Solsaem Clinic (Dr. Minbo Shim) Experience

I think I’m having a good hear day today. I’m not sure why.

Make no mistake... my hearing still sucks.

But:
a) I noticed the music on the bone conduction headphones was a little louder and clearer.
b) I was in the kitchen and I heard the RO unit under the sink gurgling...without my hearing aids. I’ve never heard that before without them. I didn’t know what it was at first. I stuck my ear up to the kitchen sink drain to confirm what I thought I was hearing.
c) not that it’s important, but my tinnitus seems softer today.

I still have ten more days before the audiogram.

 

Okay, but is your tinnitus better? Most people including me are more interested in quiet in their ears/head. But that wouldn't show up on an audiogram of course. I have a nasty static sound today. Some people think it's related to neck muscles and posture.

 

I know it's a long shot, but would eating a jar of dried grasshoppers possibly help? I was hoping for an improvement of your word recognition.

 

Yes immensely. The train brakes are gone. Most days now it's always pretty much gone except between about 1-3 PM which is weird. My lower tones are all gone. I sleep like a rock now. I still want more healing though. I want to go back to normal. If I could I would definitely take more of these treatments. Money is a prohibitive factor for me right now.

Apparently, this is totally safe on the ear drum. I took my annual physical today and told my PCP about it for the first time and he was like "do what?" He was actually very interested and told me he could see no signs of any injections on my eardrums.

 

That’s definitely a long shot.
I would eat them if it helped my hearing. Of course I might need a bottle of tequila first...

 

Here:
https://patents.google.com/patent/RU2657828C2/en

 

Did you test till 20 kHz or just till 8 kHz?

 

The place I went only did 8 kHz.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this really be considered a minimal-invasive procedure? ...unless you meant the extraction from bone part? There's no surgery involved and eardrum membranes usually heal very quickly. To take into consideration, what are the possible risks?

 

Yeah the bone marrow part, going into your bones, combined with the large number of IT injections makes it seem like an invasive procedure to me.

I think the possible risks are infection and eardrum perforation. Dr. Shim has a very steady hand and prescribes antibiotics so under his care I can say that the risks are highly mitigated.

 

I think it’s minimally invasive. There’s a risk if you have a doctor that doesn’t know what he’s doing. The bone marrow too. As long as the doctor knows what he’s doing. I had total peace with Dr Shim working, although it still was unpleasant.

I have 7 hyperpigmentation spots, they don’t seem to be little scars, just hyperpigmentation where the extraction was done. I don’t think they will vanish. It’s not a big deal.
Other than that, I have zero lasting anything. And I think I’m typical.
I’m not sure how getting the procedure would be a problem for anyone.

This is my opinion on what I see. I’m not a scientist or researcher.

 

No improvement in hearing is very disappointing, that is essentially what the treatment was made for and you have gone twice.

 

I think it’s more complicated... Possibly nerves were saved and JohnAdams mentioned better hearing quality and drastic tinnitus reduction. A high frequency audiogram would be very interesting... GlennAz is showing improvements... Let’s wait for JohnAdams’s summation. It would also be cool if Aldo could post via JohnAdams or GlennAz.

 

Any perceived effect is far more likely to be nothing more than a placebo, unfortunately. This is why Dr. Shim should have submitted his trial (if he actually did one) for peer review 5 years ago rather than take substantial amounts of money from people without a shred of evidence to back up it’s efficacy. To me, he is an unethical doctor who didn’t even want to dare embarrass himself at the TRI conference.

It’s a shame people have lost money to him but hopefully no more will.

 

I totally disagree. My catching new sounds, now and then, out of the blue, not even thinking about the procedure I had done, is NOT a placebo.

 

He is insinuating that we are both deceiving ourselves, that we are both crazy.

I admit my reduction in tinnitus could have just been coincidental with my treatment, but this could not be the case with your hearing improvements.

 

I’m not deceiving myself. I sometimes do notice, out of the blue, I’m hearing something that I normally don’t. I’m not imagining it. It’s not placebo.

 

Regardless *a certain person* has made it his personal crusade to repeatedly come to this thread and pontificate his ignorant opinions which insinuate a criminal level of deception on the part of Minbo Shim as well as insinuating that the people that have personally dealt with the man are deceiving themselves to think that they are improving (you and I). This crusader has never once debated the actual science behind any of this, it is always "he hasn't published a peer reviewed science paper therefore he is a fraud and his patients are lying or deluded about the results".

