me think CI's could at least leap-frog or fill in the gaps of this therapy while it's in a less mature state.
vemv 5y ago
Earlier this week I started feeling hearing discomfort for certain textures of sounds - namely those metallic or screeching. I don't feel pain or ringing but those sounds definitely irritate me in a disproportionate way. Does that sound familiar to anyone? (I have a specialist appointment in the way but I'm quite anxious in the meantime)
- c61746961 5y ago
  Look up hyperacusis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis)
aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
I always knew collecting music in 96khz 24bit FLAC will pay off. Who's laughing now?
encoderer 5y ago
What the heck is going on with tinnitus? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0pv6y 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.
- Ancalagon 5y ago
  My guess is Covid, earbuds, and in general a much louder society than in decades past
- sonicggg 5y ago
  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.
- Earw0rm 5y ago
  Had the same for some time after (first round of) mild covid. Not the usual steady tone tinnitus either.. almost like a loose wire sending a very specific frequency in one ear. Spontaneously resolved after 4 months or so, no recurrence with a second round of covid.
- brihter 5y ago
  +1.
- macinjosh 5y ago
  Airpods maybe?
  - encoderer 5y ago
    Big if true, right? I know iPhone will warn you if you’ve had too much loud music on AirPods but people might not take that seriously enough.
- _xlrm 5y ago
pacomerh 5y ago
I've seen news related to this FX-322 drug, but it's never clear to me if this works or not, or if it will be available to the public somehow. I lost my hi-freq in one ear due to inflammation if the cochlea (vestibular neuritis). Would love to know if this could help grow those hair cells back. That also gave me tinitus, but I don't really care about tinitus, I just want to get those frequencies back. Also found there's FX-345: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4js_9GUwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4js_9GUwc
- egberts1 5y ago
  Since it’s a trial, I would not recommend deaf/hard-of-hearing who had spinal meningitis of this trial … yet.
dghughes 5y ago
There's a crazy amount of problems that are due to hearing loss. There's an increased risk of dementia. Even for balance from hearing audio cues when walking. My mother has poor hearing and she refuses to get a hearing aid mainly due to cost. They are ~$4K per ear she doesn't have the money but to her an elderly person she imagines it as $40K/ear. I also fear dementia has already begun for her. For me I have tinnitus so this drug would also be welcome. Another interesting drug is Vuity for nearsightedness. Between hearing and sight it will be amazing if such drugs work and were available before my mother or I or anyone dies of old age.
- JibJabDab 5y ago
  Where do you live? There are many, MANY different kinds of hearings in many different price ranges. I have a top of the line OPN 1 and it was 3,000$. There are cheaper versions for 2k. Many manufacturers produce models under 2k. I'd advise to have her check again, perhaps with a different audiologist. Heck, if she gets an earmold, I can give her my old Oticon Chili. I bet there are other avenues to procure a cheap one.
  - dghughes 5y ago
    I'm Canada but the devices are not covered by the government but maybe by Mom's drug/health plan. Mom has insurance but I don't know what it covers and she probably doesn't either but I'm sure it must cover hearing aids. She refuses to even talk about them other than what my sister and I manage to pry out of her. I also know my Mom and how to her $10 is like $100 so hearing aids even $1,000 to her would seem astronomical in price. She'd retort, "I'm fine without them". It's been a decades long battle someday she may give in.
- intpete 5y ago
  My hearing aids from Costco set me back only $1,700. I highly recommend them.
- wrycoder 5y ago
  I'm getting good results with MDHearingaid.com Air[0] over the past eight years. They work in reasonable environments, like the home, but aren't enough in a noisy, crowded room. Right now, they are $300 a pair, which is reasonable. Buy your mom a present for mother's day! I had a Bose Hearphone, but it broke. It worked quite well - I think about as well as the high priced aids. Sadly, Bose discontinued it (why??) and I can't replace it. With four mics, it was able to cancel sounds from behind you. You only really heard the person you were facing. [0] https://www.mdhearingaid.com/en/product/mdhearingaid-hearing-aid-air-pair https://www.mdhearingaid.com/en/product/mdhearingaid-hearing... Edit: I notice their dual-microphone Volts are selling for $300 a pair, also. I haven't tried them - but dual mic is what you need in noisy environments. Might be a really good deal.
FairDune 5y ago
This would be amazing for me. I have had unilateral hearing loss due to mumps since childhood.
- brewdad 5y ago
  Same here though mine was probably due to an undiagnosed ear infection as an infant. One weird instance happened about 25 years ago. I suffered a severe blow to the back of my head. My hearing in my bad ear actually came back for a while but it was like listening to a poorly tuned radio. Proper volume but full of static. After a week or so, my hearing returned back to its normal deficient state. No idea what exactly happened or why.
