Low-Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) for Tinnitus — Experiences (Dr. Wilden, etc.)

I'm trialling it with a 10sec on/10sec off cycle at the moment. I've got one 940nm and one 850nm chip (who knows what is best!) and I turn the headset around half way through. The duration of the session is limited by comfort levels.

Note that these are very high output chips, they consume around 50W and put out around 20 and 25 watts respectively of IR radiation.

 

@Pumpkinate
very cool ! yes this is the way to go, maybe 1 sec on 1 sec off is better but if you get that deep ear pressure effect and higher T this is a very good sign.
I had these effects as well the first time I used the more powerful device and laser as well.

What is in the white box ? how do you power this and do you need such a heat sink ?
I received my 2 dollars 5w LED, from that ebay seller from China -these are much smaller than I though the LED has 4 tiny chips and measures about 5 mm in diameter.

Haven't tried them yet as I need to figure out how to power up all this.
Will just mount them on a stick and wear eye protection so that I can adjust the position and angle

With phototherapy you cannot measure success by monitoring T as it will have ups and down and perception of T will change.

A spike is good especially if you notice sound quality improvements that go with it.

The best is to look for improvements in hearing and less H.

You can use the generalfuzz site and look for your gaps and how they fill in along the scale and also how music sounds - sounds will be crisper and bass better if you have healing.

With firearms, you usually have high frequency loss which means that the brain tries to compensate by increasing the gain on the highs - so that deep bass and low frequencies sound becomes weaker to the brain.

Therefore a sign of improvement would be better bass rendering by the brain, when listening to music or you own voice.

Also voices of other people too, less tinny and deeper.

I don't think the constant, baseline hiss/T is going to be "cured" with photo therapy, this should not be the expectation but the T sound may get a bit softer and higher in pitch after several months of treatment.

Its going to take time but if the unit is powerful it may be a lot faster

 

On the more powerful device I do 1 second on and 4 seconds off to give time to cool as you don't want too much heat inside the ear.

One way of monitoring the "safety" would be to look for vertigo, try to stand up and see if you feel like you are drunk and the head and eyes seem to be spinning around for a while

 

Within the box are two LED constant current drivers and a flashing circuit. It looks more complicated than it is in reality, I broke the screw connectors off the flasher (whoops) and had to open it up and solder directly to the circuit board:



With LEDs you need a constant current driver, for whatever current they are made for. Most of the drivers are also dimmable which is handy. You must use a heatsink! If an LED is x% efficient the other (100-x)% of its consumed power goes into heating the LED. In my case that's around 25-30W in a chip the size of a large coin. Without a heatsink it would rapidly cook itself and LEDs are sensitive to high temperatures. You can see why I wanted a quality chip, it's because of the efficiency and hence the thermal management. I've been into DIY LEDs for years, I have 10 80W chips over my aquarium.

I'll try increasing the frequency, my flasher will go up to 3Hz. How long and often do you think I should use this therapy? Thanks for your help!

 

great - yes please give us more info on how to setup these LED as this is definitely the future of photo therapy even though lasers have some advantage of their own.

The most diffiucult question is to know how long and how often we should do it - no one really knows - I usually waited until the ear "pain" or pressure went away to start again which usually took a day or two..the docs mention taking breaks too..but who knows exactly how much and how often.

20w is a lot I would just do 5 minutes per day or every two days for a while, I don't think you can rush healing and some processes start a few days or a week later... or maybe do 2 minutes twice a day at 12 hours interval

 

Thanks.

Putting LEDs together is very simple DC circuitry. Unlike most DC devices you need to give them a set current rather than a particular voltage.

An LED driver has terminals for your AC input and positive/negative terminals for the DC output to the LED. Most will have another couple of terminals for dimming too (optional).

When you buy an LED it will typically be described by its power consumption, a working current (and a maximum current not to exceed), and a typical voltage required. All you need to do is go to one of the electronic component websites such as Digikey, RS components etc and search for a "constant current" LED driver with that output current. In the resulting list of results you need to choose one that also has an appropriate voltage range, ie there will be 300mA drivers that put out 1-3V or 5-10V etc.

You can run multiple LEDs from one driver in series but not in parallel. If you run them in series then you must have a driver that can provide a sufficient voltage range... ie if you put 5 LEDs in series that each need 300mA and 5V then the driver must do 300mA AND a voltage range allowing for 5x5=25V.

