Can Someone Please Give Hope for Hearing Loss Cure?

Is there any particular audiologist I should seek out? I don't know how this really works. Are there any particular brands that would be best in your opinion? Also, how much hearing do you think would be returned? Would it damage my hearing further with the amplified noise in my ear with the hearing aid?

I'm just sad this happened. This is sad. None of this should have happened. 100% preventable with a non noisy neighbor and non-abusive family to turn too. I just can't accept this, literally.

 

Hi jdjd09, there ar

I fully understand your situation and that you full of desperation. I'm and I was in a similar
situation as you.
But, condition can really improve, acceptance. Yes, this is not what you like to read I know.
Back in 2003 after my first SSHL in the left ear I though game over. I'm still here and many of the
years inbetween has been top and full of happiness, even walking arround with hearing loss, hyperacusis and
hearing loss. Ok, there are also draftbacks too, that's the other side of the game and believe me, today
it was a day full of shit!
But 3 weeks ago I felt much better, with same hearing loss and tinnitus...

I'm following hearing loss research for hearing restoration a very long time and I also have some
good contacts to some researchers in the field for years.
As already mentioned here in the forum, they made significant advances. Yes, it's not here now and it
won't be here in the next coming years, but you are still young and the future looks bright in case
of regenerative medicine. It's all speculation if someone thinks it's in 5-10-30-50 or 100 years.
It's a pain yes, to be in such a situation where even the most normal things are not so normal
anymore. I also dream to have a more relaxed life again, without any of this ear pain.

TIME is a big helper for us and this forum is great and helps me a lot in difficult days.

 

So you have multiple SSHL? I'm guessing the first one you got over basically? Did something else happen to bother you? I hope that time means I get over this...it's been 4 months though.

 

Hey.

Just remember that everything gets better in time.

There are some really subtle hearing aids available out there which are barely noticeable. There is a guy at my work with hearing aids - I've been there 7 months and only just noticed that he had them a few weeks ago. They are that subtle.

Hugs

 

Yes I had about 4 times... not so intensiv like the first, but always enough to drive me crazy for some time.
I experienced, that after (hold you somewhere) 3-4 years the brain starts to adjust things and acceptance is rising at least for hearing loss... for tinnitus I can't speak, because the severity is the first time since last SSHL.
I remember when I was in the beginning of my first impact and the doctor said, the brain will balance it out in 3 years.... I said, what the hell are you talking here.... but he was right.
After 3 years I could live my life again full if enjoyment and happiness... ofcourse, listen to music in loud places has been different, always wearing earplugs and sometimes I have been frustrated about some situation, but that's it....
After 2. incident I always weared cotton balls in my ears, it helped me to hear my voice better and protect my ears a little from spontanouse event's like falling plates,glasses in a kitchen.. I had a horrible Hyperacusis, where every bird was yelling in my ears.
In general, I don't know if it's a good idea to wear cotton balls, but I'm very used to do, without I can't anymore....
You might ask why I stopped wearing hearing aids? The hearing got better ofter about 1,5 years... not measurable in an audiogram, but I could focus the soubds better again...
So I could handle it without again.
But I was very surprised by the good audio quality if these ear pieces...
They are so small it's unbelievable.....

 

yes, they are very subtle and in many cases if you can cover your ears with a little hair they are invisible.
It's strange but I also think people react different on hearing aids than eye glasses or a wheel chair. Maybe it's something because nobody can imagine what it means to lose hearing. It's much easier to understand how it feels to have problem with sight, because most experience this sometimes temporary (maybe in the morning)...
I don't know where the stigmata is coming from.

 

I just want some hope for getting my hearing back. Not speaking of hearing aid. Speaking on novartid trials or other trials currently.

Is there any real hope out there ? I really could use hope. I just want to know a cure is here soon. I remember one organization saying a cure was probably in 10 years.

Please, can someone either PM me or just send me some information that gives me some hope?

 

What is the progress on the Novartis thing? I have heard there is some progress, but can't see any confirmed articles on that. Anyone have any information?

 

Hi, what are the chances of hearing loss cure in 10 years or less? Honestly, for those who looked into it. I don't want those who are pessimistic without evidence for there pessimism either. I just want honest thought on how hearing loss can be cured in 10 years or less, and if it will be.

I will keep my story out of this, but I just need some hope. I'm in my 20s and have high frequency hearing loss on an audio-gram.

 

Hey @jdjd09,

First, to answer your question, aside from a revolutionary breakthrough in regenerative medicine, we are not likely to see a "cure" for hearing loss in 10 years. Strides are being made every month and year by year we get closer and closer, but the human ear is one of the most complex organs in our body with lots of small and delicate pieces that work in a very strange harmony. I've been following the literature behind hearing restoration and tinnitus for a while now and there are a lot of brilliant and hardworking individuals attempting to solve this problem. The fact remains that it is a very hard problem and will take lots of time and energy to solve.

There are still some large unanswered questions that need to be answered before we can begin to experiment with hearing restoration via stem cells, mainly:

1. We need to find out what type of Stem Cells to use for inner ear hair cell regrowth (both inner and outer hair cells).
2. We need to find out how to get those Stem Cells into the cochlea.
3. We need to find out how to get the Stem Cells in the cochlea to their "appropriate place in line".
4. We need to make sure the Stem Cells in the cochlea at the "appropriate place in line" are "facing the right direction".
5. We need to make sure the newly planted Stem Cells connect to the auditory nerve.
6. We need to make sure the brain receives these newly planted Stem Cells and processes their messages as expected. (This could be its own list.)

