Open-Field Treatment of Hyperacusis

This study claims 100-decibel loudness discomfort levels in 9 weeks for participants with hyperacusis. Has anyone here tried this?

http://apps.elsevier.es/watermark/c...lan=es&fichero=102v60n01a13133053pdf001_2.pdf

 

Basically just listen to natural noise tracks. I think every single person with T and/or H has done this at some point.

 

I'm at work doing it right now.

 

It sounds a nice way of fixing H. Much better than flipping white noise gens all day.
I done a similar thing with real life sound since September, daily exposure to all sounds at low level, I control the environment. I am now able to tolerate my fan oven for a short while, my kettle, my microwave, my tv, supermarket for up to 30 minutes, normal shops. I find leaving a noisy environment allows my ears to calm down. I know I've made progress a recently at the supermarket I felt sure the tills must have been changed because the 'beep' was suddenly quiet and did not hurt.

 

Having unfortunately had H. in various forms over my life (where it has lasted a fairly short time after acoustic trauma; to many years - after ototoxic damage; then two subsequent repeat "triggerings" from moderate sound exposure but for too long an 'exposure time'), I think I have fairly wide experience of the condition. As it is more debilitating than 'normal tonal T' it is something I have looked into at every opportunity for years.

So some comments on this article/approach:

- I wish they had given the length of time the trial patients had had their hyperacusis for. Yes, I know that would be a hassle but it is highly relevant as in my experience (and from what I have seen reported endless times by 'newbies' with T that often have short term H associated with it at the beginning of the affliction) H tends to dissipate on its own much more rapidly that T tends to. Anything from days, to weeks, to months...I believe only the 'harder core' cases get longer term H, and even then H tends to calm down slowly over years if not re-damaged/triggered badly.

- I wish there had been a control group who had no sound treatment at all. Or hell, even better would have been three randomized groups: one with the "Nature Sounds" as defined for 9 weeks; one with WNG's for same periods of exposure for 9 weeks; and a full control with no external added sound. That would have been very telling!
However, with a "n" of only 34 the sample size is so small it would almost impossible to do - so they did the right thing and treated everyone. The conclusions would then be based on 'general knowledge' comparisons of other treatments like WNG's/TRT, etc.

- They used "open ear canal" treatment, not headphones. Yes...very important in my opinion. Good.

- This is a nice summary: The method proposed, in addition to being an inexpensive, simple and short-lasting treatment, can be applied to hyperacusis of any degree and aetiology. This method has been effective in 97% of the cases treated.
In short, it's a helluva lot cheaper and less invasive than TRT and wearing crap over your ears for 8 hours a day or whatever. Seems to me it's also more effective, as have never been impressed with the "research" presented on TRT. It's amazing to me how so many key medical treatment centers and even the VA department responsible for T/H treatment has swallowed it so completely. Oh well....This method here is reported from 2009 and would have saved the VA a ton of money since then!

- Overall it appears to be as good a method out there, or better even, than anything else offered in the "sound treatment zone" for H - and much, much easier to do. (The verdict is still not in on Round and Oval Window Reinforcement surgery for H).

A couple of other add ons: It seems to me that if T and/or H becomes a "successive offender"...in other words if one gets repeat damage over the course of one's life (even if separated by a decade or more), it becomes more entrenched and more difficult to treat. This has been the case for me, and I make a clear distinction between people who get T or H once, then never seem to get it again (or worse version of it) once adapted to it, etc., etc. This is of course "the norm" for the vast majority of people who first get tinnitus (often with very short term stealth H), and where we get our standard numbers of "80% (or 85%, or whatever) of people soon adapt to their tinnitus and live normal lives thereafter, etc., etc., etc."

Final point. If you have bad H, or had bad H, be aware and careful of excess sound in the "future"...For me, that future has unfortunately been synonymous with "the rest of your life".

Zimichael

 

This open field study was a disgrace and its authors should be sent to prison it was that bad. Its the typically condescending garbage lazy parts of the medical establishment are satisfied with shitting out every now and then. It belongs to those excesses of the last 20 years that at the beginning give a good impression but then cast a huge shadow of suspicion over sound therapy.

