For Those with Hyperacusis/Noxacusis: Concern Over Being Able to Use "Auricle Device"

If Auricle comes to market...

Are any of you concerned that you will be unable to use it because it has an audio element? Especially since it appears it will be at least regular use and most likely daily use.

I know many people have sent the research team emails over the years, but I don't recall seeing anyone concerned with this aspect of the treatment. If anyone else has seen something related to this please post it in here.

 

Just depends on timbre, frequency, volume, and duration. This is a niche question so doubt anyone really knows the answer until we get our hands on the device and give it a shot ourselves. Personally, I’ll gladly risk a minor hyperacusis setback to treat my tinnitus, but I won’t risk a major hyperacusis setback.

Unrelated but I wonder if Westbrook gets traded before the deadline...

 

Since my hyperacusis severity has started to lessen up, I would most likely take a chance with it. Not sure for people with more severe cases of hyperacusis and noxacusis though.

I guess you could take a wait and see approach. I think the odds are good that others with hyperacusis or noxacusis are willingly to give this shot and if positive word comes out from using the device, you may then want to consider it. Try to find similar people who have similar issues and are willing to try it. Stay in contact with them once this device is out is my suggestion.

It’s quite possible. Westbrook’s contract is up next year and it’s a player option for $47 million (he will definitely take it). I can easily see some team wanting to trade for him, so they can free up huge cap space for the 2023 season. There’s going to be lots of free agents available that year.

 

With Lenire, I recall someone who spoke to them about the concern and they basically said they could disable the audio aspect of the treatment as it wasn't necessary. I never saw any follow up after they said that, but I do remember it. However, for a plethora of reasons I don't want to rehash, these devices are really nothing alike, so that's probably not the case for Susan Shore's device.

When my ears were much better than they are presently, I tried several times to use headphones at very low volume. Each time had no effect on my hyperacusis/noxacusis in the sense that it caused pain, but my reactive tinnitus would kick in and my tinnitus would also change tone. It happened every time so there was definitely something going on there. Being that a lot of us feel reactive tinnitus is an element of hyperacusis, I was definitely concerned that may have been some kind of warning sign that continuing to use the headphones may lead to problems. I checked the dB with my meter at home and it was only around 40 dB. The headphones are fairly good also, Beyerdynamic DT 1770 Pro.

I'm guessing at least 15-30 minutes treatment time regularly or daily. The headphone on the device will probably not be of extremely high quality if I had to guess. With people having such reactivity to things like phone speakers, putting what amounts to a cheap ear bud in doesn't seem promising lol.

 

There are a lot of questions I have about the feasibility of the Aurcle device. The stimulus has to be the exact sound of your tinnitus, for one. That's going to be tricky...

 

@GoatSheep, surely the whole point of bimodal stimulation is having electric and auditory stimulation. If what they say is true, you may as well just electrocute your tongue.

Well this has always puzzled me. How did they match the tone in animals?

How do they match to multi-tonal or more 'noise' type tinnitus?

 

Yes, I agree with what you say about Lenire.

—————

@dd314, @Nick47:

Auricle will not require exact matching to your tinnitus sounds. This has been made clear since the trial was posted to the ClinicalTrials.gov site, but unfortunately people have mostly glossed over it. I don’t believe it’s been mentioned anywhere else in detail.

Reversing Synchronized Brain Circuits With Targeted Auditory-Somatosensory Stimulation to Treat Phantom Percepts

I’ve included a screenshot with the specifics.

 

So there is an allowable error range? Good to know.