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

Thx buddy!
Yaa in total, i think i spend just a little bit more then 1000€
On a tight budget, then obv. thats alot.
But if one can afford it, its a must have treatment imo.

Right now my T is ofcourse still annoying every day and the 60-70% is only when it peaks and i feel my best. Hard to say how long this last, since i only notice it and then go on with my day u know.
If i have to put on a average on my reduced T since it was at the worst, i think im somewhere within 30-40% reduced T.
Really hard to judge obv.
But the good days seems to finally outnumber the bad days and thats really positive.
If i could just get back to the T i had before it got insane, then im very happy.
So thats the goal ATM.

Only problem in all of this, is that im also taking drugs against T.
So its hard to tell how much this is helping.
From Sep-dec. I took Betaserc every day and that helped alot.
Then the effect seemed to fade the last couple of weeks of November and when i got back to Denmark in Dec, i had some new pills waiting for me called "clear tinnitus" and the seems to help.
These are all natural herbs from what i can tell. So better long term then betaserc.
But all this junk was only for support here in the first part of my treatment, when T is the wost.
So when i run out of pills in febury, im gonna take a break and see what status is.

But thanks again and i wish u the same and happy new year to u aswell and your family

 

Hi All,

I also have this LLLT and BetaSerc and Magnesium and Vitamin ACE, Vitamin D, Vitamin B Complex, NAC,
Xarelto ((anticoagulant) and there is almost no effect in general. The only thing it helps is time and habituation in my case. Ok, maybe one of this treatments has supported something, but there is almost no causal effect not in Tinnitus nor in hearing loss.
If one of this stuff would really help causal, every HNO would know. I'm agree, many HNO are really helpless
with good ideas for Tinnitus and hearing loss but in my opinion, it's just because there aren't any really
causal working drugs or treatment on the market now. I don't think that there is a big conspiracy between hearing aid companies and pharma industry that will keep us suffering and selling us useless products.
The problem is, that there is just still no very useful durg on the market.
If there is a organic damaged reason for hearing loss or tinnitus, we need something that really let the inner ear
regenerate the cells or manipulate the bad signal circuit.

We can hope for some new class of medicine, they are still in experimental stage, but I think they made some
really great discoveries.

But like others, I also continue to take everything and try....

Greets Tom

 

Hi @tomytl, sorry to hear nothing is working. Although LLLT did not help your T did you get audiograms done to see whether there was any improvement in your hearing? I guess you would probably have noticed it, but hard to be sure maybe? Sorry if you posted this already. Was it the Konftec unit you used?

Thanks.

 

Hi,
yes, it's the Konftec Laser I'm using.

 

I just had my second laser treatment today, this time it was longer than my last treatment, at 45 minutes on the bad ear. The doctor said he would like to get a 200 powered laser, but that this one was at 100W. How does this laser compare to some of the others that Dr. Wilden and Anne use? I tried to take a few pictures to post here tonight (below). I assume it isn't as powerful..do you all have any advice?

Also what did it feel like when you were treated? My treated ear didn't feel too different at first, but then all of a sudden, a few minutes afterwards, it felt warm, and the tinnitus changed a bit, it wasn't quieter, it was just a different sound. I've heard other people talk about their tinnitus becoming "flat," this is a great way of describing how it sounded. Now, a few hours later, my ear is losing some of that effect, and the tinnitus is just softer. I actually can hear a bit better/clearer, but the "full" feeling is still there. I'm a bit bummed because I am mainly concerned about the fullness, vs the hearing loss itself. I know it is only the second treatment, I'll still be hopeful I suppose...

 

@dboy I completely understand that-when I do the maneuver deal (lightly) I can tell how my tinnitus changes a bit. I am careful because I don't want to hurt my ear, but every time I do it (lightly), my bad ear blows up like a slow balloon, where as my good ear does it quickly, and has the correct response. :/ I think whatever is causing my bad ear to feel full, is also not allowing it to work correctly (i.e. allowing me to blow my ears properly). Have you had this?

