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

Thanks so much for your speedy reply. Was it easy to import the Lucky Laser? Are you in the UK?
Also, where does one get this other device called 'super-lizer' and how much does it cost?

Sorry for so many questions.

 

Not in the uk
Shouldn't be an issue importing it i would think

The other device is hospital grade and costs 35k so I go to a clinic and pay per minute

How did you get T ?

 

I got my T suddenly one morning after taking Citalopram 10mg for 7 days which was prescribed for a stomach complaint. Stopped it immediately. Never had any hearing problems. Went to see ENT straightaway, hearing tested, MRI normal, slight loss in Left ear, Right ear fine but tinnitus louder in better ear. He said my hearing was normal for my age. Asked him to prescribe Prednisolone. He refused. Said my T would go away in a few weeks. It never did.

Am really upset that I did not take Prednisolone. ENT said it would not help my tinnitus and as I did not have a sudden hearing loss it was pointless taking it. Big mistake in my opinion and really upset about this.

My T is life changing.

 

Don't see how light therapy would help in your case - it's not a T cure...

 

Another new laser therapy study:

Simultaneous bilateral laser therapy accelerates recovery after noise-induced hearing loss in a rat model
July 21, 2016

https://peerj.com/articles/2252/

 

What I found interesting here, in addition to learning the positive effects of laser, is that the ear seems to recover naturally (albeit at a slower pace, but not an order of magnitude slower). Doesn't this go against common belief that if you've screwed up your hair cells, they don't recover?

What's the point at which the cell is "irrecoverable"?

 

Lieberman was mention a lot.
Quote: " Additionally, the bilateral laser therapy group did not show improved recovery of the hearing threshold compared to the unilateral laser therapy group after the 15th laser irradiation. This limited effect can be explained by the destruction of the most vulnerable auditory pathways after noise exposure, such as synaptic ribbons (Kujawa & Liberman, 2009). Relatively normal morphologies of OHCs after noise overexposure support this hidden damage theory because the functional loss was much more dramatic compared to the apparently limited hair cell loss found in the histology."
End quote.
This does not bode well for me personally
It seems like more synaptic ribbons are destroyed than hair cells in my inner ear.
That could be the case for many people that do not see an improvement in hearing threshold after a noise incident or NIHL.

 

Hi Guys and girls ,quick update from me here.

So I have been using this 10w device (at a clinic) for 3 minutes each ear about twice a week - this one has a wide 1cm probe and gives tons of heat and light but it does not hurt inside as it did before..I can feel that the "wound" inside the ear is healed and getting a lot better because I am not experiencing the same level of sharp but brief episodes of pain anymore...after the sessions.

I also have a 1800 mw device at home, same wavelength as the 10w device but less power so I do 10 minutes each ear and pulsed of course... every day unless I am too busy or out.

3 months ago After doing a minute on 400mw I had sharp pain inside my bad ear. But now even at 1800mw and 5 minutes I don't feel any pain anymore.

Wave length is a combined beam of 600nm to 1500nm with peak at 1000nm so its a hotter, longer wavelength which penetrates deeper. The 10w device is supposed to penetrate up to 8cm of flesh (not bone). Its not a laser or a LED, it uses a special 140w bulb and light is filtered and polarized and sent via fiber optics cable to the probe which is hand held and about the size of the lucky laser probe.

I haven't been using the lucky device much these past weeks because I feel I am getting more results from the above device - the name is "Super-Lizer", its a large hospital grade machine for chiropractics, muscle pain etc..

This device has

1) a large probe of 1cm diameter to cover the cochlea better
2)a wide range of wavelengths which penetrate deep at peak.
3)more power than my laser so I only need to do a few minutes twice a week
4)pulsed so it does not burn too much on the surface if the probe is moved around as it gets super hot if held on the same spot for 5 seconds or more.

Now for the results - H is down to almost zero.
Sound quality , a huge improvement over 2-3 months ago. It sounds like each month I am upgrading my speakers to a better set.

T is still there but the T sound volume is getting thinner, like getting lower 5% each month or so..very slow changes..I don't hear it much over movies or in the office.

But Sometimes it gets loud as hell - jet engine ! -if I am stressed and tired and fixate on the sound but overall its better than before, and the pitch is higher and thinner.

I would say for H and sound quality improvements, if you have distortion or hearing loss, this light therapy option is really helping but it does take time.... I have been doing it for 8 months now and I wear the biggest ear muffs pretty much all the time outside, while driving or in trains etc..where there "might" be over 60db sounds so that helped a lot bring H down too I believe.

 

@Bobby B Thanks for updating.