You can use a driver with a lower current output than the working current but of course you will get a lower output from your LEDs.

The LEDs if of the flat chip form must be attached to a heatsink and you need a thermal conducting agent between them, the classic is Arctic Silver (silver paste).

If you are buying bigger LEDs like I did they may come prewired and so there is literally no soldering necessary, just joining wires and terminals however you prefer.

If you want some form of on-off flashing control just go to Ebay and search and you will find various flashing circuits that you wire into the AC line before the driver.

 

Another update..... Today my ears are definitely the worst they have ever been in terms of tinnitus volume, discomfort, and hearing distortion (although that could just be the tinnitus volume on top of my hearing). This could be a coincidence as the severity does drift around but Sunday evenings are generally a better time for me, after a weekend of quiet. I went into using these earmuffs expecting them to do nothing at all (I still thought it was worth a try). It now does look suspicious that the IR does do something to the inner ear. I just hope this is a spike before it improves again....

 

The goal is to send light as cells react to light but without heating tissues as heat can damage cells - it's phototherapy not heat therapy .
Maybe 20w at the longer wavelengths gives too much heat .
But you know this better than all of us since you use light in your work .

I found I got sometimes ear pain and a slight pressure effect at times for a while after the sessions but never got distorted hearing in fact I could cleary notice sound to be crisper and ears better picking up very low volume sound

 

Be careful man, and give yourself plenty of time to heal... That's a lot of energy.

 

I am doing 10w every 2-3 days But for one minute only and pulsed , gives plenty of heat ! That in addition to the regular lucky laser sessions everyday
I am convinced that the shorter visible waves like 650 have some effect as well , even though it's a lot harder to penetrate deep into the skin

 

Too much heat kills cells but a little bit of extra heat is good to protect the hair cells 12 hours later from noise damage & ototoxic drugs via HSP70 increase. There is a sweet spot.

Heat Shock protein HSP70 comes into play in many studies:

http://www.cu.edu.eg/data_journals/6/articles/1149/submission/copyedit/1149-2226-1-CE.pdf

Conclusion: Occupational noise exposure constitutes a stress factor on the auditory system and affects the capabilities of the system. Noise exposure leads to the production of Hsp70 which has a protective effect. Anti Hsp70 are produced at high noise levels and may have a role in the pathogenesis of sensorineural hearing loss associated with noise exposure.

http://www.nature.com/articles/mtm201519

Our data show that HSP70 augmentation may represent a potential therapy attenuating ototoxic inner Hair Cell loss.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23049238

http://biomedicaloptics.spiedigitallibrary.org/article.aspx?articleid=1166974

Induction of heat shock protein (Hsp) expression correlates with cytoprotection, reduced tissue damage, and accelerated healing in animal models. Since Hsps are transcriptionally activated in response to stress, they can act as stress indicators in burn injury or surgical procedures that produce heat and thermal change. .....
.... Hsp70 induction varied with changes in laser pulse durations and radiant exposures, which defined the ranges at which thermal activation of Hsp70 can be used to protect cells from subsequent stress, and reveals the window of thermal stress that tissues can endure.

So here is another potential application of Near Infrared light laser/LED, if you do it "correctly" every other day at 810nm you can protect your hair cells from daily noise damage via HSP70 upregulation - the effect may lasts only 48 hours though - but with no side effects and no running costs

 

@Pumpkinate
How are your ears mate ? Any improvements ?

 

http://hyperacusisresearch.org/low-level-laser-therapy/

a document about hyperacusis sufferer after using LLLT in Madrid...

 

I know this is old but why you said that?

 

For several thousand dollars, you can go outside of the NHS/local health services to see someone who specializes only in shining lights on people will shine a light in your ear/vein for a while. Also, the cochlea and auditory nerve are encased so deeply in our skulls that the light cannot reach them. Or, the "doctor" could sell you the "specialized" laser for another several thousand dollars and you could shine it on yourself as much as you want. You tell me that sounds reputable.

I personally own a laser pointer that's powerful enough to pop balloons. I can't imagine that the thermal energy from that handheld device could possibly stimulate my inner ear to regenerate...

 

This is untrue to say the least and much more nuanced in reality, the auditory nerve can not be damaged in the bone and since there are no synaptic clefts there is no possibility of injury due to acoustics or toxicity.