 

felinefine I have exactly the same problem. Had accustic trauma 4 months ago. Whenever I blow by nose or perform the maneuver, my healthy ear properly responds while my damaged ear blows up like a balloon.

I don't really see the correlations between damaged hair cells and popping sounds ... Maybe it's something else ??

 

You could ask Dr. Charlie in the 'Introduce Yourself' section. He is/was an ENT. I once tried something called Otovent as a safer alternative to valsalva, but it did not really help me. It has good reviews on Amazon - may be worth looking at...

 

@luka that is so odd. How did your trauma occur? Do you also have other health issues related to the head area? For instance, for me, I have had slight inflammatory issues beforehand, and it felt a bit like inflammation and fluid in my head. This has been getting so much better with the right treatment. However, after the acoustic trauma occurred, maybe the fluid deep inside the head (but close to the ear) got trapped from the inflammation response that the loud noise produced?

I am at a loss here, I have no idea... I really hope it goes away though because it is very annoying. It still makes my ear feel numb/odd. Has it gotten any better for you @luka ? It seems mine may have lessened a bit after 2 sessions of LLLT therapy. Have you been doing sessions?

@dboy great idea, I will definitely put a post for Dr. Charlie. I really hope he can help.

 

Furher below, some facts related to the treatment of Dr. Wilden's clinic therapy.

To compare the therapy you are receiving with the protocol Dr. Wilden has developed, you need to apply a backwards calculation based on Energy (J) = Power (W) x Time (s).

So...

4000 joules = Power x (60 x 60 seconds)
Power = 4000 / 3600
Power = 1,1 W
Power = 1100 mW

Since there are 3 lasers, output per laser is about 350 mW.

The therapy you are receiving cannot be compared directly, however. There are other factors which govern the efficacy and penetration depth of the laser therapy such as

• body contact between laser and skin (as opposed to being held at a distance)
• wave-length (red vs infrared)
• power output
• intensity
• compression (against skin) which forces blood to move out of the way

More power is not always better, however. There comes a point when energy delivered to body tissue becomes detrimental to the therapy. This is in line with the Arndt-Schulz law of pharmacology and dosage levels.



You want your dosage to be within the part of the curve which involves cell-activation. Too little or too much, and you get no results. Or worse.

However, in my opinion, the therapies being developed seem to indicate that living tissue can tolerate more energy than previous protocols would indicate. For sure, the dosage delivered by Dr. Wilden is potent (and well beyond what you would find at other inner ear specialists, typically). Dr. Wilden is a medical doctor; he has studied the physiology of the inner ear for many years; he is an expert in regenerative medicine. So the dosage and treatment protocol he employs - despite being well beyond the average 50, 100 to 200 mW laser - is almost certainly the right one (which is also quite evident from my audiograms).

Most of your questions have already been answered by the generous amount of posts (+100) that people like Fernando Gil, Nick J, and myself have shared with this forum. So consider reading our material - it's all there...!

Typical effects very early on are a reduction in aural fullness and temporarily increased tinnitus. With the right dosage such as that delivered by Dr. Wilden's practice, you will also see improvements in your hearing thresholds already after 4-5 days of treatment. Other inner ear symptoms such as tinnitus may take a while longer to improve - and in some cases no improvement is seen.

My own personal view is that inner ear disorders are best treated with an output rating in the higher end of the cold laser therapy range (ie. 200-500 mW). Cold laser therapy range = 0 - 500 mW.

 

@luka I just read your profile. So after you had that noise exposure how long after did you take your audiogram? Do you still have hearing loss in the speech frequencies?

Also, after your ear infection (was it a year before your trauma?), did you recover completely (at least, did you feel you recovered completely?). What kind of ear infection was it, how did you get it?

