Hypnotherapy / Hypnosis for Tinnitus

attheedgeofscience... How did you develop tinnitus as a child and do you remember actually having it, and how did you get it the second time, is it "reactive" this time around

 

The loudnesssmatch efficacy endpoint did show some improvement even though minimum asking level, there need to be MRI scans

 

I don't remember. I just know I have always had noise in my ear. It is a noise which can always be heard (no masking is possible) - but I would not consider the noise loud. It is unilateral, and that is how I know it isn't supposed to be there.

There are many possibilities:

1) Complications during birth (= lack of oxygen); I was born via Cesarean section. The doctors did not know something was wrong during labour because they had just started using some new equipment from Hewlett Packard (I was born in 1977). My Father worked for Hewlett Packard at the time - repaired the minor malfunction on the spot - and explained to the doctors how to use the equipment. And that's when they found out something wasn't right. And things went haywire from then on... Lack of oxygen during birth will not always lead to serious cognitive problems - but can sometimes present itself in minor indirect ways. Back in the days when I was born, if you could 1) move your arms and 2) scream, then doctors would assume everything was okay...
2) Low birth weight. Some medical studies have been released documenting the correlation between birth weight and hearing loss.
3) Hospitalization for a Yersinia infection in 1982. I was unable to track down my medical records from the hospital as they have since been destroyed. Yersinia is either left untreated to resolve on its own, or a certain class of wide spectrum antibiotics is used.
4) Blow to the head when I was 5 or 6.

Since I have always had it, it has not been much of a problem for me.

 

That is probably true.

But, given your long career in TRT, couldn't you invite one or two of your former patients to give their input on this forum? How did they experience the therapy? Was it time consuming for them? What exactly did the therapy consist of (in their own words)? When did they first begin to experience improvement? When did they reach a point when they felt - "wow, I no longer need to continue my therapy!"...? What was the cost?

Thanks.

 

I have had a long career in tinnitus - not just in TRT. More than half of the tinnitus patients I saw in my own clinic between 1997 and 2002 were treated with approaches other than TRT.

As far as inviting my own former patients - TRT or otherwise - to give their input on this forum, I guess I could, but I have absolutely no intention of doing so. Why would I want to bring back such a difficult time in their lives? If they themselves are moved to post on a support board, that's fine with me. But I want no role in it.

I have been very open with my own experience here. You can accept it or reject it. I have no dog in this hunt, and quite frankly I do not care either way.

FWIW, I do know of one fellow who used to be an admin on the Tinnitus Support Message Board posting under the nick Austin Powers. He also did TRT and described an experience quite similar to mine in that regard. He rarely posts any more, but you can try to somehow track him down if you are so inclined.

Stephen Nagler

 

Well, for those interested, here is one (positive) account of TRT. Somehow the account just doesn't leave me with a feel of what exactly TRT is (from that person's perspective). Needless to say, I know what it is, but I'd like the person going through the treatment to explain it to the reader. An account in other words...

http://tinnguy.tripod.com/index-3.html

 

...and here are some critical remarks of TRT by Dr. Wilden. Of course, the remarks are not an account as in the above post.

www.dasgesundeohr.de/pdf/trt_critik_EN.pdf

 

atheedgeofscience... did your tinnitus increase last year, is it not really a "problem" for you now?

 

Yes, I had an increase last year. Not sure what caused it. I had been sleeping with earplugs for several days in a row due to a nearby construction site that would begin work early each morning. I seem to have developed an inflammation in my ear back then. And then it started. I am still aware of my tinnitus, but it is somewhat better than it was.

Here is the exact improvement I have obtained so far:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/am-101-tactt1-results-released.1994/page-21#post-38500

 

when you say your improvement has been stable "no spikes" ... are you speaking of no spikes of several days, or no spikes of even 10 minutes or so, since your increase last year did you ever get any temporary spikes of minutes to hours? is your tinnitus relatively low frequency?

 

What Wilden is describing isn't TRT. Wilden is a scam artist describing what he wants people to think TRT is. Since you say in Post #37 above that you "know" what TRT is, I am surprised that you would cite Wilden's piece of garbage in your post. There are a number of legitimate reasons to criticize TRT; the fact that Wilden has to concoct a fantasy to do it says much more about Wilden's lack of integrity than it does about TRT's purported lack of efficacy.

