Repeated Bilateral Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation over Auditory Cortex for Tinnitus

[withintention]

Posting an update as I am starting the treatment again after six months without it. I have been tracking my tinnitus distress daily for the past three months and will continue tracking it for another three months while using the device.

Here is the graph for the last three months. It is interesting to see that the trendline is already going down even without treatment.

For those interested, the cost is $400 per month. This includes $100 per month for renting the tDCS device. On top of that, they require a video call once a week to receive a week's worth of activation codes for the device, and they charge $75 for each of these calls.

To me, this feels like a clear money grab. The video calls are unnecessary—you just join for about two minutes while they give you the codes. They could easily send them by email. Charging $75 each week in addition to the $100 monthly rental is excessive and unjustified.

If I find the treatment helpful, I plan to look into getting my own device that I can use independently. This lab is adding no real value while charging quite a lot.

 

[withintention]

I'm disappointed to report that the tDCS protocol didn't help me, so I'm returning the device.

Methodology: I tracked my tinnitus distress using the scoring system above for about four months without tDCS, then followed the tDCS protocol from the study for about one month. The only variation from the study protocol was that I extended it to four weeks instead of two. During the second two weeks, I increased the sessions from 20 minutes to 30 minutes, just to see if it might have a greater effect.

The first graph shows the period without tDCS, while the second includes the one month with tDCS at the end. Each graph has a trendline. You can see that the trendline slopes slightly more downward during the period without tDCS compared to when I included the month of tDCS.

It even looks like I had more level 4 and 5 days during the tDCS period, so if anything, it made things worse.

 

[Joeseph Stope]

Much appreciation and applause for the time and patient effort devoted to this examination.

And no fault with the firm involved. They were quite upfront, but rather expensive.