1970-01-01 5y ago
I recommend tinnitustreatmentreport.com for news and updates for tinnitus.
egberts1 5y ago
As one who is undergoing mapping of Cochlear Implant, I feel the need to put it out there some things about regrowing cilia hairs in cochlear. If you had been subjected to a life-threatening high body temperature (106.5+ F, spinal meningitis), your cochlears would make for a poor candidate in benefitting from most form of treatment of cilia hair regrowth. The problem is the fibrocyte nerve pathways (the ones embedded in the wall of the cochlear spiral) are basically heated to death through bursting/disintegration of its Mylar sheathings of its nerve cells in the cochlear pathway. Although, not much research is done with regard to the temperature level in various part of the body notably inside the skull region during such an infection, it is arguable that cochlear is located in the hottest zone of the body given the locality of eustachian tube, inner ear and throat region being a harbor of Infectionous activity. Not an expert here but a pretty serious consumer-based researcher of CI.
- luminaobscura 5y ago
  I lost one of my ears in a high fever episode when i was a child. I guess what you wrote means i shouldn't get my hopes up for these kind of treatments :(
  - egberts1 5y ago
    The treatment is focused on regrowth of cilia hairs; what we, the high-temped folks, are really waiting for is a cochlear transplant or a regrowth of fibrocyte pathways within the cochlear wall (as well as this treatment).
  - khnov 5y ago
    I lost me left ear hearing capability when I was a child, never remember when, But don't know how. (I remember now that I had some fever) How did you know that your hearing loss was due to fever ?
    - egberts1 5y ago
      Medical records
Sunspark 5y ago
Word of advice, this is interesting and worth paying attention to. However, hearing loss has already been successfully cured before decades ago. I remember reading back in the 80s that it was only 10 years away. It actually worked.. only problem is, the dosage required was toxic for humans. So when they say it is years away, take it literally and assume that might be forever. If you have hearing loss that can be treated by other therapies today, do not wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow may not come.
ensan 5y ago
I have been seeing a lot of news articles from university websites on HN recently. Do people realize that they essentially function as hype-generation outlets and are not intended to provide an objective and unbiased assessment of the research?
- mastercheif 5y ago
  I think most here are interested in hearing about what cool new research is being performed at the top universities regardless if the article itself includes the conclusions of the studies + peer review.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  It's a press release, most people with some amount of media literacy understand what they are. And really, the original press releases tend to be quite a bit better than the 'science blog' articles that regurgitate them, coming from a university url isn't a bad thing.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
A search of the comments shows 79 hits for tinnitus and zero for magnesium. If you suffer tinnitus, look into magnesium supplementation. Studies show people with tinnitus have low magnesium and anecdotal evidence suggests magnesium helps reduce symptoms. https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/tinnitus-and-magnesium https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/tinnitus-and-magnesium
- SixDouble5321 5y ago
  Saved you a click, there is no evidence of this, currently. We should be cautious about suggesting unproven remedies.
kdtop 5y ago
Let's talk about money. How much is a reasonable total cost like this for restoration of hearing? $10k? $100k? $1 million? More? Next, what do readers think the cost will actually be?
rejor121 5y ago
Oh man I hope this becomes a treatment in the next couple of years. I wonder if it’ll help treat my tinnitus too. I will pay to reduce my tinnitus , and restoring hearing would be an added bonus. Looking forward to the progress in this.
mparnisari 5y ago
This is great news but i wish there was a solution for congenital hearing loss. I'm starting to believe it will never happen and it makes me so sad.
- janeerie 5y ago
  So true. My son was born with severe hearing loss, and for 5 years we have heard treatment was on the horizon. His hearing has now declined to the point where he needs a cochlear implant, and I worry that if we do that and a treatment is eventually developed, he might not benefit from it. However, I think it would be foolish to wait. Gene therapy seems like the only hope, and I don't think there have been great developments in that area.
CyanDeparture 5y ago
I'm in the rare category here, but I've got around 50% hearing loss and I love it. I can't hear alarms, or dogs, or radios etc. It's fantastic for living in the city. I've tried a hearing aid and it's like... "this is awful". I just put one in for tv or the theater or parties and that's about it.
- wrycoder 5y ago
  All us old geezers are good at being conveniently deaf. And at turning off the aids, if the old bat starts chattering excessively.

