My Trip to Bangkok: Stem Cell Treatment [Comments]

[Tem]

My tinnitus is somatosensory. I might have thalamocortical dysrhythmia - just my guess, I haven't been diagnosed with it.

It started with a very clogged ear for 2 months, from an external ear canal fungus which was treated in days. For some reason my ear remained very clogged for weeks, I received no treatment for it. My bilateral tinnitus started only when my ear was unclogging itself, even though only one ear had been clogged.

I have normal hearing, there was no dry inflammation, no infection, no history of noise exposure or anything else.

I think my auriculotemporal nerve with its branches on 5 and 7 cranial nerves were affected. My muscles never came back to normal in my bad ear. That sensory stimulation and receiving fewer sounds in the left ear for weeks just resulted in bad brain plasticity. So my tinnitus is neurological, coming from the brain, fluctuating between full head tinnitus and some times all the way up to the ears, auditory cortex.

I've been thinking long and hard about stem cells. Could they reverse the bad plasticity and rewire the brain? So the electrical signals are properly sent again. Maybe the intrathecal injections would help with this?

Any answer will be speculation as these are the kinds of questions nobody knows the answer to. But if we look at the kinds of tinnitus that can be cured - ear wax build up, TMJ, stress - the tinnitus goes away after the underlying cause is removed, so the brain should be able to rewire itself back.

Like you, I started having bilateral tinnitus and head tinnitus within a few months of my initial cause. For me it was a loud sound to my left ear, and viral infection (labyrinthitis) also in my left ear a few weeks later. I suspect the infection damaged my auditory nerve. It also let me unable to walk for a few days and affected my balance for about 6 months, but the vestibular nerve (next to the auditory nerve) seems to be mostly okay now.

So my left ear has a high pitch sound from the initial causes and my right ear later developed a lower hum/buzz like I'm standing near an electrical transformer. My current thinking (hoping) is that a stem cell treatment aimed at neurological conditions will repair the nerve, and that the brain will reverse its changes.

You say yours is somatosensory. Do you think there is still inflammation present?

 

[James Connelly]

@SmallRonnie, are you any closer to choosing a clinic and going for treatment? I think I might go for Innate Healthcare.

 

[SmallRonnie]

@SmallRonnie, are you any closer to choosing a clinic and going for treatment? I think I might go for Innate Healthcare.

Nope. I was maybe just going to go with StemCells21 but not making any decision yet.