Parasym — tVNS Device

Is this any good? It just turned up in my Facebook newsfeed. It is possible to rent in the U.K.

New Research Shows tVNS deactivates Tinnitus related brain regions

Parasym tVNS Device

 

I tried this with no effect.

 

Promising...

Since this also mentions a form of neuromodulation combined with sound therapy, could this be the same underlying principle as a treatment like Neuromod is working on, i.e. more evidence of the successful workings of that treatment?

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30485375

 

“THE PARASYM
The Parasym (formerly the Salustim) device uses a method known as transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS).”​

I think there are some people here have tried Salustim before..

 

Has anyone else tried this device with any success?

 

I tried and I achieved some success. But in retrospect I do not even know if it was a placebo / coincidence.

 

Different mechanism. Neuromod works through the trigeminal nerve. This other one works on vagus nerve. I believe studies showed that only tonal tinnitus saw improvement with vagus nerve stimulation...

 

I rented it for a 3-month treatment. I'm ending my second month with no effect so far.

 

I'm in the U.S., so I couldn't buy the Parasym device directly but I had an acquaintance in Australia buy it and hand it off to a family member who was vacationing in Australia at the time.

I did a three month course of treatment from about December 1 to the end of February and I believe it was effective in significantly helping my tinnitus. By that, I mean:

• There were more, and lengthier, periods when my tinnitus was unnoticeable.
• There were fewer, and shorter, periods when my tinnitus was distractingly at its worse.
• The rest of the time, when the tinnitus was "just there," the tinnitus seemed to be more muted.

Overall, I was very happy with the treatment.

I enjoyed this for about a month or so until my physician started me on EDTA chelation therapy (entirely unrelated to the tinnitus). As soon as I began the oral EDTA therapy, my tinnitus worsened to its pre-Parasym condition. I was crushed. I couldn't swear that it was the chelation therapy that did it but the timing was unmistakable.

I had loaned the Parasym to a friend by this time so I wasn't able to try it again until about a week ago when he returned it. I've resumed treatment and I believe it's helping again. The tinnitus seems to be lessening as I use the Parasym each day. I'm still on the chelation therapy, so it may be a case of the Parasym battling the effects of the chelation to keep the tinnitus at bay until the chelation therapy is finished.

The likely role of the chelation therapy notwithstanding, I'm very happy with what the Parasym did. I think the vagus nerve stimulation approach definitely has merit.

I don't spend a ton of time here on the forum, but if you have questions about my experience with the Parasym, I'll try to answer them. There were periods during the three months of therapy that my tinnitus seemed to be worse and times when it was amazingly improved. It was a bit of a roller coaster. I kept and open mind, though, and tried to stay as consistent as possible with my daily therapy.

 

Has anyone else tried this with any luck? I've considered purchasing it since you can't rent it in the US. I would hate to buy something so expensive only to receive no improvement. I have tinnitus in both ears, but hearing loss only in one. It seems to have spread to my other ear. Does anyone in the US have this device?

 

https://www.medicaldesignandoutsour...ough-the-ear-could-help-treat-afib-heres-how/

I would try it if I could actually get one, I don’t know why it’s not sold to the U.S.

 

Can I ask you if you used also the sound therapy or just the vagus nerve device? They used to offer a tailor made sound therapy, but now they only offer a standard sound therapy, the same for everyone. What is a little discouraging is that there seems to be no synchronisation between the sound and the vagus nerve stimulation. Signal timing is a key aspect in Neuromod, Michigan and Minnesota, so I am skeptical about this. However, if one rents it it's 100£ for 3 months, so relatively cheap. Perhaps the vague nerve part alone can do something?

 

I am green, when it comes to tinnitus treatments, but I am tempted to try Parasym, before I will put my hands on Lenire. Parasym has low price and there are interesting studies results about Vagus Nerve Stimulation. It looks like Parasym would be a lot more expensive, if it had synchronised sound therapy attached to it, right? It would probably be at price that is much closer to £2000-3000.

Stimulating Vagus Nerve looks like a safe treatment, that shouldn't aggravate tinnitus in anyone (?) It has positive effects on the brain chemistry in the brain. In one of the forum's threads about Deep Brain Stimulation therapy on tinnitus, I have encountered onto the below video, where it is mentioned, how important serotonin and dopamine are, when it comes to suppressing tinnitus.

Tinnitus: Ringing in the Brain | Josef...

I would definitely match my VNS therapy with supplementation of lots of anti-oxidants + serotonin and dopamine boosters.

In my eyes, Parasym is like a small non-invasive way of Deep Brain Stimulation. Too bad, that this topic isn't as popular as the topics about Lenire or Susan Shore device. Because, it looks, like VNS could help some people.

 

Check the topic on SaluStim if you haven't done so yet.
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/salustim-—-tvns-therapy-device.8839/
I think @Steve and @dboy found that it could worsen tinnitus temporarily.

If you read the SaluStim thread, you'll see that Parasym is just a re-configured TENS machine with an ear electrode. TENS machines can be bought quite cheaply, for a small fraction of the Parasym price. The music therapy is no longer tailored to patients, so if you buy a TENS machine and an ear electrode you will have the Parasym. Overall I am not very hopeful but I think it's worth trying if you can rent it.

Also, be careful with serotonin. There is research suggesting it may worsen tinnitus
https://news.ohsu.edu/2017/08/22/study-suggests-serotonin-may-worsen-tinnitus
This is consistent with @PrincessZelda finding more general use of the TENS machine for other conditions worsened her tinnitus
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tens-unit-causing-severe-tinnitus-episodes.33845/
There are other posts on TENS machines. Overall, the jury is out.