569 points by maxerickson 5y ago

To be clear, this is FX-322.

gedy 5y ago

I have sensoneural hearing loss, mostly in one ear, and the annoying thing about it is hearing aids don't really help much because of the distorted frequencies and non linear loss. Before I had this I assumed wrongly that hearing loss could always be fixed by making sound louder. (It doesn't, just sounds like a voice disguiser or someone on Helium talking through a bad speaker.) This looks promising.

eurasiantiger 5y ago
There are some interesting avenues of research for sensorineural hearing loss, such as the non-linearity- and distortion-inducing effects of some psychedelic tryptamines such as DiPT. Psychedelics tend to increase neuroplasticity, and these could do it specifically for aural processing.
julianlam 5y ago
My understanding of hearing aids is not that it makes sounds louder across the entire spectrum, but only selective frequencies? An audiologist should be able to tune your hearing aids to amplify only those frequencies that need amplification. (Although my understanding is that this is fairly new, and may not be available around the world)
- gedy 5y ago
  Yes I have tuned hearing aids and unfortunately my SNHL still struggles with speech perception.
- rini17 5y ago
  Yes hearing aids tuning is a thing, often must be done repeatedly because of discomfort. But the serious problem with hearing loss is the "bandwidth", meaning the damaged cells send less information to the brain even if attenuation is compensated by hearing aid, leading to bad recognition of sounds and speech.
  - rhubarbcustard 5y ago
    With most new hearing aids users, multiple tunings are required as they cannot handle the new volume and intensity of sounds that hey haven't heard for years. An audiologist will typically test someone, see that they need amplications across the range but send them away with a much lower amplification for a weeks to get used to things. Then bring the volume up as time goes by. People amy also need to get used to the aid's noise reduction algorithms as they can seem unatural at first and is a nightmare for anyone who used to wear an old analog hearing aid with no noise reduction. So, yeah, hearing aids are rarely plug-and-play from day one - the user needs time to adjust.
- navbaker 5y ago
  My hearing loss got to a point where tuning the hearing aid to the point where it sufficiently amplified sound for me to distinguish speech made it so loud that it sounded to my brain like a normal speaking volume, but it caused physical pain in my ear.
navbaker 5y ago
I've had two bouts of SSNL, both in the right ear. The first only took my high end frequencies, so a hearing aid did work, but the second just about flatlined my hearing in that ear, so the hearing aid only gives the results you're referencing. I have a date for surgery to implant a bone-conducting hearing aid next month, it should hopefully restore hearing from that side. Definitely talk to your ENT about that option, the processor mounts magnetically (no cochlear implant style port in your head), so you can get away from the feeling of a hearing aid plugging up your ear!
- gedy 5y ago
  Thanks, I thought bone conducting still depended on the damaged hairs in ear for transferring to nerves though?
  - navbaker 5y ago
    It does, but as long as you have a functioning inner ear on one side, the bone conduction will transmit sound to that side.
rhubarbcustard 5y ago
A non-linear loss should not be an issue for any modern hearing aid, they are designed specifically to deal with that. I've never seen an audiogram with a complete flat (linear) loss, I'm sure some have it but its not common. I have a severe sensorineural loss in both ears and wears hearing aids with a lot of success. My loss was the result of some unknown illness when I was younger - a loss resulting from illness or drug reaction tend to present randomly across the frequencies, whereas an age-related loss is almost always a "ski slope" loss, which means the high frequencies are mostly lost and the lowers are mostly fine. Your experience is very common with new hearing aid users. The aids are able to increase volume at specific frequencies as defined by your hearing test(s) and the other features of the aid, e.g. noise reduction and compression are able to give a great quality of sound. The problem is usually in the person's ability to comprehend these new sounds, i.e. their brain, not their ears. A person with a hearing loss typically takes seven years to try out hearing aids, in those years their brain has got used to not hearing certain frequencies and sounds altogether and it can take time and training to get that ability back. There is not really a great set of tools for brain training part of the hearing problem at the moment, in my opinion its badly overlooked by the hearing industry. This is a very interesting book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262045869 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262045869

