Inner Ear Hair Cell Regeneration — Maybe We Can Know More

Yeah it is amazing went to tinnitus clinic told them about hearing restore they said only in mice don't hold your breath. Talked to an audiologist they had no idea about these companies. They work for hearing aid companies. As long as we have breath we have a chance everyday is a battle!

 

Turning down the CNS gain mechanism would be a starting point beyond the fixing hearing (conductive, sensorineural, etc)

 

Exactly. I've learned that this is an extremely niche topic. You wouldn't know much about this unless you actively kept up with research in the field. Which most ENTs, Audiologists, and doctors in general do not.

I was flabbergasted that the many inner ear biology PhD candidates i talked to had not even heard of this research.

All I'm saying is our naysayers don't have much credence unless their name is Dr. Salvi, Dr. Liberman, Dr. Tzounpolis, etc.

 

I only had the opportunity to talk briefly with audiologists, and ENTs during consultancy visits.
I will never forget this one ENT that told me it could be within my lifetime NIHL is curable. So he heard ,read or even participated in research. I was to flabbergasted to ask him more about this at the time. Also unfortunately a visit to an ENT is very limited time-wise.
Al other health professionals I talked to about this did not know about research or indicated it would not happen within decades, if ever. The fact some of them did not know, I still can not understand.

Is this scepticism or realism? There must be so much research that has been going on for decades and still does not get any application for patients.

Can the lay person comprehend the complexity of this regeneration process?
Even after reading many documents like some of us do?

 

That's basically what Frequency has started to do. They tried their treatment on the human inner ear (from a dead body) already.

 

As for hearing aid companies, there's not a lot of sounds of concern coming from these firms as far as I can tell. You would think they'd be starting to squawk about their rivers of gold potentially drying up. My audiologist knows nothing about hearing regeneration trials either.

Which makes me think that perhaps no one is really taking any of this stuff seriously. If these trials show any kind of efficacy, these industries are in line for some serious disruption.

 

@Fabrikat Well most audiologists still consider the 8khz hearing test as sacrosanct... despite it being out of date and only being useful to sell hearing aids How can those audiologists and hearing aid salespeople still be taken seriously...

 

It'll be like a new technology taking over. If you're in the horse-and-buggy business, there's just not much you can do even if you can predict the rise of the car. Another example is film photography and digital photography. The research and engineering are coming from an entirely different place, so getting involved with the new technology would essentially mean rebuilding the old company from the ground up.
It could be done, if a hearing aid company had realized that they're in the business of making people hear better and used their profits to get a foot in the curing hearing loss business. But that's a pretty rare move for any established company.

Once a cure for hearing loss arrives, the hearing aid companies probably aren't that cynical that they'll start complaining about their profits. They'll quietly fade away. Like our tinnitus.

 

The breakthroughs are relatively recent so I do think the tide is turning and that help is on its way. As others have stated, a medical cure for hearing loss is against the best interests of audiologists who will face a shrinking market for their $3000 hearing aids. When I brought up the recent research to one audiologist, he tried to scare me by saying the treatment to regenerate hair cells would cost a patient $50,000 [sic]!! Yeah... right....

 

Where can I apply for treatment
It is not that I am wealthy, but if there ever was a reason to get the money this is it.
Work day and night and see what I can sell .

But I agree. Although there is not yet prove that hair cell regeneration can happen in humans and improves hearing, I am optimistic.
How can you not be after all that is happening in 2017 alone.

 

@Samir I will test my ears later to get back to you whether I can hear up to 16khz (t in left ear)

 

They are aware of the developments. I read somewhere that they expect that the hearing aid market will disappear between 10-20 years. Hearing Health foundation - also doing hearing cure research - is sponsored by several hearing aid companies. Modern companies understand that the markets will change and might dry out one day sooner or later.

 

From the journals I have read, inner hair cell regneration may only work on regeneration SOME hearing loss and only in the case of acute hearing loss??

 

Hearing aids as an industry are going to drop drastically in value. There's a bill in Congress that both Democrats and Republicans support for making hearing aids OTC. Less market entry barriers = more competitors = cheaper hearing aids.

I don't think there's an industry that can or would get in the way of a treatment that cures sensorineural hearing loss.

 

Is Coleoptere saying that causes of deafness such as hair follicle damage of the inner ear are the only cause of tinnitus?

 

Robert Jackler on The Hearing Aid Industry

 

@Samir plz answer my above question

 

It seems the main opposition to OTC hearing aids are Audiologists and other hearing specialists. They say people don't have the ability to properly check their own ears for problems and to fit and utilize hearing aids.

For people without hearing problems this seems reasonable, but to us who do we all know about the hearing aid racket and how useless Audiologists and ENTs are.

But I wouldn't worry. Republicans and Democrats both support this bill. It'll pass. Then you can get hearing aids at best buy or Walmart.

 

There are at least two well-defined targets for reversing NIHL that can be studied, cilia and synapses. Repair those and observe the effect on hearing. What are the well defined targets for curing tinnitus? In other words, what is the etiology of T? If you can't locate the aberration, how do you fix it? With tinnitus, I think we're still in Phase 1, ie locating the problem.

 

Lol. Well here in the states our Congress is trying to remove pregnancy as a mandatory benefit on insurance plans while giving tax cuts to the 1%.

 

I just need to regenerate my cochlea HC and the GABA-receptors in my brain. Then I'll be happy!!