 

Can you tell us what your audiogram showed even if there was no improvement? Are you notched at a certain frequency or rolled off? I'm curious if PRP may have success with minor hearing loss as opposed to more severe. Thanks.

 

Can you be more specific? Not saying you are not, but there could be a lot of factors at play here. Have you gone for an audiogram?

 

Just wanted to say for myself and many folks here...

Thank you JohnAdams and GlennAz for your honesty.

For taking your free time to check in and help us who are in a bad way.

You are both honest and good men...

Thank you.
Sincerely Daniel

 

Absolutely. They are both very honest and very brave.

 

I absolutely agree with Daniel here.

When trying to determine whether somebody is a reliable witness or not - as in law - the real question is
- is he/she a reliable person.’
Have they displayed honesty, integrity, humility, humanity?

By this criteria, some are rejected.

You guys are awesome! Truly!

(That’s another drink they owe me.)
Love you brothers,
Dave x

 

Yes - but only if they’re caramelised!

 

Before:

After:


The tests were different. The first one used solid tones that were easier to hear, the second one used beeps and there was a few times that I heard the beeps but didn't press the button fast enough. Either way, the results follow the same pattern.

They did not test for HF about 8 kHz.

So now my question is why is my tinnitus improving? Coincidence? Time? PRP?

My bet is the PRP because it's not just some benign substance. It has been shown to have very amazing healing properties on many types of tissues. The ENT as well as my normal doctor could not even tell I ever had any injections whatsoever.

My tinnitus has gone like this:
Initially it would fluctuate from mild to very distressing, especially the high frequency sounds that where like electrical zapping train brakes. It would be the same from the time I woke up to the time I would go to sleep and it would wake me up at least once every night and my dreams were disturbed and I could hear it in my dreams.

Now when I wake up, it's gone and it stays gone until around after lunch time and lasts for about 2-3 hours and then goes right back away.

I am still going to seek out an ENT here to squirt more PRP in my right ear or both but it is now going to be a little more difficult to convince them seeing as how my audiogram shows nothing.

Glenn, you're next.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

Your comments demonstrate it's likely placebo.

 

How can placebo dramatically heal tinnitus? I don't just think you're wrong, I know you are.

I was far more convinced that curcumin would heal my tinnitus and it didn't so why didn't the placebo effect happen there smart guy?

 

Your "before" audiogram did not show any significant hearing loss to begin with, so I don't think there was much/if anything to fix for you in the 8 kHz and below frequencies, it is likely that you suffer from hidden hearing loss (either loss in higher frequencies, or your auditory cortex increasing your gain to mask your loss), I would assume something positive happened to your cochlear from your treatment alone if you perceive your tinnitus less, assuming it isn't just the placebo effect.

Unfortunately, a trial would need to be conducted to have a proper idea of the efficacy of this treatment.

To be honest, if this PRP treatment was peer reviewed and had a positive clinical trial outcome, I would be rushing to get it, even at a higher cost, but I can't currently justify spending thousands of euros on something that may not yield any results and that's not backed by data (although it is somewhat backed by science, but there is a difference between mechanistic and practical data in the medical society).

To be clear, if nothing comes up in the next 5 to 10 years, and my condition does not improve, I might still be tempted to spend the money and undergo the treatment, but right now this isn't a priority and given the lack of clinical data, Lenire appears to be more promising so far, even though I know Lenire isn't a cure.

 

Right now, I can plug my ears and only hear a faint little whistle that swells up after about 5 seconds. Ears unplugged, nothing. And the fact that it consistently gets louder for a few hours during the middle of the day would seem to me like it's not a placebo effect. Something has drastically changed.

I also have been taking 7,8-DHF daily. That's a neurotropic drug. It very well could have been due to that. I just simply cannot discredit flooding my cochlea with healing growth factors for 5 weeks as not having anything to do with this.

 

John, you barely have hearing loss on your audiogram. What is there to recover?

In your case, your tinnitus problem has been helped by the PRP.
We’re not gonna have superhearing like Superman.

To have hearing like yours, I’d eat the the grasshoppers. Even the snails. Of course, I can’t promise how much I’d hold onto...