lr4444lr 5y ago

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 resultant hearing restoration is very real, we mammals just don't have the natural cellular signaling to redifferentiate those base cells - small molecule drugs like FX322 do exactly that. I am optimistic they'll eventually find the right dosing regimen to see reliable and optimal clinical effect, and it will be a seismic advance in medicine.

taf2 5y ago
Looks like FREQ stock got really beat down over the last few months- any idea what happened was it the negative outcome of the study you mentioned?
- lr4444lr 5y ago
  There was suspected fraud on the part of the C(E?)O that he was soliciting investor money (and sold stock himself) with advance knowledge of the disappointing results of the trial I was mentioning and did not disclose it. Class action suits were filed. The trials preceding the Phase IIa results were all extremely promising, and even the Phase IIa one showed statistically significant effect on a sound discrimination, which many long time hearing sufferers can tell you is even more frustrating a problem than the inability to perceive sound. Biomedical research stocks are inherently risky. I could be deluding myself, but my lay reading of the research, and as someone who has suffered from tinnitus for a long time brought on my noise overexposure, I think there is a very promising shot at this drug. Maybe FREQ will not be the ones to realize it and some other company will take the patent into real life clinical medicine, and FREQ is certainly not the ONLY company pursuing this angle. But their successes so far have kept me holding the stock, and I keep buying more.
  - victor106 5y ago

deelowe 5y ago

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.

d4rkp4ttern 5y ago
Is there any actual “damage” known to be associated with tinnitus?
- deelowe 5y ago
  My understanding is it is often due to damaged hairs/cells in the cochlea.
- jFriedensreich 5y ago
  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)
  - d4rkp4ttern 5y ago
    Interesting. I have mild tinnitus but my hearing is perfect (was tested)
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  Tinnitus is a subjective percept that arises from many, often independent, causes. Some of those causes involve hearing loss, hair cell death, hair cell deafferentiation. Some don't.

adampk 5y ago

Does anyone know if this can finally be a treatment for tinnitus? I would love to hear silence again.

detritus 5y ago
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 'TV-like wheeee' noise (as I knew it at the time) became to fill the void. I always thought I had a special talent for being able to tell when a TV (CRT) was on anywhere in the hosue, as I could hear its high pitched whirr. Now as an occasional sufferer of fairly bad tinnitus, I often wonder what any of the above means, as there's surely something in it. Only coping strategy I have is to not fixate on it, whereupon it dies down. That's tricky those times it crops up at nighttime and I'm staring at the ceiling at 4am trying desperately to get back to sleep... .
- smooc 5y ago
  O that's interesting. I was able to do the same (tv, refrigerator, etc). I also lived country side and I have hearing loss (35db) and tinnitus (sometimes? moderate?) in my left ear, but seemingly due to a virus infection. I have never encountered someone else that was able to hear whether a tv was on or not. At what distance could you do that?
  - detritus 5y ago
    At least within the house - we moved around a lot, but I lived in a few three storey stonework houses, and could generally tell from 'the other end' of the house if the TV was on. I don't recall hearing the same noise from fridges though!
    - aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

watchdogtimer 5y ago

> Hair cells die off when exposed to loud noises or drugs including certain chemotherapies and antibiotics. Does this mean this treatment works only for these conditions, and not common aging-related loss?

maxerickson 5y ago
They haven't really gotten to the point where they even know it works. The mechanism should work if there are viable progenitor cells present (so I would expect it to be of some use in most cases of hearing loss), but they may not be able to develop this drug into a reliable treatment.

IYasha 5y ago

At least someone talks about more or less natural regeneration, not inventing more crutches (like mechanical organs or nanorobots).

