Doctor I Saw Has Amazing Research/Possible Tinnitus Cure

I went to this doctor: Harrison Lin of UCI. I went to him for my own ear issues and I had no idea of this study. I only knew that he was somewhat of a local doctor that had already been published for research on tinnitus.

They have been given a grant to do a study on electricity in the ear. He said that the medical community has known for quite some time that that temporarily quiets tinnitus. This doctor has tinnitus himself.

They will be starting clinical trials soon. The long term goal would be to create a surgically implanted device to quiet tinnitus. He told me and I quote "this is 5-10 years away."

Here is the research paper or whatever you call it:

http://faculty.sites.uci.edu/hesplab/files/2015/08/2015-Zeng-Djalilian-Lin-Current-Opinion.pdf

 

I'm trying to hold out hope for treatments but it's hard. I'm always so skeptical.

 

I know I totally understand. This was one I hadn't heard of yet. We can cross our fingers right?

 

Interesting, but seems they plan this treatment to be quite invasive. Implantation will always carry certain risk (worsening T in particular). So I think if introduced this will be for desperate ones

 

That would be great.

 

Only when medical community move away from ridiculous attempts to cure tinnitus by treating ear and start concentrating on the brain we may see a chance of some relief.
Until then......

 

electricity has an effect on the brain as well. Apparently what he said to me is that it's already well known that electricity quiets it.

 

Its a package. Where do you think the brain gets its stimulus from? If you want to extrapolate from tinnitus sufferers that recover, a much higher percentage are those that don't have hearing impairment because the input to the brain isn't compromised by a deficit from the cochlea.

So addressing the brain in isolation or the hardware that provides the signal to the brain in isolation isn't a pathway to the solution.

There is a lot of criticism on this board from laypeople that denigrate a given study. There are no bad studies. A solution...there maybe many...to solving tinnitus will be built upon the exhaustive trial and error failures of preceding trials, each a stepping stone to the solution.

 

Thanks for sharing the input from your doctor with us. As simplistic as it is, yes, hair motion within the cochlea converts to an electrical stimulus to the brain that the brain processes which creates the individual illusion of sound.
Technically there is no such thing as sound FWIW, it is an illusion of the brain. Percussive waves of air displace the eardrum which displace hairs within the cochlea that correlate to different frequencies which convert to respective electrical stimuli of the brain. In the case of those of us with tinnitus, the brain is inventing i.e. adding a sound that doesn't correlate to air percussion.

 

In the study they refer to paper published 2 years ago by Polish scientists
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4010715/

Interesting publication suggesting that indeed electrical stimulation can reduce or even eliminate T. Since I'm from Poland I mailed the authors if they continue the tests with patients and if I can be enrolled. I'm waiting for their feedback

 

Mentos,
Please share their response with us if you would.
thanks

 

Yea, here's to hoping.... once more.

 

There are people deaf as door knobs with not an inkling of tinnitus, explain that....

 

I can't of course, nor can the best scientists that have studied tinnitus in great depth. I don't disagree that tinnitus is brain generated. If you believe this as well, then we agree. But, most that have studied this believe that tinnitus is not independent of a hardware deficit, i.e. hair loss within the cochlea or a deficit to the auditory cortex. There is synergy between the way the brain processes sound based upon the electrical stimulus provided by the cochlea and/or auditory cortex. I will give you an example. A young person...we have a few here, goes out to a club with friends and sits near the band where dB levels are 120. They come home and the next day they have short term tinnitus. There is clearly damage...either to the cochlea due percussive air waves and/or auditory cortex exceeding its sensatory norm...or neural pathways revised from exceeding normal sound thresholds without major damage to hardware. When this pattern of clubbing in addition to earphone use is followed, a given person sets themselves up for long term tinnitus. Chicken and egg, which came first. So many believe there is linkage between hardware and the way the brain processes this 'revised' analog signal provided by changed input from the cochlea.

Aside from stone deaf people without tinnitus, there are also those with pretty good hearing with tinnitus like me.
We agree that the way the brain processes the electrical stimuli from the cochlea and auditory cortex is key. People with tinnitus seem to introduce a pseudo norm of sound...conjectured this sound is created by the morphing of neuropathways generally precipitated by changes in hardware...where the cochlea changes due to aging which is common...or precipitated by a loud sound...or in the case of an infection which can cause hair loss and degradation of function.

There are no guarantees for example that repairing the cochlea will eliminate tinnitus. So perhaps the cure will be related to bending the arc of neuropathways by altered electrical stimuli by implants or stimulating the vagus nerve or a combination not even tried yet. Or...intercepting the signal completely and with a micro processor, altering the signal such that it masks the objectionable frequency we perceive...or eliminates it by processing. To me the sky is the limit in terms of number of options.

I will share my belief. Tinnitus will be solved. It may take 30 years on the outside and perhaps 5 years for at least hopeful gains. Medicine as we know it will be virtually unrecognizable in the future. 50 years from now aging will be reversible. DNA will be unraveled sufficiently for all major diseases and scientists will learn now only how to regress but reverse the degradation of cells known as aging.

 

I also have heard much about electrical stimulation in the Cholera. I am currently on a waiting list to have a Cochlear Implant done on my left ear. This is being done for my sudden and profound deafness and not for tinnitus. Of course I have nasty tinnitus in both ears and am pretty much deaf other than some "residual" hearing in my right ear.

What I have learned in my extensive research on this surgery and from the surgeons at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Toronto, is that if a deaf person has no tinnitus, the implant will typically give them some. If a person like myself who already suffers loud tinnitus has an implant, it almost always decreases the tinnitus in the ear the implant is done on.