Stephen Nagler

 

Wilden has TRT all wrong. His paper is an incredible hatchet job.

 

Yes, Jim, it's simply awful. As you say, "Wilden has TRT all wrong." Either Wilden is clueless or he's purposely distorting the facts.

I mean, the piece is off base from the very start:

"Lately there have been noted in the media, articles, which appear to appeal to the public to accept a therapy for Tinnitus patients called Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT). Tinnitus Retraining Therapy consists of using a type of sound (called 'pink sound') introduced into the affected ear of the patient several hours each day for months. For this the patient must wear a device, fitted into his ear, which produces this noise, and is known as a 'Noiser'."​

First of all, TRT does not use pink sound, second of all the sound TRT does use is always introduced into both ears, and third of all in many TRT cases devices other than 'Noisers' are used. So in Wilden's first paragraph he demonstrates an unbelievable degree of ignorance. And it just gets worse from there. Much worse!

Why anybody who supposedly "knows" TRT would bring such a grossly misleading hatchet job to the attention of this board is totally beyond me. Something's just not right here.

Stephen Nagler

 

@Dr Nagler and jchinnis

A lot of people say good things about Dr Wilden and that they have had great results with LLLT. Do you guys not believe that LLLT works? There are plenty of patient reports saying that they have had improvement in their hearing and that their T and H have improved.

What do you guys say about LLLT and Dr Wilden?

 

If LLLT does what Wilden claims it does, then he'd be up for a Nobel prize. And that's all I wish to say on the subject.

Stephen Nagler

 

I don't think LLLT works for tinnitus. Nothing about it makes any sense, and there hasn't been a randomized controlled trial showing efficacy.

 

I think that LLLT can nurse the innerear,give the living cells extra power and stimulate membrans for people with
pressure in the ears or menieres.But not regrow the dead haircells.

 

So you don't think it helps relieve tinnitus from damaged hair cells caused by acoustic trauma?

 

It's a good question, which I will follow up on with them.

 

No, I don't.

Stephen Nagler

 

Regardless of all the written testimonials on the website? What do you put that down to?

 

What do I put it down to?

I put it down to the following:

1) Anybody, including Wilden's brother-in-law, can write a testimonial. The presence of a testimonial on a website is no assurance whatsoever of its validity.
2) For all you or I know, there are 10,000 testimonials of utter failure. In fact, Wilden's failure rate might be worse than placebo failure rate ... and the LLLT might actually inhibit natural resolution of tinnitus. Who's to say?
3) There is not a single credible reliable and independently verifiable double-blind randomized prospective study in the juried scientific literature attesting to the efficacy of LLLT in tinnitus. The reliable and verifiable studies all point to lack of efficacy.
4) Tinnitus affects 20% of the industrialized world. Like I already said, if Wilden's claims are true, he'd have been awarded a Nobel prize.

From another poster on another tinnitus board:

The purpose of this thread is to provide information – and a reality check – about the use of Low Level Laser Therapy to manage tinnitus. The newly released Textbook of Tinnitus contains a chapter about this approach, and I offered to summarize the chapter, which was written by one of the book’s editors, Dr. Tobias Kleinjung, from the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University Hospital of Regensburg, Germany. Dr. Kleinjung is well-positioned to offer his views on laser therapy because he is familiar with the clinical use of laser technology in his field as well as the associated literature. As he explains, “hard” surgical lasers have been used successfully by neurotologists to remove tumors of the larynx and pharynx, and to perform stapes surgery.

Another type of laser, known as a “soft” or diode laser, has about one hundredth of the power of a surgical laser; therefore when a “soft” laser is used, it is known as low level laser therapy (LLLT). Soft lasers have been used to speed up the healing of injured peripheral nerves, cutaneous wounds, and burns. They have also been used for soft-tissue injuries, to reduce inflammation, and to provide relief from chronic pain. The clinical effectiveness of LLLT is controversial for each of these applications. That is, when used to treat tennis elbow, chronic pain associated with rheumatoid arthritis, and venous ulceration, some studies indicated LLLT was effective while other studies failed to show LLLT was effective in managing chronic pain. Another study concluded LLLT had a positive impact on the nervous system by preventing neuronal degeneration, improving neuronal function and repair, and enhancing neural growth.

Based on the positive studies, LLLT was proposed by Wilden to treat chronic disease of the inner ear (1996), by Mirz to treat tinnitus (1999), and by Tauber to treat cochlear dysfunction including chronic tinnitus and sensorineural hearing loss (2003).