 

A brief update of my experiences with the high powered laser of dr wilden in Ibiza to treat my moderate hearing loss ( and tinnitus) and I share my audiograms taken in Ibiza too.
Since the fourth day of treatment , more or less I had the sensation that everything was louder , I could hear conversations of people talking really far from me and I liked to try to catch the voices of people that were relatively far from me. After finishing the 12 sessions treatment the audiograms revealed an improvement , and they were not faked or something like that, they were true. I felt as I had an amplifier in my head and the volume of everything was too loud.
I had also a big sensitivity in my ears and I needed to protect as most sounds were annoying to me.
Now, ten days after the treatment the volume is not so loud and the sounds are not so annoying and fortunately in my house I can self-test with sounds like phone, microwave, the usual volume level or tv or radio ... And yes, the quality of sounds is better and I feel I can hear sounds that Ididn't before. Now I continue with my theraphy at home, there is a long way for my home theraphy, as the doctor estimated for my damaged cells that it will take 3-4 years of treatment to a complete recovery.

 

@bell that is some significant improvement !
Did you have audiograms done before you went ..and after, or are both of these done by Wilden ?
Also , any T improvement ?

 

guys - this lucky laser company seems super sketch. look at the email address for one. how are they selling two thousand dollar items and don't have email attached to their domain? VIP.163.COM - if you google it - is a domain that sends like, 70% spam.

 

That's very encouraging! Good job there!
Plus, Ibiza's not the worse place in the world to spend some time in the summer.
What does your home therapy consist of?

Where did your hearing loss come from?

 

@bell
Good stuff mate - it's also interesting that doc Wilden thinks that improvements can still happen over 3-4 years, that's pretty good news overall for us if this is what he saw in his patients.
How long have you had this hearing loss ? And due to what if can remind us again.

 

Well, I can understand your opinion. I think we are all looking for the holy grail here and behave as crazy in our attempts as medieval alchemists.
If I consider LLLT, then only due to the lack of alternatives and the low risk profile.

Anyway if somebody here thinks to be able to explain LLLT, he is wrong. All what we have is some very questionable empirical evidence that it might do something for the better.

So imho no need to bother and argue about the theory...

 

Hey guys,

I really have to try LLLT. It's been 7 months since my last acoustic trauma and nothing worked until now.

I just can't spend 1600$ on a Lucky Laser. Are the Konftec any good ? Like the 520 one : http://www.konftec.com/order/HTML/order-ht-tinnitus.htm

A 500$ device would be perfect for my wallet.

Thanks a lot

 

Build your own LED device using powerful diodes just like pumkinate did - that's the way to go for low cost and high power

High power means you have to do it only a few minutes each day

The konfec is way too weak to have any effect at all and you have to wear this for hours that's no fun

 

I'm not able to build it myself

I guess it's the Lucky Laser then. I'd like to go to a clinic instead (like once a week) but nothing seems to exist in my area.

 

I don't know much about internet domains in general or 163.com in particular but I own a small apartment in Washington, D.C. which I currently am renting out to two Chinese graduate students at Georgetown University. Both of their emails are with 163.com. They are very nice people and always pay the rent a day early. So maybe 163.com is a Chinese version of Gmail or Yahoo for email in the United States.

 

I wouldn't buy a 2k item from a gmail either. Property email hosting is like $150 a year. Don't buy bridges from Nigerian princes.

 

Well several people in these forums bought it from there and we all received the item as described so I don't know what the issue is .

In China they have some restrictions on web sites anyway most forums or main news sites are blocked by the government I went there a year ago

 

Is the lucky laser considered stronger enough to show any benefit?

 

Why not wear it during sleep?

 

Is anyone aware of any clinics to receive this therapy in the US?

 

http://cooperativemedicine.com/laser-therapy/ear-disorders/
http://www.drz.org/asp/conditions/hearing_loss.asp

 

That's useful, thanks.
The first site seems legit, but the second site smells like a "as seen on TV" QVC type of site. It looks more like an e-commerce site than a clinic. My BS-meter has a high reading on that one, but I hope I'm wrong. Is there any US address there? (I found a phone number, but not the address where the treatments can be performed)

 

Completely agree. On this page http://www.drz.org/asp/cp/PNT-Pain-Neutralization-Technique.asp he says he is licensed in CA but then mentions Idaho.

I should also have noted that I have no experience with either provider.

 

http://www.konftec.com/html/EN/Auricular_Laser_Comparison.htm

according to this the konftec has options that seen similar to Dr. Wilden's laser, no?

 

I think that Wilden home laser is the least Powerful - the lucky is not in this slide

 

Still - the best option is to build your own using high power LED . It does not have to be laser in fact LED are safer and a lot more powerful to give a lot of light on a wide area.
All the info is online
Otherwise if you want something working out of the box the lucky laser is a professional clinic oriented product , well built wiht good support and is 900mw max on 808nm which is plenty powerful enough for laser . Usually half that power at 450mw is more than sufficient for 20 min a day to help wiht H and improve sound quality .
Too low and the light does not penetrate well no matter how long you use it.

I don't think you will cure your T with light therapy, but maybe get a slightly softer tone eventually ...

But yes H and sound quality / hearing range due to recent acoustic trauma that's what it can improve, provided you make sure to protect your ears while doing it