Maybe the body will do some of this for us? Maybe the body will do none of this for us? We don't know. This is going off of the assumption that stem cells are the route that will "cure" hearing loss. There are also alternative methods being explored, such as gene therapy (Which genes do we need to turn on to restore hair cells? How do we deliver the genes? Can we use genes from other animals?) or molecular therapy (I am admittedly less versed on this subject, think preventing hearing loss from happening further via hormones).

Furthermore, what happens if we develop a device that can interpret and deliver signals to the brain better than the cochlea? We already have a device that does this already, the cochlear implant, but as of now it functions incomparably to the human ear. However, maybe one day with enough computing power and technical advancement, it could deliver sounds to the brain in a similar (or better!) fashion. Then we would all want cochlear implants, and we would make the ear obsolete!

This road is a long one, but it is one we are travelling. In 10 years, I anticipate one of these avenues will show great promise, but a "cure" will probably take much more time.

Second, it is very clear that you are having trouble adjusting to your circumstances. I would highly recommend that you seek some sort of professional therapy to help you manage your worries. In this way you will live the best life you can so that you may live long enough to see the cure we are all so desperate for. A large portion of our understanding of the ear has came from the last 10 years, in 10 more we will be very far along, in 20 years? That sounds extremely promising, you will want to be ready,

 

Anyone else have thoughts on this? I would like some hope if it is really out there.

 

I think there will be a cure in 10 years. Or if there isn't one the trials would be so advanced that you'll at least be sure that one will arrive very soon.

Apart from Novartis there are at least 3 companies working on restoring hearing: Decibel Therapeutics, Frequency Therapeutics and Sound Pharmaceutical.

Plus there are some researchers like Rivolta or at a university in Japan that are working on it.

Decibel Therapeutics said one year ago that they hoped to start trials in three years, so that is not that far away.
Sound Pharmaceutical will most likely start trials in 2018.

 

It's honestly very hard to say as none of us can know for certain, BUT I do think we can afford to be cautiously optimistic about the future. I doubt we are going to say an 'all out cure' in the next 10 years. However, from what I've been seeing around the forum, in the research section etc, there is a lot of momentum gathering in this field. In the last ten years, particularly in the last few, we have really come a long way in our understanding of the inner ear and also in terms of devising potential treatments etc. Along with research departments, there are a lot of private companies putting money into this, and that's only going to increase IMO. I'm no expert and certainly not as knowledgeable as many others on this forum but I do think you have reason to be optimistic. Especially since you say you are in your 20s - I'm 20 so similar age-group and I definitely think at least there will be something within our lifetime.

 

Great post bro,,Mine started at 33...Now I am 53...yesterday was my 20th anniversary of T/H + hearing loss and balance issues.. Society is too loud and loud noise is what AIDS was in the 80's and smoking in the 90s..We need to make loud noise as uncool as smoking and unprotected sex

 

It'll never happen,the world loves loud noise,it's addicted to it and is set in its ways at this point.

Someone with a loud modified car isn't going to remove his exhaust pipe because some strangers ears hurt,he couldn't care less about people like me and you.

I see this all the time,even close family members who see the dreaded torture I go through on a daily basis still blast their IPods and go to really loud places.
If I can't convince them then who can I convince?Hell I can't even convince my uncle and he has T!

What we need is better awareness,to try and spread the message of what can happen to someone because of loud noise,at least that way people can't say they weren't warned.

They should make a TV advertisement,not just some guy saying"my ears ring and it sucks"as that leaves little to no impact on whose watching.What they need to do is show the true horrors of hearing damage and not sugarcoat it and make it look mild like they usually do.
They should show a person on the ground screaming in agony from H and going completely out of his mind from a screaming inside his head,the bad side of things should be shown like that poor lady Gaby.Then and maybe then the world might begin to wake up.

 

Well I guess that at the end, it might be good for us that the world is not aware of the danger of loud noise, it will just give us the cure sooner (the more people get T/H, the more money will flow into research)

 

Unless you are willing to explore some research yourself, there is no certain answer. I recall that you are a programmer, so why don't you try to think of some kind of way to contribute to the research? Or maybe figure out what happened in your individual case.

 

See if you can try a pair of Siemens/Signia Primax 7px hearing aids. I thought they were great but too expensive for me now. They took away the noticability of my tinnitus more than any hearing aid. They program up to 12khz so you will need an extended audiogram plus someone who understands the aids can program up that high as most aids only go to 8khz.

They make these pro audio recorders which have an output headphone jack that have a frequency range I would assume to 20khz but I am not sure if you can limit the amplification sound to a safe level and I don't know if they have an equalizer but it may be something you might could look into at a music store and ask the guys there about a device such as this. I would think though if these can't be safely amplified to the headphones they could be dangerous to ears so I would say be very careful if you tried one of these out.

https://www.amazon.com/DR-40-4-Trac...1484030413&sr=8-3&keywords=pro+audio+recorder

As far as a hearing loss cure, I think they may be able to find something out but not sure when. You can look up people getting cochlear implants for the first time on youtube and it is really wonderful but there may be some biological way they will be able to do in the future.

By the way, my tinnitus is not entirely maskable but I do wear hearing aids which have a masker built in and they help when I am in a quiet environment. When I get distracted I tune the masking and T out. I have medication now that is helping to clamp down depression and anxiety but I had those traits before T. A regular person might habituate on their own after some time.