 

???????????????????????????????????? ....Do you have any basis for this statement? I notice you live in Spain, so perhaps you have some inside info. However, from my long overview of all this T and H stuff, I have seen a LOT worse research than this, and it makes decent enough common sense to me even if it were not labelled "research".
Plus it's a helluva lot cheaper than the very dubious, and often much taunted other "sound modalities" out there.
I intend to try it myself when have a little more "oooomph". Geeezuz it's one of the few things that can't hurt...and that's a change!!! (Seeing as I can control the volume, etc., etc. and exposure times are short).

Zimichael

 

There is an old thread about this research on the H network:
http://www.chat-hyperacusis.net/post/successful-spanish-h-treatment-protocol-4724819

@Zimichael
I'm guessing he doesn't trust any medical research coming from spain since their medical system is known for being quite crooked and corrupt.

 

Thats not research, thats just garbage that could fit in one paragraph. They gave the patients increasing sounds over 10 weeks and the sounds were for like 1 hour or so, thats all. On a subject as polemical as this, as the internet has shown with its endless stream of people complaining about TTTS-like symptoms pouring into forums talking about setbacks, we have an shit little article from lazy fatass spanish translators of Jastreboff with 1 hour exercises over 10 weeks getting 100% success statistics. Its self-evident.

There are many reasons why its a piece of shit, but one of them is the garbage Tinnitus Handicap Inventory, which doesn't factor in that slimebags can send patients to shrinks and the shrinks train the patients to, in fact, write a better score on the THI after ''the treatment''. Go to hyperacusisfocus.org it'll show in the tab sound therapy that it hasn't actually proven shit in the research papers because they've been garbage.

I dunno if its corrupt, but its private sector can't do anything innovative here, you have to go to a state university research team to treat a rare disease with a new protocol. Spain will always be 20 years behind anything, and thats not the most appropriate attitude to something as full of subtleties as T and H, or T and TTTS.

 

There aren't a lot anywhere that aren't. Some places with a strong Public system are OK to an extent, but they don't always do a lot for cases like us, preferring to dump us in the Private sector where cash monsters like Neuromonics and churn-and-dump ENTs lurk. A few Brits here seem to have had some good experiences with their NHS, but its all a question of expectations.

Oh, and Japongus, I managed to get a question to an Audiologist in Melbourne who was attending a conference to ask where Australia was up to with tenotomy for intractable hyperacusis and TTTS. Basically no-one is doing anything here as they "have doubts" and are waiting to see how all the guinea pigs in the US and Europe fare (nice). How long they are willing to wait I have no idea, but as I've noted before, when para-medical operators get a "licence" to treat a condition, then that treatment soon becomes a turf to be protected, so even if the procedure is (finally) judged to be worthwhile, it doesn't follow that it would be accepted with open arms.

 

Europe? Lol, Europe doesn't have any bibliography on this. Its all reports from either the USA or far away countries like South Korea, Israel, Japan or Brazil. I managed to interrogate a local private doctor, who told me this is intensely regulated, that the private sector isn't allowed to try anything new, and that I'll have to try to convince a state medicine university researcher, and all I want done is to get local anesthesia so I can at least start to replicate what I've read from Sismanis/Lib or the medicine journals.

I've also emailed Sismanis a number of times to find out why he diagnosed Lib just with her description, but he's awol.

 

Pity. The only real diagnostic criteria we have so far is common threads that can be pulled from the way people describe their symptoms, and even then it takes a super-wise researcher to identify common themes that emerge from the different words and languages of so many people. Maybe that's why no-ones doing much. It just seems all too hard, but reading here over time, many common themes emerge from the vast numbers of differing descriptions given. A survey of this forum would be a great place for a researcher to start looking, were anyone who was in a position to do so actually serious about it.

 

@japongus you seem very angry, do you find this helpful in dealing with your condition? It has the opposite effect on me usually.

 

Anger helps depending on where I physically am. It helps to identify a truly bad place and deconstruct any of the twats out to tell you that it's not a bad place. But if you're in a better more silent internet glued place, like I am now, it's a waste of time and energy. Society at large has a far greater potential for anger if its vital organs were violated like ours are, unrealized by pure act of its good luck.

 

It's free, so we can try. I have the feeling that's helping me, but no evidence of course...