And just thinking out loud here before I head to work...I also remember one doctor saying my bad ear was slightly retracted. I don't know how loud noise would cause barotrauma (is this possible), but when I first had the acoustic trauma, I left the emergency room with a sheet that said "barotrauma" in my file. I never got clarification on this, as I didn't know what it was at the time, I just assumed that was a fancy name for acoustic trauma (I know, I feel a little ridiculous now).

Another ENT (he was very short with me, not like the two other ENTs who were actually pretty nice and understanding), said I had a vein in my ear (bad ear) so that when I blew up that ear it was responding to it, and expanding as well, giving me that sensation. I'm not sure if he was saying this to get me out of the office or not, it doesn't seem like that would give me this feeling.

However, @luka that would be awesome if you could see and ENT and ask them if they see if you have a slight retraction in your bad ear, or if you have an inflamed vein in your ear (? ha sounds odd). I will also be seeing another ENT who seems to think "out of the box" on January 8th. Ugh I hate going to the doctor all the time, so annoying, but I really am giving it one last shot to see if he can help me out here. Let's compare notes? If you and I can see if the doctors notice anything similar with us, it might give us an answer! Then maybe we can do something to try to fix it!

Thanks for writing, I really look forward to hearing back.

P.s. nice first post. You have a great attitude

 

@attheedgeofscience thank you very much, all really good information from you, as I would expect!

I have more of a response to write. I don't want to be premature in responding, so once I reread some of these other pages on the forum, and then completely understand your post about the laser power, I will write further. Thank you again

 

There is one additional topic - which - admittedly has not been so well covered on this board...

It concerns the topic of LLLT in relation to tinnitus itself. Tinnitus is a heterogeneous condition with several sub-types. Cold laser therapy is part of the field of regenerative medicine and was never billed to be a treatment for tinnitus, specifically. Like stem cell therapy, LLLT attempts to get the body's tissues restored to normal functioning. And this is where there is a certain (potential) overlap between LLLT and tinnitus (as there appears to be a cochlear component in relation to certain sub-types of tinnitus ie. hearing loss).

LLLT gets a lot of criticism for being quackery. This has little to do with cold laser therapy itself, and everything to do with the therapy being applied to a condition for which it was never meant for. It also has to with tinnitus being a condition which cannot be diagnosed objectively. And so from a tinnitus perspective, it has become a blind procedure as the patient essentially has to take a gamble ie. "do I want to spend the money or not?". Again... LLLT cannot really be blamed for this. LLLT is not at fault for there not being an objective tinnitus diagnosis available.

One thing LLLT will do, however, is restore the functioning of damaged living tissue. What I have noticed - myself - is that although my tinnitus is not completely gone, my hearing is now somewhat better (although it was normal to begin with) and also I am immune to spikes in relation to semi-loud noise (eg. sitting in a restaurant). It seems there are a number of people on this board who pretty much develop spikes from otherwise insignificant noise, and my take is that this is in part due to already damaged cochlear hair cells. When body tissue becomes damaged, and is not given a chance to recover, that is when chronic inflammation may develop. Once that happens, the body cannot break the cycle, and the condition continues indefinitely. And this where LLLT certainly has the potential to benefit the inner ear as it restores the functioning of cells.




As can be seen in the diagram above, already at a hearing loss of 10-30db is the damage to cochlear hair cells visible. Reversing this damage and hence improving hearing thresholds is important regardless of the underlying tinnitus problem. It is also the reason why hearing loss requires a higher degree of granularity to be understood - simply classifying normal hearing as that which is between 0 and 25 db is not adequate.

Dr. Wilden was the first stop on my journey into the world of experimental medicine. He has helped shape my understanding of the physiology of the inner ear and provided me with a much more refined knowledge of audiology in relation to tinnitus and the general functioning of the inner ear. Below, Dr. Wilden in his office while it was still located in Regensburg. He can be seen here with the Australian lady, Rebecca, whom I have shared a few updates on with this board (in relation to her own LLLT therapy).