Science is not limited to your imagination. It's not thermal energy, we have plenty of that in our bodies, it's the electrons provided by the light to the cytrochrome c oxidase proteins in the mitochondria, allowing them to metabolize ATP and growth factors... I had just posted that ATP production has been shown to regenerate the CNS in Research News.

It's much more useful to be skeptical instead of dismissive of things we can't yet imagine.

 

Light does not provide or interact with electrons, because photons are not atomic particles. They have no electric charge. It's high school chemistry.

Light consists only of photons, which are sub-atomic particles (meaning they are smaller than atoms). Electrons are atomic particles; negatively-charged ones that orbit the nuclei of atoms, cancelling out the charge of the protons in the nucleus to create a stable element.

 

Light does not affect electrons?...
Balls... I guess Einstein was wrong after all in 1906...
Well.. gonna go tell my professors I should not have passed my quantum and electrodynamics classes.

Electrons aren't fermionic either... Oh crap... hang on I'll tell my particle physics professor his charts are all wrong. Could you please change the wikipedia page on electrons, that's basically where I learned for all my exams.

Cough... cough... ATP synthase... cough cough... Cellular cough respiration... cough Redox agents....

 

I'm very skeptical of LLLT, but we do have some here claiming they have had improvements with it, seems like something needing more investigation. I'm glad you are looking into it further @Cityjohn.
Haven't had the chance to read through the links you posted yet.

I think it's wise to be cautious when shining energy into your ears. I have confidence you know how to determine safe levels for yourself Cityjohn, but others might be a little less cautious.
Still waiting on an update from @Pumpkinate; hope things have improved for him.

 

No, I know about the photoelectric effect, but as far as I know, Leonard, Becquerel, and Einstein's work only revealed that the effect applies to gases, metals and simple, nonliving material on the atomic scale, the key words being as far as I know. Cells are a LOT bigger and FAR more complex than individual oxidized atoms. Each individual cell in the human body contains somewhere near 20 trillion atoms, not all of which are affected by light.

If you want to gain a supporter of LLLT, you can shoot me some articles explaining how natural metabolic cellular processes (ATP production), cellular respiration, and oxidation, lead to CNS cells, which have no inbuilt reproductive capacity, reproducing. I might add that all of these things occur already in human CNS cells all the time, and it does not cause them to divide.

If LLLT caused CNS regeneration, we'd have a LOT less people in wheelchairs. (The auditory system is part of the CNS, which does not regenerate.)

I get that cells contain some metallic atoms that could be affected by photoelectric oxidation, but I don't understand how a cell losing electrons by photoelectric oxidation causes it to divide and fix damage, especially if the cell does not have the genetic ability to divide and repair damage on its own, and also because the cell does not consist 100% of noble gases and metals, which are affected by light.

 

If it works I will find that it does and prove it unequivocally, if it doesn't work, same. I'm in the habit of leaving to room for discussion. I pray that my DIY thread did not spark something that made someone worse. 25W is a lot, I would not try that myself and I don't feel particularly good about this.

I understand, a forum doesn't exactly allow for an easy overview of everything someone has shared. And annoyingly I can't even easily find it myself. Luckily my accumulated studies are filed in my bibliography.
Far from wanting to gain supporters I'm here to explain how it works, so that people can catch me making mistakes, not least because I need to find criticism to the current literature so that I may gain more perspectives on my upcoming research.

Did you read the paper I had shared in Research News yesterday/today? That's an excellent starting point to answer your main question. I can keep quoting, please take 5 seconds to google how LLLT works on the cellular level and then read this hit: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3288797/ The chapter, CELLULAR AND TISSULAR MECHANISMS OF LLLT, might interest you.
Please note, it takes reading 99.9% of all literature to tell someone something doesn't work and you're 99.9% certain.

 

I want you to know I am not being skeptical for the sake of being skeptical. I would love to believe that something will help me with this hellish affliction, just like everyone else, but I need proof to be willing to trust it. I definitely haven't read 99.9 percent of literature on cellular reproduction and light's effects on life, but I have read *just* enough to be skeptical.

I'll read that article for sure, provided it was written by an impartial third party not involved in selling LLLT. Thanks.

 

Hi guys
as far as hair cells regeneration goes, after using LLLT based on the studies we have this only works well for the first week after trauma , so I use my LLLT everyday to prevent damage that alone is. Worth the 2000 usd in fact it's worth 20,000 usd to me at least.
In a way it's similar to am101 - or steroids - works great the first days after trauma but less after ,
Nerve regeneration may happen later in but again ...

