Is There Any NHS Funded Tinnitus Research Going On?

One in ten people suffer from tinnitus.

Is there any NHS funded research?

I have suffered for 4 years and my tinnitus is getting worse. My GP just shrugs and looks bewildered.

We need to pressure the Government to find research into this debilitating condition. So how do we start a revolution?

 

I think the answer to your question is No - though happy to be corrected if anyone knows of anything. One of the big challenges of tinnitus research is trying to get money spent on the right sort of research. For example internationally there have been around two hundred clinical studies done on the use of CBT for tinnitus (source British Tinnitus Association) - all with pretty much the same findings (that it helps some people a little bit but not very much).

That's a huge amount of time and money wasted in repetition of research. In contrast comparatively little recent research has been done on medication for tinnitus. So it's not just research which is needed - it's the right type of research.

 

the tinnitus community is cucked so hard

 

Wow, that's interesting. I know some people like to argue that the psychology focused doctors take control of the research for some conditions. I think with tinnitus it is very clear that with it being rooted in the brain there is a large psychological element both in its maintenance – for some people – and in how people cope with it. From the limited amount I have read it sounds like there is a dearth of biological research into the actual mechanism of tinnitus generation in the brain, and against that kind of background I suppose medication trials will often fail and I wonder if that has led to the focus on CBT.

 

I think a good part of the answer is that CBT trials of tinnitus patients are relatively easy to organise - quite a lot of it is box ticking. In contrast developing a new drug for tinnitus is a lot more challenging. I don't argue that all the past CBT trials for tinnitus have been a complete waste of time. But there comes a point when we say - 200 CBT clinical trials for tinnitus. Actually we don't want scarce tinnitus funds being spent on any more - what we need is good quality biomedical research.

 

Agree. Do you do any campaigning around this?

 

Like most of us I'm sure I'd like to do more. I'm particularly focused on challenging some of the information about tinnitus on some of the main information websites in the UK - particularly anything which I believe downgrades or minimises the impact of tinnitus on sufferers' lives.

I've been able to get information about tinnitus on the main NHS website changed in the past. At the moment I am challenging information on the BTA website which suggests that for the great majority of tinnitus sufferers the condition has no impact at all on their lives. I don't think claims such as this are at all helpful for our cause and I doubt how correct they are. The BTA are investigating at the moment so hopefully this may be something which changes in the future.

 

Yes, the NHS does fund tinnitus research. It does this via the National Institute for Health Research network. It funds basic sience research via the Medical Research Centres and translational research via biomedical research centres.

The largest one looking at tinnitus is Nottingham; http://www.hearing.nihr.ac.uk/
Centres in hearing Manchester https://www.manchesterbrc.nihr.ac.uk/our-research/hearing-health/
And UCL, London; https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ear/evident
also have overlap with tinnitus research

 

@David @Steve

How does one go about donating to show support for Dr. Will Sedley's research?

Thanks, TC