FriendWithMoon 5y ago

Any patients that reported their Tinnitus getting better? It has been a real curse having chronic tinnitus.

wrycoder 5y ago

Related work at Johns Hopkins [2019]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20685944#20688094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20685944#20688094

DantesKite 5y ago

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.

notRobot 5y ago
Thanks for the recommendation, will look it up. I have friends who suffer from tinnitus and I hope it can help them.
- dazc 5y ago
  https://www.hear-it.org/Tinnitus-Retraining-Therapy https://www.hear-it.org/Tinnitus-Retraining-Therapy
neals 5y ago
Thanks, now I feel my pants
- gumby 5y ago
  In this work from home world, who wears pants anymore? Perhaps you are experiencing the “phantom pants“ phenomenon.
- derekp7 5y ago
  Reminds me of the Aware of Tongue Peanuts cartoon strip from way back when.
  - yesenadam 5y ago
    Your comment reminded me that I can see my nose.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
What is the scientific evidence regarding said "protocol"? I don't get my medical advice based off what some guy who starred in a low-budget sci-fi space soap for three seasons thinks.

incomingpain 5y ago

>drug candidate stimulates the growth of hair cells in the inner ear. Oh I don't have trouble growing hair in my ears. I have trouble hearing.

eezynow 5y ago
i am an audiologist and see an inordinate amount of ear hair. funny, thanks.
d4rkp4ttern 5y ago
“Hair in inner ear” — they’re talking about microscopic cilia in the cochlear passages
- SixDouble5321 5y ago
  You'll have to SHOUT or he won't hear you.

sn00tz00t 5y ago

I've heard anecdotal evidence that psilocybin can help those hard of hearing

armedpacifist 5y ago
You might be referring to a quote from Paul Stamets. I am not an expert, so here's my anecdotal take on it: when I drink alcohol, my mild tinitus completely fades away. I'm highly suspecting it has something to do with lowering blood pressure. Psylocybine is also known to affect blood pressure, (both rising and lowering). Then again, so is trying to relax. Being a micro doser myself, I have become very sceptical about the psylocybine craze lately. It's being advocated as a panacea, which it's obviously not. I know you are referring to an anecdote, but it's not far off from what I've seen being pushed by these so called 'institutions' without any substantial evidence. The quackery going on is pretty worrysome and will end up damaging the image of psylocybine yet again, imho.

Karawebnetwork 5y ago

I really hope this could also help revert tinnitus. This is a life wrecking condition that currently has no cure (suicide attempts 9% for women with severe tinnitus and 5.5% for men).

nanidin 5y ago
9% of women with tinnitus attempt suicide, or 9% of women that attempt suicide have tinnitus? I find it curious since I've had tinnitus since I was very young and it isn't life wrecking - but maybe that's because it is just part of my default life experience.
- Karawebnetwork 5y ago
  "Suicide attempts happened with 9% of women with severe tinnitus."
depressionalt 5y ago
Can people please stop posting this in every tinnitus thread? It’s an actual trigger that makes tinnitus worse for others. There’s nothing useful brought upon by falsely correlating suicidal and tinnitus, and in fact it creates some major negative externalities by making folks have massive tinnitus flare ups or even trigger suicidal ideation.
- Karawebnetwork 5y ago
  Tinnitus is mentionned in the first paragraph of the article. Talking about the suicide rate is usually a simple way to get people who know nothing of the condition to understand how serious it is, most people imagine the faint temporary noise that happens after listening to a loud movie but it's much more worst than that. I grant you, some people who use "trigger warnings" would have added one before talking about suicide rates. I however do not use them outside mental health forums and such.
ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 5y ago
It’s funny to me seeing everyone in this thread acting like tinnitus is the worst shit ever and they’re suffering everyday. Look up Meniere’s disease. It can be so much worse. And yes, I understand that suffering is relative and that there are worse things than Meniere’s disease, thank you.

maroonblazer 5y ago

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 music lacking a certain sparkle and brilliance. I hope this therapy regenerates hair cells across the entire spectrum.