 

Sorry guys for the delay in my response, I run a very busy business. My ears settled back 1-2 days after the exacerbation.

My noise trauma caused 4 symptoms: 1. tinnitus, 2. abnormal "tinny" hearing, 3. hyperacusis, and 4. a pressure-like discomfort felt deep inside the ears.

Well, the treatment appears to have helped the discomfort a lot. It gets worse during a treatment, literally a couple of minutes into using the LED headphones, but overall is melting away since I started about 2 weeks ago and is now 90+% resolved. Placebo effect? Maybe, but I don't think so... I went into this expecting it to do nothing, and the fact that it is worse during a session is also suggestive that something is happening.

My hyperacusis is also partially improved... 2 weeks ago I literally could not be in the kitchen when the crockery was being put away, now I can although it's still annoying.

As for the tinnitus and abnormal hearing I'm not sure if there is any definite effect so far. However I've had some of the best and worst days in the last 2 weeks (I've had the problem for nearly 6 months), which is suggestive that it is doing something deep inside.

Bear in mind that noone can prove an effect without a proper controlled clinical trial, but until then we are left with personal experiences.

So far I can say that this has been well worth the money even if it never does more than helps the discomfort and hyperacusis. It also feels good to be actively doing something.

I put the headset on at breakfast and dinner, until the external ear is getting uncomfortably hot, then I turn it around and do it again to share the two different wavelengths. It probably equates to maybe 3-4min twice a day.

 

@Pumpkinate
That's fantastic news . We are all relieved to hear you didn't fry your ears with such high power in fact this will get you to have results much faster it seems.
Yes hyperacusis is the first to improve then sound quality should also noticeably improve. Look for improvement in bass sound , people voices and music will have more bass and depth to it as the brain gets back its high frequncy signals and needs less gain on the highs which affects bass processing .


From there getting some improvements in tinnitus , if ever, is going to take a lot more time but again your gear is super powerful so who knows .

Getting ups and down in t and spikes is normal when doing phototherapy when you respond well to it .

Please keep us updated and thanks for the report.

 

Hello friends!

Does anyone know how much an LLLT treatment at Amon Kaiser in Baden-Baden (Germany) is?
How does the process look like?


Thank you!

 

I haven't been so active here, in fact I am no usually very active writting though, just to tell my new experinces.
Now I am writting these lines from Ibiza, were I am having a 12 sessions treatment from Dr. Wilden, I first thought to have a 10 days treatment but Dr. Offered to work in saturday and sunday and so I gladdy accepted and I am having a 12 days treatment instead of a 10 days.
My intention is to tell how my treatment is going, so you can compare with other people's experinces, I tell the report of my treatment and it is mine, I don't know if my results or my therapy are valid for any person or anything else , just want to share my own experiences.
By now I am finalling my treatment tomorrow and by now I already know that my hearing is improving as I could't wait to make a final audiogram, and at day 7 of the treatment the doctor made an audiogram and I could see great improvements!
By now I am expecting my final audiogram that will take place tomorrow before my last treatment, and by this time I don't need an audiogram to realise that my hearing is improving, as I can hear voices more clearly, the speech is more clear and more loud, sounds un general are more clear ,everything is louder!! Tinnitus is still there, although I think is lower than usual , and more thin, but still there.
Anyway I will share my audiograms with you. Now I stop writting as I am busy having a mojito!!

 

Has anyone imported the Lucky Laser into the UK? I am considering buying one.
I would be most grateful to find out how easy/difficult it is to do so.
@Bobby B: Are you using the Lucky Laser? How helpful has it been in treating your tinnitus?
Many thanks.

 

That's exactly my experience , sound quality is getting better and better, hyperacusis less and less obvious and T a tad thinner and quieter but not gone totally.

I think that for people with fairly recent noise induced hearing loss this sort of therapy will work to an extent but not as a tinnitus cure.
I don't think it cures tinnitus but you may get some improvement which help habituation

 

I am using the lucky but also a more powerful polarized light device called super-lizer.
The more powrful device gives more results faster

But the lucky is good too

It's the best home Laser device available whihc works right out the box and the price isn't too bad

Another option would be to build your own LED device like pumkinate did