For the reasons above, I am glad that Dr. Wilden was one of the doctors I had a chance to meet on my year long journey.

attheedgeofscience
31/DEC/2014.

 

If laser works you can do it yourself cheap.
The laser diodes 650nm and 808nm at 5mW-100mW is very cheap at ebay
and the clinics cost them about 2500k euros.
So i think that clinics with lasers are overpricing if you want to try get it from ebay for than 50 euro
all the set (laser diode + laser driver + li-ion battery + charger).

I have not tried lasers i have tried 2-10μm infrared and from my experience is near placebo
the heat produced change the feeling near the ear to something better than baseline
but soon returns to baseline.

 

Hey felinefine, yeah I still have hearing loss in the speech frequencies, it got a bit better though. I haven't taken an audiogram for a while, but from my guess trough testing, (youtube hearing test) it got better to around 50db.

I've developed ear infection while on holidays, due to a mix of salt see and wax. Wax totally blocked my ear drum and due to a poking it got infected. For couple of days I had severe ear pain, and have received antibiotics. Eventually It got better, doctors removed my ear wax, and I didn't noticed any hearing loss. Also I didn't developed tinnitus. Eventually I've forgotten about the infection...

I don't have any other health issue related to the head area. At least not that I know off.. The doctors said though that I have really large right tonsil. Also I don't have good smell due to a to smaller nostrils.

It fills still numb when I'm paying attention. I'm trying though to be occupied with as much as other things as possible. I haven't done any LLLT therapies yet. But I've placed an order for luckylaser (one 650nm laser probe and one 808nm laser probe (2 laser probes) )

Sure. I Haven't really planed visiting any ENT yet since they haven't provide me any good info till now. But I'll do drop by. This ear popping is really strange..

Thanks.. I do believe that the day and hours passes ether way, if you're happy or if your totally depressed. I've chosen happiness..

 

Hi @attheedgeofscience, thanks for your information here. I am reaching out to a local chiropractor close to where I live to see if they offer something similar to what Dr. Wilden offers thanks to your experience here. I'd be very pleased to have the type of result you talk about--reduction of inflammation and/or improvement in hearing. My audiograms are "OK" but could be better as well.

By the way, where in Denmark are you originally from? I studied abroad in Copenhagen in 2004 and loved it. Many times I was stopped on the street by locals asking for directions but I had to stammer in English that I was not at all fluent in Danish.

 

Excellent attitude, I've chosen the same thing.....though it took me a bit to figure it out.

 

nm = nano-meter (1 nm = 1 x 10^-9 m = 0.000,000,001 m), defines the wavelength.
mW = milli-Watts (1 mW = 1 x 10^-3 W = 0.001 W), defines the power output.

Red and infra-red light penetrates body tissue (and bone) as can be seen below (laser held behind my finger; there is no trickery to this image).



The visible part of the light spectrum (and infrared) can be seen here:



So only a very small portion of the entire wavelength spectrum is used in LLLT therapy (about 630 to 900 nm).

If a laser with, say, blue light was held against the skin it would feel hot because the light does not penetrate living tissue and hence all the energy is released in one place. With the right wavelength and power output, the light can penetrate as much as 2-3 cm of body tissue (and does not feel hot against the skin).

Use audiograms to ensure that you are responding to the therapy. Clinic grade therapy is required in my opinion. Home laser therapy (eg. 30 mW serves as a supplement but not a treatment in itself - again, in my personal opinion).

Standard audiograms test only the speech frequency range, 0 - 8 kHz.

It would depend on the therapy being pursued.

If using high-powered cold laser therapy, a certain recovery period is required (eg. 1-2 weeks therapy, followed by at least 2 weeks rest...). Speak with a laser therapist about treatment protocols.

Agreed. Dr. Wilden had a bowel full of earplugs in his office right where patients entered his clinic. You would not be allowed to leave again without stuffing your pockets full, haha...