Treatment in LLLT is performed with red to near infrared light. When used to treat tinnitus, the light is applied through the ear canal; however, we do not know if the laser light can penetrate the soft tissue, or reach the cochlea and cochlear hair cells. In addition, the strength of the laser light may be scattered and diffused by coming into contact with red blood cells and micro vessels. A study by Tauber (2001) using human temporal bones (specifically, the petrous – the hard portion of the temporal bone that forms a protective case for the inner ear) concluded only the transmeatal application of LLLT enables enough laser light to reach the entire cochlea whereas the application of laser light via the mastoid portion of the temporal bone did not enable enough light to reach the cochlea.
LLLT has been around for almost 20 years, and numerous placebo-controlled clinical studies have concluded LLLT provides absolutely no benefit when used to treat tinnitus and some inner ear conditions. Studies by Partheniadis-Stumpf (1993), Wedel (in a placebo-controlled study from 1995), Mirz (1999), Nakashima (2002), and Teggi (2009) concluded LLLT failed to treat tinnitus. Only a few reports have concluded LLLT can be an effective approach (e.g., Wilden’s 1996 study without placebo control, Shiomi’s preliminary report from 1997, Tauber’s 2003 feasibility study, and Gungor in 2008).

Wilden is the only clinician to claim LLLT can improve hearing thresholds – in 1999, he claimed in a trade journal that 80% of subjects said their hearing improved. However, there were no improvements in hearing in studies by Partheniadis-Stumpf (1993), Plath (1995), Mirz (1999), Tauber (2003), and Teggi (2009), and Nakashima reported in 2002 that one patient experienced acute hearing loss after the third laser treatment.
In an important review of randomized controlled clinical trials of LLLT and other alternative therapies to treat tinnitus by Meehan in 2004, no difference was found between laser and placebo.

Dr. Kleinjung concludes because "multiple placebo-controlled clinical studies failed to demonstrate significant efficacy, further studies are needed before this treatment modality can be recommended for routine clinical use."

rob x 2
​

Stephen Nagler

 

Wow, you sound very knowledgeable, thanks for the info....

 

Just my 2 cents worth going back to the original question about the efficacy of hypnosis. I am working with a good friend of mine on this who has a lot of experience with bodywork, hypnosis, NLP, etc. I will say this for now...when I was first hearing the sounds and really loosing it and feeling desperate, I found the hypnosis session to be of great help. It helped put me in a more positive mood and less "hopeless". And, from what I am reading, that is a big first step in helping to cope with tinnitus and eventually habituate to it.

I have not yet come to the conclusion that hypnotherapy on its own is a cure, but it has helped me to keep positive.

 

A GP friend told me of a consultant who used hypnosis on a patient with extreme eczema, and told him the scales on one side of his body would fall off by the next week and they apparently did. I have also heard of stage hypnotists who have people eating onions who think they are apples or just taste delicious. I therefore wonder why a hypnotist cannot make people ignore their tinnitus or even not hear it, by autosuggestion. Has this even been tried? Does anyone know?

 

Since it is more and more clear that T is in the brain / mind, I am amazed that there aren't more success stories of hypnosis with T. I think the key is to find a good hypnotherapist who also understands about T and about the one being treated. Not an easy equation...

 

Wish I could like this post a million times

 

I have heard that some have had good results with hypnosis. I don't have a good practitioner near me I was looking online and there seem to be a few T related ones for self hypnosis and I wondered if anyone has tried them or something similar.

One was called "Turn Down Tinnitus", there were also hypnotists that said they will work with T patients over Skype or the phone etc. I've heard so much about the snake oil salesmen so I'm cautious. I've never worked with hypnosis and haven't been very successful in learning to meditate. Mind wanders and now with the super loud T I don't know if it's even possible. However, it does seem that the only answer for most people is to find some way to live with it.

I'd appreciate any thoughts or experiences with these types of techniques!

Thanks

Barri

 

no but i'm interested if it helped tinnitus.

i've always thought hypnosis is offered for too many diseases and it's scam.

where have you heard these good experiences?

 

I downloaded "overcome tinnitus" by Glenn Harrold, haven't really used it on a regular basis so can't say if it works or not.
My friend used it though and found it relaxing but no effect on his t.