 

PS @Pawel1 what would you use as a dopamine booster?

 

I would take amino acids like HTP5, Tyrosine, etc. Also I would eat fruits and spend more time on doing hobbies, than I do now.
But, I guess this device is not as safe, as it seemed.

 

5HTP is primarily for serotonin I guess. I'll consider Tyrosine. How about Mucuna (L-dopa)? It may be dangerous though if taken without supervision.

 

I just started treatment with the parasym. I will report my impressions here but I will wait a few days before sharing, to avoid overanalysing things

 

Great! I think that if you are not going to feel any negative effects in the first days, then it's already a good sign. Maybe I am missing something, but if Parasym does not have ear phones and music therapy, then there are less chances that it could worsen your Tinnitus temporarily, no?

If this device is good for absolutely anything, like improved mood, or better sleep quality, then it's a big step forward for someone like me, who has never experienced with those things before. Improvement in Tinnitus might come in, after a longer time of therapy. This device is supposed to calm you down, by activating parasympathetic system. If this works, then it might open many new opportunities for many of us.


I will definitely be waiting for your report about this device. In the meantime, I will focus on mindfulness, meditation etc. This seems like a boring lifestyle, but I need to learn how to handle boredom, otherwise I will just continue bombarding my ears with new sounds like music and TV, and that's bad for the Tinnitus.

Fingers crossed for you

 

Ok, after five days of parasym, a few comments. I am doing 1h per day, 30 min in the evening, 30 min in the morning. When I wear the TENS unit on the tragus, to stimulate the vagus nerve, it does seem to make my tinnitus more noticeable. On top of the tragus stimulation I play the sound therapy they provide, it's a music file you have to play on your own device (mobile, mp3 player, ...). There is no synchronisation with the TENS machine and the music appears to be rather generic. I think it could be more useful to use a targeted sound therapy, unfortunately my tinnitus starts at about 9-10k and goes up and up without an upper bound, so I am not sure what tailored sound therapy I should listen. @Steve, if you have any advice on sound therapy for this broadband/high frequency tinitus I'll be grateful.
Anyway the overall effect is to make my tinnitus slightly more uniformly hissy but more tolerable: despite tinnitus being more noticeable during the session, I have the impression it gets better after the session is done and it stays better during the day. At the moment the improvement is quite minimal, but I'll keep going and report further updates.

 

Thanks for the update, it seems very encouraging. This treatment would be great, if it significantly prevented your Tinnitus from spiking and rising, which it currently seems to do so.

On some other threads, people said that you can't stimulate the Vagus Nerve via attaching the wires to your ears, but this statement seems to be untrue, as your Tinnitus seems to be somehow affected by the treatment already.

Can I just ask, if you paid any attention to how the treatment affects your general wellbeing, maybe in terms of sleep or rest or relaxation? Also, it's great that you are not increasing any significant negative effects from this device.

 

It's early to say. I think the treatment kind of averages my tinnitus overall. Mine is loud and very high pitched, and louder on the left hand side. As I said, it has become more tolerable overall but there are moments where I hear it loud in the right ear as well, but then they subside. Overall the improvement is minimal.
My problem is that I am also on a medication that I would like to taper. At the moment I am holding a stable dosage, but when I will try to taper the effect of the parasym therapy will probably mix with the tapering and it will be hard understanding what is doing what.

"On some other threads, people said that you can't stimulate the Vagus Nerve via attaching the wires to your ears"

I hadn't noticed those posts, interesting. I need to take a look. However, both Steve and dboy had found that the therapy was doing something to them, although they had been negatively affected. I will continue and give other updates later on.

EDIT on mood/sleep I noticed a little improvement, but again it is not really significant, I need to continue and see if this trend is confirmed

 

https://www.jove.com/video/58984/laboratory-administration-transcutaneous-auricular-vagus-nerve

 

and this

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29361441

so it looks like electrical stimulation of the tragus can affect the vagus nerve, but this last recent study (2018) doesn't look at tinnitus

 

It can definitely affect the Vagus nerve... I had modified my TENS machine, so only one ear clip is used, just like in the video.
Then I dial the general fuzz ACRN into my mobile phone at my tinnitus frequency.

The idea is for your Vagus nerve to be stimulated at frequencies close to your tinnitus frequency, but NOT the exact tinnitus frequency, as per the "rat study", which I think is where the idea of bimodal stimulation was born from.

 

I would like to develop a custom made sound therapy, rather than using the generic file they provide. Unfortunately my tinnitus seems to range a broad range of frequency, anything from 9-10 kHz up, getting worse as the frequency increases. Do you think I can use general fuzz or other softwares to create a sound therapy for this?
Also, it looks like one can buy a TENS machine and an electrode for the ear, and one has all the necessary tools, at a rather cheap cost

 

Also make sure to use the left ear only.
The branch of Vagus nerve going to the right ear controls heart rate and breathing anongst other things.
You don't want to mess with that.

Not sure how ACRN would work with such a broad range, as it might have to be modified somehow.

I use this one here:
https://spasupply.ca/products/inten...izt0JN9RFEGwFHL63PrQVQzYD0q66M08aAj9gEALw_wcB

They also have it at Tens Pros.
The ear clips I got from Tens Pros and made one out of 2 pairs:
https://www.tenspros.com/black-ear-clip-electrodes-EAE01.html

 

Hello. Has Vagus Nerve stimulation been effective for you?