I don't think Dr. Wilden maintains those websites as well as his main German one:

http://www.dasgesundeohr.de/

Infrared targets the lower frequencies; red wavelengths target the higher ones (eg. > 6 kHz).

Dr. Wilden's therapy makes use of both red and infrared light simultaneously and targets the cochlea from two different positions (ear canal and behind the ear):

 

Dr. Wilden does not disclose his exact protocol (to the best of my knowledge). That is why I had to calculate the power output backwards, so to speak.

Dr. Wilden has spent many years refining his therapy; he does not give away his secrets easily.

During my first visit with Dr. Wilden on June 10th, 2013, I was given a pair of goggles and a device which would allow me to see the otherwise invisible infrared wavelength used in his therapy. I can therefore confirm that dual wavelengths are used.

 

Holy cow, @attheedgeofscience whenever I read your posts I need like 2 days with google to understand everything...lol

Ok this post was really good, and I think it may apply to what @luka and I are dealing with. So you are thinking that LLLT therapy helps with damaged tissues, do you think that someone who maybe has barutrauma from many months-1 year ago, has damaged tissue...? I'm asking this because I think the noise might have caused barutrauma in my ear, and in @luka 's ear, which ultimately made the tympatic membrane weaker than it used to be. It is slightly retracted/sucked in a little bit, even though all ENT's say it is fine (only one ENT noticed this), yet from tests I am told the pressure is normal. I also hear crackling. Perhaps this is because the pressure is just slightly off due to the damaged membrane??...idk. BUT the real question, is, if this is in fact the case, would LLLT be able to make the Tympatic membrane stronger, and regain function again (i.e.would the laser be able to build more collagin, tissue, and mucusa membrane? Or just the "hearing cells?") I only read about lasers being able to help in the "healing stages" etc. etc., but nothing about old wounds, except for keloid scars, and reducing inflammation for instance. Thoughts, please?

LOL what a cool guy. Btw I tried those blue earplugs, I hate them, yet so many people love them! I must have gotten the wrong size, just letting other people know out there! I need advice on other earplugs you guys like to use. Right now I have the foamy ones.

I know, I need to find a laser therapist. I am just using the laser from the pictures I posted above. The doctor who uses it is great, but ears/hearing loss/lasers are not his specialty, he just uses this laser on everything and gets some sort of positive result from using it. I know if I found the correct treatment results could be much better than kind of shooting in the dark, what I have been doing...dang I need to make more money and just fly to Germany already! Anyone have another job they would hire me for?? HA! Still paying off college loans...what a joke the US school system is.

I really agree with the home laser being used as just a supplement (how do you feel about the lucky laser?), but how do you think someone could find a laser therapist, and try to be treated similarly to what would be available in Germany? Is this even possible?!? I know it wouldn't be exact, and obviously just going there would be the best option, but with all of your information, could creating one's own protocol be, in some cases, pretty close to the real thing?

Hopeful...

Feline

 

going to go ice my brain brb

 

@attheedgeofscience ok, so does Dr. Wilden believe in 4000 Joules for treatment? Assuming we are doing an hour total for the treatment like you said in your example (60 X 60 seconds) and the power is 100 W (what the laser I have been using at my clinic is) then I would get:

Joules= 100W x 3600 seconds
Joules= 360,000

Why can't this be compared directly to Wilden's lasers you said? I'm terrible at conversions, I just looked up the equation from google (and it looks like what you have done above)



Ok everyone can laugh now...

 

Do you just have an idea how much you have to pay to EU just to have a laser regulated to sell???

Try to find and you will get the reason why they are so expensive.

 

Nothing for 5mw.
There is not restriction for 5mW 650nm is the common pen pointer laser. For higher power exists restriction but is only on papers local shops sell these laser diodes freely .
Because iam europe local shops sell these laser diodes double the price you get it from china(ebay).
The reason these clinics sell these devices so much is that T is a fucking bad symptom
and if someone has it can give all the bank to cure T .
So for these reason the profit for these clinics are big.