theyeenzbeanz 5y ago
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.
hunter2_ 5y ago
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.
- ddingus 5y ago
  Another thing they could try would be a different eq curve overall. I always find The Sound of Music as reproduced on older narrow band with am radios and phonographs interesting. A lot of that gear doesn't really produce anything over 10 khz. But, where they emphasized frequencies in the spectrum is different from Modern equipment, which basically is shooting for flat response. My grandfather's old radio, when played in a room have a comfortable volume, sounds really good. It's present. And even when I use the little transmitter to send it an idealized signal, it had a roll off starting around 8khz, the absolute high-end was maybe 12khz. I never took the time to analyze it in detail, and kind of wish I had. The usual 62-100 hurts emphasis, like what you'll find on your typical loudness button on a 70's or 80's stereo was there. But it also shaped the sound in 3 to 8khz range. The end result was a very natural sound the didn't overpower, felt like it should be there in the room with all the other sounds. Wish I could say more but I'm not where I have any detail information. I can say the enjoyment of the music is different, and fulfilling. It's not bright, like those higher frequencies bring to the overall feel of the program being produced. Robust, full, seem descriptive... clear is another one. Often, when I hear high bandwidth audio, through limited devices, it seems muddy, unclear, not precise. Those older radios are not like that. Well, the better ones anyway. In any case, the eq is different, and that impacts our perception related to the overall feel of the sound. Sorry for the typos. I'm doing this with the voice dictation. I may actually go back and revisit this myself. As I age up I'm getting be expected, natural roll off most all of us get in our later years.

Workaccount2 5y ago

I wonder if this will treat hidden hearing loss at all. I check all the boxes for tinnitus behavior (loud blasting music hours a day for years) but only have mild tinnitus at worst. I do however have hidden hearing loss, where I absolutely cannot understand what people are saying if there is too much ambient noise. Bars are hopeless situations for conversation, even a fan on in a room can make conversing difficult. It would be nice to revert this (and secretly go back to occasionally blasting music so loud your organs feel it).

magnetic 5y ago
AFAIK hidden hearing loss is due to synaptopathy (see Liberman's work). This work helps regrow hair cells, though. Does your Pure Tone Audiometry show any losses at all on your audiogram? It would be surprising that such an auditory insult had no damaging effect on your hair cells, so you may still benefit from this if it works.

civilized 5y ago

We recently learned that my daughter is completely deaf in one ear. She is a very happy healthy girl otherwise, but it makes me sad to know that currently we have no therapy and she could live her whole life like this. But maybe there will be something for her in a few years.

kradeelav 5y ago
Hey there - speaking as somebody who was born profoundly deaf but has been hearing 30+ years later thanks to the use of a cochlear implant (CI) and auditory-verbal training, and almost always at the point that people off the street don't realize that I have it ... there's options out there, she doesn't have to live with that constraint. Would highly encourage you to look into the technology there at bare minimum. (The earlier that people have the training/implant, the more exceptional results tend to happen, given there's less delay in speech.) Happy to share my story and some resources - my email's in the profile. Best of luck to you and your family, and I feel for you.
- civilized 5y ago
  Thank you so much! I am very interested in CI. Currently we're waiting for our appointments with the ENT but I hear so much good about it, I'm hoping we can move this forward as soon as possible. I will definitely be in touch.
  - kayjayem 5y ago
    I lost my hearing in one ear 9 years ago when I was 15 as the result of an illness. I could get a CI but choose not to. Honestly, being deaf in one ear has barely affected me. There are some situations (if it is a loud environment and the person is on my left) where I struggle to hear people and I cannot tell the direction sound is coming from but I do not find this has a major impact on my life. Personally I am concerned that a CI would not improve my quality of life and may even make it worse. My understanding is that the hearing from a cochlear implant is not the same as "normal" hearing so I worry it may effect my current experience in a negative way. Speak to the doctor but I would personally be a bit cautious about it, especially if your daughter is not at an age where she can properly communicate her experience of hearing with you.

kradeelav 5y ago

I foresee this being wicked cool in combination with current cochlear implant (CI) technology which is already quite mature (30-40+ years). Not a scientist, but something makes me think CI's could at least leap-frog or fill in the gaps of this therapy while it's in a less mature state.

vemv 5y ago

Earlier this week I started feeling hearing discomfort for certain textures of sounds - namely those metallic or screeching. I don't feel pain or ringing but those sounds definitely irritate me in a disproportionate way. Does that sound familiar to anyone? (I have a specialist appointment in the way but I'm quite anxious in the meantime)

c61746961 5y ago
Look up hyperacusis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis)

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

I always knew collecting music in 96khz 24bit FLAC will pay off. Who's laughing now?

encoderer 5y ago

What the heck is going on with tinnitus? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0pv6y 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.

