The Alpha-Stim — Transcutaneous Electrical Stimulation for Tinnitus

The Alpha Stim folks claim some tinnitus relief from their units. They also claim relief for depression, anxiety and insomnia. It's similar to TENS...

https://www.alpha-stim.com/

 

didn't do anything useful for me.

anyone who happens to be in the DC area is welcome to borrow mine to try it out.

 

Did it help your anxiety or depression?

 

I don't know that it did much of anything. I was a severe mess at that point though, dealing with the worst of benzo withdrawal.

It clearly does something, it made me feel weird -- but that made me skeptical that using it long term was really a good idea, "oh hey let's shoot electricity through my head based on sort of strange sounding science". It made me feel like I was on a boat.

 

There is a study at Harvard Medical School that low field magnetic stimulation (LFMS) may give immediate relief to depression. How it does that, I'm not sure they know.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/07/new-treatment-for-depression-shows-immediate-results/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24331545

But this is a magnetic field, not a current going into the brain. Although, the net result of a magnetic field that fluctuates at a freq will be a current at the same freq in some part of the brain.

It could be that the part of the brain with over stimulated electrical activity from tinnitus would calm down. But I don't think I would trust this company.

I am hopeful for the Harvard study... but if it can help with tinnitus might be a stretch (maybe indirectly by helping depression). I would prefer this over SSRIs and SNRIs any day. Drugs simply suck ass... full stop.

 

I've restarted using the Alpha Stim. Firstly I use it at a lower level. Not at a level where you get dizzy. It helps anxiety. And if it helps anxiety it helps depression. I'm not selling the dang thing. I'm using it.

They (Alpha-Stim) claim it can help tinnitus. If it does knock down the anxiety it can help with habituating.

 

Hi

Anyone with any experience of Alpha-Stim device that treats anxiety, depression and insomnia?

Can it help tinnitus or make it worse?

 

@ruben ruiz used Alpha-Stim and it helped his anxiety.
@linearb used it with no positive results.

 

This is thread I read. I was hoping perhaps for more user comments?

 

Yes it helped but the device broke...

 

Any news on the Alpha-Stim?

 

After a period where a minor cold aggravated my tinnitus a lot (even after the cold went away), I got to a mental point close to when my tinnitus originally started: I hardly got any sleep, and I was getting quite anxious and depressed about the new development. An acquaintance informed me about the Alpha Stim, and since it has no (known) side effects and no risk of addiction, I decided to try it out. This was one month ago.

These are my experiences with the Alpha Stim M:
- Within three days of using the device one hour a day, my feelings of anxiousness and depression faded. Though the sounds remained and sleep was still limited, I definitely felt less bad than before usage.
- I got a few better nights in week 2, but in week 3, my sleep pattern improved the most. Instead of 4 hours a night, I now average at 7+ hours. Occasionally a bad night still occurs, but I now have the energy reserves to compensate for it.

Things to note:
- I also changed beds after one rough night in week 3, so I can not exclude that parameter. The device does make me drowsy though, so it definitely helps me to fall asleep.
- I've had one occasion where I was a bit queasy when I had my session. This is actually normal on usage, but soon after I started seeing flashes on every impulse. I immediately reduced the mA level, which resolved it: it has not happened since. I did walk around in the house quite a bit while using the device that night, so I think I was a bit too active for that level. I recommend just sitting on the couch while watching a movie or reading a book when using it.

Overall, I've been very satisfied with the device thus far, it helped a lot in improving my mood and sleep.

 

@Lane, care to list your experience with Alpha-Stim here?

 

A psychiatrist recommended this to me before I took his prescription for ADs (soon after which my tinnitus became intrusive).

 

Thanks @Uklawyer, you always come through in the nick of time. That’s a shame about the AD use for you, should we trust that psychiatrist a second time around? I might purchase this to see if it can supplement the Grandaxin, that would be a dream come true to keep severe anxiety at bay.

I read that @Tybs used this at the lowest setting for a few weeks and that it greatly reduced depression/anxiety in the first few days and sleep in a few weeks.

My only concern is it not worsening tinnitus but hopefully that won’t be the case when testing it at a low setting. I’m still having trouble leaving home even though I’m trying to do short drives around town daily so I can stop missing much needed doctors appointments etc.

Trying to also to discern what makes this different than the PEMF NeoRythm that a couple users reported severely worsened their tinnitus on this forum.

 

@IntotheBlue03, I don't know if I can trust him or not. But to be honest, after my initial tinnitus, my GP was quick to suggest changing ADs - and I imagine that all the ones I tried in the interim had tinnitus as a possible side effect as well. So, it had to happen.

There are many of these types of devices around - including TENS and PoNS - that apparently helped a number of people (from the team that were at University of Wisconsin and are now part of Helios - but they did not get back to me about a trial of their device for tinnitus in Russia in 2017 that appeared to yield good results. Feel free to bug them about this by sending them an email).

I don't know about PEMF NeoRhythm. Might be an idea to look a bit closer.

 

I still have mine in the closet.

 

Hey @Uklawyer.

Fascinating about the Team in Wisconsin. Are there threads on this that I’m missing? I’ve been looking up Helios around Tinnitus Talk but not finding any details. I’m always up for bombarding folks and sending emails lol, I will absolutely dig up what I can.

