TENS for Somatosensory Pulsatile Tinnitus

Hello. I am a new member, with SSPT for almost a year now. Multiple tests and several medications have been fruitless.

I've read about the P-stim clinical trial of years ago and have unsuccessfully sought out a clinic in Northern California. I asked Doctor Levine if he thought TENS might work, and he said to go for it.

But what protocol should I use? Carlos Herráiz used 2 hours a day, and Susan Shore is using only 30 minutes a day, while P-stim and NeuroStim Bridge go for 2 or 3 hours, alternating on and off, day and night continuously.

In addition, there are many other variables to consider.

On top of all that, I'm worried that I could make my condition worse if I do it wrong.

Any suggestions?

 

Hello, I was also curious about using TENS as a potential treatment. It seems to me that Susan Shores device is essentially TENS tuned/times to trigger specific neuron types and auditory tones tuned to the hearing loss.

I also appear to have this SSPT condition.

Here is the patent for her device. If you are technical you can look into the graphs/plots and frequency details and perhaps consider adding a microcontroller to a TENS device and matching the output of what is detailed in the patent.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140275737A1/en

I am certain that within this group there are many people who could code for a microcontroller and others who could do the interface to a TENS unit.

Jeremy.

 

I was thinking of just doing the TENS, without the sounds, and hoping for some luck. But there are so many variables that I'm lost. I suppose I could clothes-pin the pads to my auricles and try a mild dose, of maybe three one-hour sessions per day, for a month. Any thoughts?

 

I am just guessing here, but presumably whatever movement you can do to modulate the sound the most, like moving your jaw or neck is most likely where the aberrant nerve input into the auditory system is coming from. If you can isolate that movement it is most likely where you might consider putting the electrodes/pads to try to desensitize those nerve signals. I guess the goal is to stimulate to nerve pathway such that over time it becomes deactivated. I am going out on a limb here but I suppose the way these things work is if you stimulate a pathway more than it is used to over time it will deactivate itself when there is no external stimulation.

 

Thanks for your input, Jeremy. I wish my neuro-otologist would be as analytical, but he wrote me off as having a migraine (with no headaches) and prescribed nortryptaline, which I probably won't take.

The desensitize/deactivate idea sounds a bit scary. If the problem is a compromised DCN, or perhaps neuromuscular inflammation, I'm thinking that too much electro-juice might make things worse.

Maybe I worry too much. But getting the right protocol is very important. This is so confusing.

 

I know this might sound ridiculous, but mine started a couple months after I got a new pair of reading glasses. Trigger points behind the ears? Reminds me of an old Steve Martin movie.

 

From my understanding of SSPT everyone who develops it has some sort of hearing loss. Even when you have a hearing test to 20khz and it shows no significant loss, does not mean there is not damage to some part of the cochlea. There are many sensory hair fibre types in there and recently more different types have been discovered.

So when you have a loss of input signal from the cochlea, the nervous system does what it should do, that is increase the gain or amplification at the missing frequency or missing signal in an attempt to compensate. In other words through neuroplastic route it looks for a signal.

The problem is somehow, and I think there are many theories at this point, the brain/nervous system ends up picking up somatic signals potentially, relating to jaw, neck, or whatever and interprets those as sound.

My personal theory is that at this point when you have the system looking for a signal it latches preferentially onto a pain signal. You might have a sore neck for a few months or even dental or TMJ and that ends up as the new auditory input. To me that explains even though you may no longer have the neck problem for example, the nerve signals are now in place.

The dorsal cochlear nucleus DCN input into the brain shares many inputs with other parts of face, neck, jaw etc and they can cross over. There is also sections of nerves in that area I believe that do not have a myelin sheath which potentially makes them more vulnerable to cross-talk effect.

I think the thing to remember is the noise that drives us nuts is just a result of the body attempting to repair and compensate for missing signals but in some cases, like ours and countless others it goes slightly wrong.

The example is phantom limb syndrome where people have lost an arm or a leg but continue to have pain from the missing limb since all the nervous system and brain sections that create these sensations is still in place.

As far as glasses and trigger points, Trigger points and pain signals come back to what I mentioned above. There has been many people that have resolved their tinnitus through resolving where the signal is coming from. Like trigger point therapy to eliminate the pain signal.

My thoughts are just my interpretation of what I have read and concluded.

 

It seems that TENS might do the trick for someone. There is some evidence on the matter.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...erve_C2_for_the_treatment_of_somatic_tinnitus
https://einstein.pure.elsevier.com/...nding-tinnitus-following-radiofrequency-abl-2


I would imagine that there is a more comprehensive thread on this. Links are appreciated

 

Yes electro stimulation could be helpful but delivering it inside ear as in here is for the future I think.
https://journals.lww.com/otology-ne..._Electrostimulation_Treatments_to_the.35.aspx

 

I've tried searching here for more information, but couldn't find it. What if we got a TENS-device and put the stimulation on the spots similar like what Dr. Shore does and combine it with ACRN? This is a pure guess btw, I'm not sure what kind of mechanism would happen. I think my tinnitus has to do something with my nerves.

 

Well Shore device is basically TENS + sound. However, the timing is the problem as the electric impulse and the sound need to be synchronized to be most effective. However, a good hardware engineer should build such a thing quite easily. Too bad I only know about software.

 

I have the Dr Ho system works great for my aches & pains. I did try their recommended migraine placements hoping it would help for tinnitus. But no.