Ancalagon 5y ago
My guess is Covid, earbuds, and in general a much louder society than in decades past
sonicggg 5y ago
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.
Earw0rm 5y ago
Had the same for some time after (first round of) mild covid. Not the usual steady tone tinnitus either.. almost like a loose wire sending a very specific frequency in one ear. Spontaneously resolved after 4 months or so, no recurrence with a second round of covid.
brihter 5y ago
+1.
macinjosh 5y ago
Airpods maybe?
- encoderer 5y ago
  Big if true, right? I know iPhone will warn you if you’ve had too much loud music on AirPods but people might not take that seriously enough.
_xlrm 5y ago

pacomerh 5y ago

I've seen news related to this FX-322 drug, but it's never clear to me if this works or not, or if it will be available to the public somehow. I lost my hi-freq in one ear due to inflammation if the cochlea (vestibular neuritis). Would love to know if this could help grow those hair cells back. That also gave me tinitus, but I don't really care about tinitus, I just want to get those frequencies back. Also found there's FX-345: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4js_9GUwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4js_9GUwc

egberts1 5y ago
Since it’s a trial, I would not recommend deaf/hard-of-hearing who had spinal meningitis of this trial … yet.

dghughes 5y ago

There's a crazy amount of problems that are due to hearing loss. There's an increased risk of dementia. Even for balance from hearing audio cues when walking. My mother has poor hearing and she refuses to get a hearing aid mainly due to cost. They are ~$4K per ear she doesn't have the money but to her an elderly person she imagines it as $40K/ear. I also fear dementia has already begun for her. For me I have tinnitus so this drug would also be welcome. Another interesting drug is Vuity for nearsightedness. Between hearing and sight it will be amazing if such drugs work and were available before my mother or I or anyone dies of old age.

JibJabDab 5y ago
Where do you live? There are many, MANY different kinds of hearings in many different price ranges. I have a top of the line OPN 1 and it was 3,000$. There are cheaper versions for 2k. Many manufacturers produce models under 2k. I'd advise to have her check again, perhaps with a different audiologist. Heck, if she gets an earmold, I can give her my old Oticon Chili. I bet there are other avenues to procure a cheap one.
- dghughes 5y ago
  I'm Canada but the devices are not covered by the government but maybe by Mom's drug/health plan. Mom has insurance but I don't know what it covers and she probably doesn't either but I'm sure it must cover hearing aids. She refuses to even talk about them other than what my sister and I manage to pry out of her. I also know my Mom and how to her $10 is like $100 so hearing aids even $1,000 to her would seem astronomical in price. She'd retort, "I'm fine without them". It's been a decades long battle someday she may give in.
intpete 5y ago
My hearing aids from Costco set me back only $1,700. I highly recommend them.
wrycoder 5y ago
I'm getting good results with MDHearingaid.com Air[0] over the past eight years. They work in reasonable environments, like the home, but aren't enough in a noisy, crowded room. Right now, they are $300 a pair, which is reasonable. Buy your mom a present for mother's day! I had a Bose Hearphone, but it broke. It worked quite well - I think about as well as the high priced aids. Sadly, Bose discontinued it (why??) and I can't replace it. With four mics, it was able to cancel sounds from behind you. You only really heard the person you were facing. [0] https://www.mdhearingaid.com/en/product/mdhearingaid-hearing-aid-air-pair https://www.mdhearingaid.com/en/product/mdhearingaid-hearing... Edit: I notice their dual-microphone Volts are selling for $300 a pair, also. I haven't tried them - but dual mic is what you need in noisy environments. Might be a really good deal.

FairDune 5y ago

This would be amazing for me. I have had unilateral hearing loss due to mumps since childhood.

brewdad 5y ago
Same here though mine was probably due to an undiagnosed ear infection as an infant. One weird instance happened about 25 years ago. I suffered a severe blow to the back of my head. My hearing in my bad ear actually came back for a while but it was like listening to a poorly tuned radio. Proper volume but full of static. After a week or so, my hearing returned back to its normal deficient state. No idea what exactly happened or why.

