What Were the Advances in Research for 2014?

I would love to see a summary of advances in tinnitus/hyperacusis research for 2014. I tend to get caught up in the day to day posts - I've lost sight if we've made significant (or insignificant) strides this year.

 

I can give you my quick one-off summary:

In 2014, more late stage clinical trials for tinnitus treatments were either in operation or being prepared to start than ever before. There are clinical trials for multiple modes of treatment, from vagus nerve stimulation, to intratympanic injection of esketamine for acute onset tinnitus, to development of AUT00063, a potassium channel modulator, which would treat even chronic tinnitus.

GenVec has started the first ever hair-cell restoration and hearing restoration trial ever. I can't understate how huge that is.

Published papers in the field of tinnitus have nearly tripled from 10 years ago.

There are several companies investigating methods of treating acute hearing loss, menieries disease and otoprotection.

The annual TRI conferences continue to attract more people and better talent from multiple different academic fields.

Data collection, known as the TINNET, began this year. This will help to seriously categorize the different etiologies of tinnitus. A lot of the failures of previous investigations and trials can be blamed on poor definition of tinnitus sub-groups and what the target treatment audience is.

On this very site here, have started our own "mini-trial", pulling a Barry Marshall, (a microbiology pathologist who famously drank infected broth to prove to the scientific community that ulcers were often caused by bacteria and not "stress" because he lacked people he could ethically experiment on) people have began taking trobalt off label prescribed by various medical people because of the anecdotal and academic evidence that trobalt may possibly treat tinnitus. We have seen a good degree of success with many of the people who have taken part in this courageous experiment.

In fact, we're currently in contact with researchers about setting up an actual study to investigate the potential for trobalt to treat tinnitus patients.

So, if you are afraid that 2014 has been a slow year, you'll be quite surprised to find the opposite. Hold on to your pants, because 2015 will be cool with preliminary efficacy data from Autifony being released this summer.

 

Hopefully people that were having bad 'T' in 2013 have habituated.

 

I like this: 'Hold on your pants' I supplement it with: Fasten your seatbelts

 

Thank you @Hudson!

 

@Hudson is there a foundation that we can trust and donate money to? Not like the foundations that take half of the money to fill their pockets.

 

When I got tinnitus and my hearing was damaged in 2007 I was very upset to see nearly nothing being done to combat tinnitus or hearing loss. Hair cell regeneration was only an idea at the time.

Times have changed.

 

Best cure for T is "no cure"
Meditate this statement. ....

 

How well known this is... Best cure? Not by far. Best way to cope? Perhaps, but only IF and WHEN one can manage it.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141222165437.htm

latest advancement

 

Assuming that all T sufferers have some type of hearing loss. If that hearing loss was restored - would the T disappear?

 

Not always. T is recorded in the memory of brain, so restoration of hearing can not eliminate it.

Sorry for my english.

 

actually there is one way of thinking that suggests that if the ear works again, the brain will need to proces these new sounds and it will overwrite the T in those frequencies.

 

I think if one's T is caused by hearing loss then the restoration of hearing should change or stop his T as brain is plastic and it should re-adapt again.

 

Finally, a logical thinking about brain-Tinnitus... It goes away the same way it came! By brain adaptation. Why shouldn't it?

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

I do agree restoration of hearing should also reduce tinnitus

 

With that in mind...do we believe that there will be a distinct cure for tinnitus before the possibility of restoration of hearing?

 

I think it is safe to assume that they are both going to take a while (not to say we shouldn't be progressive in research and development and fast track any possible 'cures' or viable treatments). As far as who will reach the "finish line" first it's anybody's best guess.

 

Looks tricky as most people like me cannot pin point on an underlying condition. Hope there is some drug which just makes the noise go away no matter what the underlying condition.

Come on scientists......you cloned animals, reached the moon......curing Tinnitus cannot be so hard.

Hope we have some major strides in 2015-2016 and a cure by 2017-2018.

 

I remember reading about several cases with elderly people with hearing loss and tinnitus getting hearing aids, where they reported that they not only could hear better, but their tinnitus decreased aswell.