Is Bimodal Stimulation Suitable for Those with Noise-Induced Hearing Loss or Somatic-Based Tinnitus?

A question to those that carefully follow the emerging tech of bimodal stimulation.

Many know tinnitus result from different pathologies. There is an active thread in fact asking members what they believe the origin of their tinnitus to be.

As with many aging boomers, I have high frequency hearing loss in both ears, more in my left ear which coincides with my loudest tinnitus which is more prevalent on my left side.

For me, this is clearly a nerve deficit due to a lifetime of sound exposure... likely loss of hair cells within the cochlea. I haven't had a defining and overwhelming episode of sound, but suspect a cumulative sound exposure by living my life. I also have a hereditary component as well, in particular on my mother's side, whereby family members become hard of hearing with and without tinnitus as they age.

To thicken the plot, there is a clear somatic component to my tinnitus. It may in fact be the underlying provocation of my tinnitus in fact over and above or interacting with my hearing loss. I have a background in bicycle racing and have had ongoing neck issues as do many bike racers. As another data point, I can get out of a swimming pool and dance on one leg with head tilted to knock the water out of my lowered ear and my tinnitus spikes like hitting a tambourine, for lack of a better description. This suggests that pressure of some sort maybe a contributor to my tinnitus.

My question pertains to tinnitus type and application of bimodal stimulation as a possible therapy. Perhaps many have the same question as we consider whether this technology may help us.

Is bimodal stimulation suitable for those with damaged/lost hair cells within the cochlea due to life long noise exposure or... somatic based tinnitus whereby the body seems to be the principle contributor?

Thanks for any clarification from somebody that understands these relationships.

 

Yes.

 

Thanks Greg.

A further reduction of my question...
Is bimodal stimulation alleged to be helpful to those with damaged/lost hair cells within the cochlea?

Thanks again.

 

Do you mean:

or

 

Will rephrase...

If a person is assessed to have damaged/lost hair cells within the cochlea which results in hearing loss and tinnitus, will bimodal stimulation help reduce tinnitus?

Thanks.

 

We don't have too much data about any of this stuff, but from what you've said it sounds like you have "typical" HL-connected tinnitus. Based on my understanding of the study from being a lab rat, really as long as you have enough hearing to be able to understand speech and hear the beeps, and you can modulate your tinnitus sound to some extent by moving your head, jaw or neck, then you're a potential candidate.

 

Isn't Lenire and University of Michigan's devices for non-somatic tinnitus too? I highly expected they were.

 

In theory, yes.

 

Thanks linearb. Encouraging news.

 

And yes, the spirit of my question TheDanishGirl…. What you wrote is precisely what I was wondering about and sounds like your understanding is the same as linearb and GregCA. Discussion about these devices so far has seemed to suggest that, synchronizing sound with stimulus aka bimodal stimulation, can morph the plasticity of the brain to hopefully shift excitation of the neurons which causes our tinnitus based upon Somatic or body influence.

If bimodal stimulation can benefit from what linearb calls more traditionally based hearing loss aka nerve damage within the cochlea as well, that would be a huge benefit to the tinnitus community.

Reason is... Perhaps many if not most of us have some level of interaction between what linearb calls traditional hearing loss tinnitus and somatic based tinnitus.

In fact it could be further speculated that what pushes many of us into the chronic or acute type of tinnitus is the 'interaction' of traditional hearing loss interacting with our particular anatomy i.e. our body that magnifies our tinnitus.

Of course the origin of tinnitus, why some suffer from tinnitus and others don't with the same level of hearing loss... or those with measurably good hearing that have tinnitus, this nexus is complex as often written about. Perhaps it could even be speculated that the people that have chronic or acute tinnitus like many of us here that come to this forum for hope of relief, most of us have a combination of traditional hearing loss and somatic, ergo; body influence, somatic or body influence perhaps being the core of why our traditional hearing loss based tinnitus is exaggerated to a chronic level.

In other words, chronic suffers have more of a literal and figurative 'perfect storm'... The body magnifying our traditional hearing loss or nerve damage within the cochlea.

 

Thanks Greg.

 

Being able to modulate your tinnitus with muscle movements of some kind was a requirement for UMich's phase I, and for the current phase II afaik. The whole mechanism is based on the idea that somatosensory nerves are crossing over into audio.

I'm less sure of Neuromod's criteria and also generally more suspicious of them as an entity.

 

A good distinction thanks and the conversation I was hopeful for really. It's complicated.
Perhaps nerve damage within the cochlea without what you write... a somatosensory nerve linkage, isn't resolvable with bi-modal stimulation.

But for many, and perhaps most, tinnitus maybe some percentage of both cochlea impairment and somatic influence... perhaps for many of us with more worse case tinnitus.... perhaps the body aka somatic influence amplifying our tinnitus... for those of us with at times loud tinnitus.

 

I know University of Michigan's device is for somatic tinnitus only (as of now - who knows if it will work on non-somatic too) but I am pretty sure University of Minnesota's device and Neuromod's Lenire are for non-somatic tinnitus too.

 

Well, all these devices work by exactly the same principle, so, time will tell.

In any case no one expects any of them to work for 100% of people.

 

Do you have head and ear noise and what impact did Dr. Shore's device have on it?

I think I read you have/had central head noise?

 

i posted a lot in the Dr. Susan Shore thread in the Research News forum about the specifics. Location of noise doesn't matter as long as your tinnitus modulates to some extent with physical movement.

 

Following.