It turns out the Alpha-Stim is not a PEMF so I feel more comfortable with purchasing it now. I actually did another impulse buy of the Cleanhearing Sono unit out of Europe which is supposed to be an “auditory cortex focused” PEMF but it caused me a spike after a 5-minute session. While I’ve been the Guinea pig for it on Tinnitus Talk, I can’t say I endorse it.

 

Hi @IntotheBlue03.

Apologies - I wrote the mail last night before going to bed and did not check the spelling. The company is "Helius" not "Helios".

See link to this thread on the PoNS:

The PoNS Device and Neuroplasticity

See also Helius website referring to the study at the Pavlov Institute in Russia:

Helius Medical Announces Research Conducted at the Tactile Communication and Neurorehabilition Laboratory (TCNL) Using PoNS™Therapy

...and the results of the trial:

Tinnitus suppression using translingual neurostimulation (TLNS): case study

Only problem is that this looks exactly like Lenire by Neuromod Devices, which has not been shown to be effective overall as a tinnitus treatment.

 

Awesome, thanks @Uklawyer!

That study, if all holds true, is FASCINATING. Complete reduction of tinnitus as far out as 6 months follow up? This was a very good find.

I was able to register for ResearchGate because I work in pharma (for now ) and emailed 3 researchers associated with the project for follow up. Probably will be crickets like in my head as a response but really wish we could dig up more on this.

 

@IntotheBlue03, excellent - thanks! The results did appear to be pretty good, so not sure what happened there. The PoNS device got a good write up in Norman Doidge's book "The Brain's Way of Healing", but nothing much more on it.

Electrical stimulation has to be able to jump start/reinitiate our brain circuitry. That or drugs that work on voltage-gated ion channels.

 

@Uklawyer, you are so knowledgeable and I totally agree, which is what I love about Susan’s approach of getting to the “root” of tinnitus generation instead of so many of us going down these rabbit holes of hell as far as our subjective tinnitus causes.

I’ll keep you posted if they respond!

 

@IntotheBlue03, thanks, but I have just read around the subject, like others - including you, who seem to have amassed a great deal of knowledge in the last few weeks. I think the science people are really knowledgeable ones.

Problem with these electrical stimulation devices is that we need to know what and where to stimulate and how much to stimulate. Plus, whether we need bimodal stimulation to make the difference. I'll leave that to Ms Shore, the expert, but I really hope she has got this one figured out.

In the interim, I am just not sure about other devices. But we can always try.

 

@Uklawyer, I agree. I do hope after 20 years that her due diligence has covered most of these bases. I’m not sure if you saw my post in the Shore thread but I did find out @linearb, the first trial participant who had positive results, also has an unusual tinnitus pattern like me (central and oscillating “crickets” at 14 kHz).

That gave me hope and confirmation that maybe the pitch matching/audio component we have been so concerned about may be less of a factor. Here’s to hoping we have those trial results by May, less than 3 months away

 

Hey @Uklawyer, hope the sleep study went well.

Just wanted to let you know I got lucky and one of the researchers responded to me! Probably because he thinks I’m also a researcher thanks to my pharma association lol. Wanted to check in with you to see how you would respond to him. See below

 

Hey @IntotheBlue03, it was awful but thanks!

The response was not the most compelling. I would say that you are highly interested in tinnitus research, and especially in the development of electrical and electro-magnetic devices and bimodal stimulation to treat tinnitus as you work in the tinnitus community and know of many sufferers and professionals who are eager to know when a device will be developed that will benefit a larger number of sufferers - you can include yourself as a tinnitus sufferer looking for helpful information.

You can say that you know that Susan Shore's signal timing device looks to be at an advanced stage but you saw that Helius did a study on bimodal stimulation with an oral element (or put it more eloquently) in Russia at the Pavlov Institute in 2017 (i.e. the study you were referring to) and the results looked to be very good, but you have not found further information on it. You can ask him whether you are right about the results and are wondering what happened with development of this device after the study.

I doubt you will receive any helpful feedback judging by the first response you received. It also looks like it was a dead end if they are now looking at objective tinnitus. You can add that as a question at the end (i.e. if you are now working on objective tinnitus, does that mean that you did not have any success with subjective tinnitus, and, if not, do you know why?).

 

It’s only been 2 days of 40 minute treatments 3x daily but I haven’t noticed much effect from the Alpha-Stim (can’t even really say placebo). However, I will continue for the full month, I was just concerned since Alpha-Stim advises that anxiety should respond very quickly to treatments as opposed to insomnia or depression.

However, I’m still in a pretty severe state of anxiety so hopefully it will just take time.

 

@IntotheBlue03, and how about now? Any change? Where are you attaching the pads?

 

Pretty disappointed. No real change. If anything I can attribute maybe a 10% reduction in anxiety if it’s not wishful thinking? I’m placing the pads on my ears for anxiety only and I upped the frequency a couple times. Very sad about this. I’m looking at other devices but there’s not much out there data wise to back anything up like the tDCS devices etc.

 

Hi @Uklawyer -- This reminds me that when I was using the Alpha-Stim, I had the setting set on just about the lowest it would go. If I set it too high, and/or did sessions that were too long, I could actually get sort of a nauseous feeling. I should add however that I have a very sensitive system. My advice for beginners would be to start out on the low end of things, and very gradually increase setting and time and see how it affects you.