New Guy

Hello all. I've been dealing with Tinnitus for probably 25 years. It comes and goes. Well, it never really goes away, but at times it is a lot more tolerable. I believe mine came from going sky diving. I was given a tandem sky dive jump as a present for my 21st bday. The experience was amazing. However, the sound of the wind rushing your ears during that entire jump was too much for me. I guess I didn't have ear protection for the jump. I don't recall. But, I know my hearing was off for days afterwards. I believe that was the start of the tinnitus sounds.

I found this site as I am in one of those periods where the sound is really loud and disruptive. I hadn't sought any treatment because I was told long ago that nothing can be done and to just live with it.

However, with all of the advances in technology I thought I would see if anything was available again. I do have an appointment with an audiologist this week for a hearing test and to see if they can do anything to help mask or reduce the high pitched sound. I really long for just a period of silence. I have the high pitched squeal when I go to sleep and hear it immediately upon waking. I don't think it ever goes away.

But, I hope to learn some new tips and tricks from those here that are having success dealing with the issue.

 

Welcome to the forum. You have T so long and yet you deal with it. That is admirable. The spikes you have recently may be temporary. Have you had some issue with stress and anxiety or sleep problem lately?

There are many causes which can trigger or aggravate tinnitus including drug reaction or side-effects, ear or Eustachian tube infection, ear drum injury, fluid build-up feeling pressured, TMJ, high blood pressure or blood circulation problem, loud noise exposure or acoustic trauma, neck muscle problems, hearing loss, Meniere's, barotrauma from flight, grief for the loss of love ones, untreated sleep apnea, elevated stress, anxiety & panic disorder, etc. Hope you can find the cause of the spikes and deal with it or that your audiologist can help you with something. Masking is the right way to go when the T level is a bit high. This can take off the stress and anxiety. Have you used some nature sounds or white noises to help mask the high pitch T? My T is ultra high pitch too and during the initial days, I had to mask all day with high pitch nature sounds such as heavy rain, waves, waterfall, shower, even faucet sound.

 

Well as of today the only options are Neuromonics or TRT (Tinnitus Retraining Therapy) to help you habituate.

The only new developments are in the labs, looks like mice and rats are getting the good stuff. One treatment is AM-101 it cured some rats for 90 days with 3 ear injection over a few days. They just needed to re up on the stuff every 90 day to stay good. Phase II of the trail was a flop but we are all waiting for phase III results.

Yeah they can give and take away tinnitus in rats. They got Potassium channel blocker and sodium channel blockers. some how treatments are related to epilepsy cures as well. Like our neurons are firing in our brains out of control like they are in seizure.

They will have to sub class our T to find out what treatment goes with who. like T from; damaged hair cells in the ear, head injury or infection, toxic drugs, psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders or circulatory problems." and if anything like AM-101 the plan is we got to go back for treatments every 90 days or so. There were a few drugs that 100% cured some rats. I hope they don't lose those but no human trials yet. They also got some rats they Tinnitus proofed so they never get T. Thats too late for us, but the US military is very interested.

There is also the Susan Shore trails at U of Michigan. She is working out how to re-time auditory neurons.

They wont need to regrow hearing cells or restore hearing. People lose hearing all the time without getting T. it has to do with the plasticity of the brain, and it altering the timing sequence through the cochlear nucleus.

Hopefully they can get more funning to run more clinical trials, we are still a few years off from the everyday guy getting some T cure.

 

Phase II was a success. The first Phase III did not meet its endpoints - it was a "flop". We are waiting for the results of the second Phase III trial.

Please provide a link to a study where it is concluded that AM-101 should be administered every 90 days.

 

http://ata.org/sites/default/files/ATAWebinar_FullPresenters_Script_March152016_FINAL.pdf
Page 15 slide 14

 

Unfortunately, that's not a study. He may be referring to the AM-101 trials where they performed tests out to 90 days. If so, this doesn't mean that the effect wears off after 90 days or that an additional round of treatments would be effective. It simply means that they stopped testing at 90 days.

 

Thanks for the correction. That was a script form a webconference and the way he said it made sound as if it was only 90 day. I'll defer to you, I'm pretty new to all this.

 

Welcome @FP Guy. They are working on treatments, making advances, but there's still a long ways to go.

I never thought of skydiving but that makes sense. Add that to my list of things I shouldn't do now with T and H.

 

Saw the audiologist yesterday. We are going to order some masking hearing aids. My hearing loss is not significant. It is just the high pitched squeal is crazy and gets louder at times. They will come in next week, so I am hoping for some relief.