So this made all the surgery risks even more worth while. I may be able to hear half decent in my ear again AND reduce tinnitus. I will know more once I get the call for surgery. The waiting list is long but at least I'm getting one........one day!! Will let yea know if this lowers my T. The implant is basically electrical stimulation in the Cholera but tuned mainly for sound processing.

 

Mike,
We are pulling for you brother and wish you the best possible outcome of lowered T and restoration of hearing.
Can you define what caused your hearing loss and tinnitus? Any defining event in your life or lifestyle over time?..or do you believe genetics played the key role...perhaps a combination?

 

Ah yes. The defining moment. Well to begin with I was never really protective of my hearing. I was always a musician part time, mostly for fun, and was a drummer in a few local bands for many years. Played quite a few local pubs etc. So that really started my tinnitus back in 2005. Was not bad tho, just mild ringing. Slowly got worse but not crazy worse that it effect me. I also worked in loud environments. Never really took care of my hearing.

In 2011, I had to go for emergency surgery on my left kidney (only one I have) and was 2 days home recovering from this surgery when I woke up almost completely deaf and crazy crazy loud tinnitus. I come to find out a renal drug they give to patience like me suffering a serious failure may be the culprit. It is known as a "slow push drug" that needs to be administered very slowly into the system. I was pretty sick the day I went into the hospital and didn't pay attention to everything so.......... hard to say! The drug has been known to be nasty on hearing and tinnitus!!! Might have been administered far too quickly?? Seems to fit in with the sudden hearing loss and huge spike in my tinnitus tho. Also had a couple different antibiotics and medications post surgery so a combination of drugs??? hmmm

The kidney surgery was a success and no more issues there. Really thought my hearing was going to come back, but it just faded and faded away.

Appreciate everyone pulling for me. You guys rock!

 

I got an anwer that they still use electrical stimulation as treatment for Tinnitus in Lodz, Poland, but I need to be referrred to them by an ENT since they don't do it commercially but only as a part of public health program. It's the same institute where they conducted double blind placebo in 2014 with encouraging results. I have an appointment next week in Polish Tinnitus Clinic and I'll try to make them enroll me for electrical stimulation treatment. They claim 45% success rate in improving T with electrical stimulation, but on the same page they say TRT has 80% and is more effective...Since TRT is not something I believe in, so these kind of statistics are no more than bullshit to me. Still it should not harm me to give electric stimulation a try so I'll do mz best to try it. I will let you know how things go.

 

There is also a genetic link. My dad had hearing issues from working in a large automotive plant all his life. I never did find out if he had tinnitus. He has long passed on and never will know.

 

Good luck Mentos. Keep us posted.

 

Thanks Mike for your background and of course good luck with restoration of your hearing.

Mentos, do you live in Poland? Or are you flying there for the electrical therapy? All of us are very interested in your results and wish you well.

 

I'm Polish living 250km from the clinic that does this treatment. Just had a talk with my psychiatrist and she strongly encourages me to try this electrstimulation, she says such treatments have positive impact on other brain related issues including depression

 

We all wish you well Mentos and hope it improves your symptoms.

 

Just had a talk today with a doctor that conducts electrostimulations, these are everyday sessions for a period of 2-3 weeks. Next week she will review my audiogram, otoemission and ABR results and based on that decide if I qualify for the treatment. If so quite likely I'll have my sessions in November. I'll see if they can do any good for me, should not hurt to try

 

The latest research suggests damage plus the presence of cortisol (stress hormone) is what causes the onset of tinnitus.

 

Paulie,
Thanks. Aside from the monumental task of executing a cure...based upon your study of the latest research...your thesis of this perfect storm seems feasible... any prevailing theories how this can be reversed i.e. repair of cochlea in combination with blockage of stress hormone?...presuming this is what precipitates changes in neural pathways i.e. affect to neural plasticity? Unringing this bell has been a daunting challenge so far...overlaid with some optimism that neural pathways can be altered.

 

"Stress" hormones arrive with stress, so the presence of elevated cortisol levels could be part of the internal response to a tinnitus-causing injury rather than as part of the immediate cause. It comes from the adrenal gland and as a drug it is analogous to hydrocortisone, which we are recommended to receive as a first line of treatment for T/H/SSHL for anti-inflammatory effect. I think the presence of cortisol is more likely to be an observation of what's happening in the blood at the time the specimen is taken rather than what is happening at the time of the injury becoming apparent. Not arguing, haven't seen the research, but its just what I understand of how the human body works.

 

In the presence of high levels of cortisol (proceeding cochlear hair fibre loss) too much Glutamate is released and tinnitus starts. Essentially this is what drug AM101 hopes to prevent (in the acute stage).

 

Interesting point PaulBe...cortisol being a symptom and not a contributing cause of injury to the hearing apparatus.
It just seems...if you read many accounts on this forum including personal experience of when I contracted tinnitus this past April, that stress is a precipitating agent. Countless references to anxiety being present at the time tinnitus is contracted and stands to reason that anxiety brings along elevated stress hormones being liberated into the blood stream. And of course people's anxiety level spike once tinnitus is contracted as it scares the hell out of everybody.
So whether elevated stress hormones facilitate injury to the hearing anatomy....or are symptomatic of the injury to hearing anatomy...stress and anxiety seems to be woven into what causes tinnitus and even hang around well after for many. Which begs the question of preceding stress in the lives of those that contract tinnitus. If because of brain chemistry, are those people preordained to higher stress levels throughout their lives...are they a higher risk group to contract tinnitus? I know its hard to extrapolate this precisely from anecdotes given here, but seems to be the case.

 

Two people could have same critical hair fibre loss, but one or both may develop tinnitus. The difference could very likely be their stress levels.