Anyway i checked my electronics and found 650nm & 940nm diodes that i have ordered in past for other uses.
I will cut some optic fiber to focus inside the ear drum i hope nothing bad will happen.
Had anyone side effects from laser ?


I have using in the past creatine supplement for T.
Creatine becomes phosphocreatine in body and donates phosphor to ADP to become ATP
so gives energy in muscular and neurological cells.
Creatine used today in all sports as supplement and 3g daily use is relative safe.
It gives more muscle-neurological power (enhances athletic performance & memory and cognitive functions)
I have seen a difference with creatine but sometime after doesn't work.
I have searched and other report benefits in T releif from creatine.
Also creatine used in trials and shown that protects hearing in noise exposure.
If laser works by promoting ATP generation i think that the creatine supplement maybe help you.
Is a very cheap supplement (~15euro/500g) with no side effects so its worth to try it. Iam sure that some you will see improvement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17359945
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1839076/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21403395

 

What matters is the amount of energy that reaches the target area (inside the ear). A weaker laser can out-perform a stronger one if the rules of enchancing the therapy that I mentioned in a post earlier on are observed ie. contact with the body tissue being the most important point. This is demonstrated in a video such as the following one:

Class 3B vs Class 4 laser therapy penetration

(The introduction explains a bit about lasers; the actual video demonstration starts at 1:30).

If your laser therapy was at 100 mW then you received, energy = 100 mW x (3600 s) = 0,1 W x (3600 s) = 360 J.

However the energy that actually reached the cochlea may be the same in the end (as explained in the video).

One way or another, there is no doubt that Dr. Wilden's therapy is effective... he uses specific wavelengths and targets the cochlea from two positions - and with the correct beam angle.

Laser therapy has several different physiological effects on living tissue... the most direct one is acting as an additional supply route of energy. Skin cells can absorb energy from sunlight as well as the usual route of converting bio-molecules into energy (ie. the standard processes that take place all the time inside the human body). But all other cells that are hidden from sunlight have only the latter option. However, with laser light that can penetrate body tissue much more efficiently than sunlight, reaching some of these "hidden" cells becomes an option.

There are other physiological processes too. Rather than describing it myself, I would much prefer to let the experts in the field "do the talking". The following diagrams shows the biochemical processes that occur when a single living cell is given a dose of LLLT with a wavelength somewhere around 750-900 nm. It also shows the effects that those biochemical proceses have on the body (right side of the diagram).



Here is a more complete descriptive diagram of all the various processes which occur with cold laser therapy...

 

I believe you are overthinking this.

LLLT is pretty simple in terms of application. The providers of laser devices have already done all the thinking for you, so that you - the patient or doctor - does not have to...

In terms of wavelength, cold lasers for medical purposes fall into two groups RED and near-IR.
In terms of power ouput, cold lasers cover the entire range from 0 - 500 mW.

I believe you did not add the Luminex laser device to your list.

http://medicallasersystems.com/products.html

Not all lasers come with both wavelengths. The least expensive ones have just one wavelength and one power output setting.

Defintion of wavelengths (RED, near IR, and INFRARED):

 

@tomytl
How long have you been using this laser tool? What are its specs?

 

Has anyone contacted Dr WIlden using his contact form which you complete giving details of your problems ie tinnitus and email and then send your audiogram by email attachment (or fax or post) to Dr Wildens offices. It is then advised to phone 2 days later.
Just wondered if anyone has done this and did it work well? Did they receive and did they respond?

 

is laser therapy available in usa?

 

Yes down in Florida!
Try google...can't remember exact spot.
But i have no clue as to the quality of the treatment compared to the top notch treatment we have here in Europe in this field.

https://healingmenieres.wordpress.com

Read this blog! She is from US!