DIY Low-Level Laser Therapy for Tinnitus on a Budget — LLLT Under 100,-

@BBApple
I wrote like 3 times in this thread that I just ordered the item..

 

You said you already have a 1800mw and 10w light source and explained how you vary the angle around your ear. My head is spinning and it ain't vertigo.

 

@BBApple
yes but where does it say those are LED ?

I wrote before that these are filtered NIR light device - hospital grade large machines ..designed before high power LED were available.

Those output a combined beam made out of 600nm to 1500 nm wavelenght, peak at 1000 nm for a total of 1800mw for the one I bought used for 2000 dollars, and 10w for the other one which sits at a clinic asking $20 for 4 minutes session. (2 min per ear)

The device uses a 140w special lamp light source, filtered (polarized) to squeeze out only the wavelenths in the famous "therapeutic window" and the probe is a wide 1cm diameter.

I went and bought this device after speaking to Anne Harila in Norway - she told me that she got good results using different laser wavelenghts on people ears for T , so in essence this is it.

Back then on these forums there wasn't much info on LED - its was all about lasers like the lucky and WIlden's stuff..all this is going to be junk IMO.
Pumkinate made a nice high power LED headset but we haven't heard from him in whiles

 

Ok I see. And how much improvement did you experience with these light sources vs. the lucky laser?

 

i got more and faster improvements on the larger device than using the laser - I noticed sound got better and better like I was upgrading to better speakers every week or so , highs are crisper, bass is better etc...and less H ...and its a lot easier to do 10 min twice a week as its powerful rather than spending all this endless time with less powered smaller lasers.

Not that lasers don't work but again, there is a reason why Wilden uses a 20 w large laser with a wide beam - not those small laser toys - when he gets paying customers at his clinic.

My T is also softer these days, but this is going to take 2 more years to see how much T can go down. I don't expect this to be a T cure but a T softening.
We need some expectation management here - LLLT is no cure for T unless maybe done the first few days after trauma so its good to have one device ready at hand just in case.

Even Wilden does not present LT as a T cure - he says to expect a 20% hearing range improvement on avg. after his sessions provided you also protect your ears during the whole treatment.

Make sure you protect your ears from everyday loud sounds.

Now all this is for acoustic trauma - my issue - I have no idea if/how LT would apply to other causes.

 

Great post, @Bobby B. What kind of LEDs are used in the flashlight you suggested.

On further research it appears that 5W flashlight only has an output of 1.5W using a AA battery. This is likely still sufficient but curious your opinion here.

I've asked this question a few times as well. He did finally answer it though - his hearing loss is above 8k, so its hard to get physical proof. Even in the event he found a clinic that did it, he wouldn't have a "before" picture.

Lastly, I'm mostly sure that @gotyoubynuts is trolling, and kudos for having fun with life - but LED is used for skin conditions, and whatever else laser is used for also. To keep in the fashion of ball busting, I'll use this link: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=LED+THERAPY

 

I still don't understand how we would use one of these flashlights. Like, from what i've seen, other LLLT things use a single small diode positioned at the ear canal, so you can imagine how the light would refract up the canal to the ear drum and into the inner ear, but with a flashlight like this, say the lens is like the size of a Quarter (25 cent coin) would you hold the lens over your ear canal? If so, it would close up the flesh around your ear canal sealing it shut, is that what you would do, and the light goes through the flesh into your canal? Or would you hold it so gently against your ear, or slightly away from your ear so that you don't seal your ear canal shut? Even so I still feel you'd have to get the angle JUST right, and holding it still/at the right angle would be another issue.

 

The clinics don't place a laser in your ear. They aim a a large circumference light at your ear from a few inches away

 

You can see that the big laser dr Wilden uses covers the ear canal and around it from a distance so in response to your question the exact position doesn't matter much as you have enough zone coverage and power margin

 

I see so you would likely hold it away from your ear, still you would have to get the right angle, otherwise the light would still not be travelling down the canal.

I think even looking at the photos you showed, positioning does matter a lot, especially with an LED. If it doesn't have the right angle, the light would need to pass through flesh/skull to get to the inner ear, only the correct angle will ensure light will travel down/up the ear canal. I may be incorrect about this, I'm not a scientist.

 

The reason why Wilden isn't sticking a thin laser deep into the ear canal is because the ear canal isn't a straight tube - and all of the cochlea is not perfectly lined up behind the eardrum either - the Cochlea is cast in bone not floating behind the ear drum and at an angle behind the ear canal when looking from the top

Those front view, hand drawing illustrations make it look so simple.

And the auditory nerves are even further buried behind it and again , around the cochlea and cast in bone and buried in more tissue as well

Look at a few CT scans online

A wide diameter source of powerful light will cover all this better - more people have reported results by going to doc Wilden clinc than using his home lasers so there's the difference

 

Hi,

I have build my first LLLT device, it is powered by arduino nano but the led are not very powerful.
I have mesured the electric current 7 mA and the LEDs are supplied with 5 V.
So the power is less than 35 mW.
Now you speak about Watt power not mW so I think that my device is not enough powerful.
I will try anyway one hour per day.

 

This site is pretty interesting. A deep dive into LED light therapy.

http://heelspurs.com/led.html

 

Has anybody got that flashlight yet and been shining it in their ears?

 

Good find !
The "super lizer" in that link is what I have been using

 

Do you think there is any risk of damaging your hearing/inner ear with one of those flashlights?

 

If you seriously over do it maybe

But you will burn the surface of the skin and feel the heat before you burn stuff deep inside

But yes use it at your own risk

For DIY - LEDs are Far safer than lasers IMO
There are known instances where powerful lasers have caused damage in a fraction of a second
It's going to take a lot longer for LED especially the 850 nm range

 

Yes, I initially figured that the skin on the surface of your ear would burn first, BUT the interior of the ear is much more sensitive/delicate is it not? Can we be sure that it would not be damaged before the surface of the skin would?

 

I just contacted Dr.Wilden to book treatment at his clinic,May aswell do everything I can to try and heal the damage whilst I wait for my Stemcell treatment.I'll keep you posted.

 

any reason you chose Wilden over Kaiser? to the best of my knowledge Kaiser is user higher power machinery

 

Reason was purely to do with Wilden being the most talked about here and his work seems to be a little more popular,who is Kaiser?Can you give me any info on him?

 

Amon Kaiser is Wilden's son. The clinic is called Lumomed. It's in Germany. There is a lot of info on him on this site, obviously not in this thread as its a DIY page.

http://lumomed.com/en/home-2/

 

Thanks I'll check him out now,Wilden hasn't replied and I'm not sure about travelling to Ibiza,Germany might be a better option for me at this current time so I'll email him and try and get some more info.

I'll end it there as I don't want to derail this thread and take it off topic.If you want to hear how things went you can pm me.
Cheers.

 

what is the reasoning behind 20 mins, 2x a week (assuming 10 mins per ear) ??

 

Any reason you're choosing professional means, versus the flashlight talks about in this thread?

 

In this website the authors speak about a maximum of 100 mW/cm² and he say that 30mW/cm² is a good power.
He says that a power bigger than 150 mW/cm² heat too much the skin, how do you not burn yourself with 5 or 10 W
device?
Bobby B, why you use more powerfull LED device?

 

I used a pulsed on and off 1 sec so it does not burn the skin at all even at 10w

Pulsed is the way to go - high power to reach deep but no much surface heating

 

Thanks for the info Bobby B, really informative. One question; How far away do you approximately place the light from your ear?