1970-01-01 5y ago

I recommend tinnitustreatmentreport.com for news and updates for tinnitus.

egberts1 5y ago

As one who is undergoing mapping of Cochlear Implant, I feel the need to put it out there some things about regrowing cilia hairs in cochlear. If you had been subjected to a life-threatening high body temperature (106.5+ F, spinal meningitis), your cochlears would make for a poor candidate in benefitting from most form of treatment of cilia hair regrowth. The problem is the fibrocyte nerve pathways (the ones embedded in the wall of the cochlear spiral) are basically heated to death through bursting/disintegration of its Mylar sheathings of its nerve cells in the cochlear pathway. Although, not much research is done with regard to the temperature level in various part of the body notably inside the skull region during such an infection, it is arguable that cochlear is located in the hottest zone of the body given the locality of eustachian tube, inner ear and throat region being a harbor of Infectionous activity. Not an expert here but a pretty serious consumer-based researcher of CI.

luminaobscura 5y ago
I lost one of my ears in a high fever episode when i was a child. I guess what you wrote means i shouldn't get my hopes up for these kind of treatments :(
- egberts1 5y ago
  The treatment is focused on regrowth of cilia hairs; what we, the high-temped folks, are really waiting for is a cochlear transplant or a regrowth of fibrocyte pathways within the cochlear wall (as well as this treatment).
- khnov 5y ago
  I lost me left ear hearing capability when I was a child, never remember when, But don't know how. (I remember now that I had some fever) How did you know that your hearing loss was due to fever ?
  - egberts1 5y ago
    Medical records

Sunspark 5y ago

Word of advice, this is interesting and worth paying attention to. However, hearing loss has already been successfully cured before decades ago. I remember reading back in the 80s that it was only 10 years away. It actually worked.. only problem is, the dosage required was toxic for humans. So when they say it is years away, take it literally and assume that might be forever. If you have hearing loss that can be treated by other therapies today, do not wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow may not come.

ensan 5y ago

I have been seeing a lot of news articles from university websites on HN recently. Do people realize that they essentially function as hype-generation outlets and are not intended to provide an objective and unbiased assessment of the research?

mastercheif 5y ago
I think most here are interested in hearing about what cool new research is being performed at the top universities regardless if the article itself includes the conclusions of the studies + peer review.
maxerickson 5y ago
It's a press release, most people with some amount of media literacy understand what they are. And really, the original press releases tend to be quite a bit better than the 'science blog' articles that regurgitate them, coming from a university url isn't a bad thing.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

A search of the comments shows 79 hits for tinnitus and zero for magnesium. If you suffer tinnitus, look into magnesium supplementation. Studies show people with tinnitus have low magnesium and anecdotal evidence suggests magnesium helps reduce symptoms. https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/tinnitus-and-magnesium https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/tinnitus-and-magnesium

SixDouble5321 5y ago
Saved you a click, there is no evidence of this, currently. We should be cautious about suggesting unproven remedies.

kdtop 5y ago

Let's talk about money. How much is a reasonable total cost like this for restoration of hearing? $10k? $100k? $1 million? More? Next, what do readers think the cost will actually be?

rejor121 5y ago

Oh man I hope this becomes a treatment in the next couple of years. I wonder if it’ll help treat my tinnitus too. I will pay to reduce my tinnitus , and restoring hearing would be an added bonus. Looking forward to the progress in this.

mparnisari 5y ago

This is great news but i wish there was a solution for congenital hearing loss. I'm starting to believe it will never happen and it makes me so sad.

janeerie 5y ago
So true. My son was born with severe hearing loss, and for 5 years we have heard treatment was on the horizon. His hearing has now declined to the point where he needs a cochlear implant, and I worry that if we do that and a treatment is eventually developed, he might not benefit from it. However, I think it would be foolish to wait. Gene therapy seems like the only hope, and I don't think there have been great developments in that area.

CyanDeparture 5y ago

I'm in the rare category here, but I've got around 50% hearing loss and I love it. I can't hear alarms, or dogs, or radios etc. It's fantastic for living in the city. I've tried a hearing aid and it's like... "this is awful". I just put one in for tv or the theater or parties and that's about it.

wrycoder 5y ago
All us old geezers are good at being conveniently deaf. And at turning off the aids, if the old bat starts chattering excessively.