Thinking about How Cool the Future Is Going to Be

Sometimes it's helpful for me to think about how things are going to be someday.

Can you imagine it? In the future, you get tinnitus, and instead of an ENT telling you "go home, and you have to get used to it," you instead get a recommendation to a neuroscientist. He/she just hooks some diodes up to your skull, adjusts some settings and then shoots cooling impulses into your head as you hear and feel the tinnitus subside. I'm sure it's going to be a weird but cool feeling when it happens.

Or maybe a giant cosmic electrical blast will fly through the solar system and give everyone in the world the same tinnitus

 

Jason Silva always gets me excited about the future. I think people often severly underestimate how quickly technology is truly evolving, hopefully it'll evolve quick enough for us to see a solution to our tinnitus problems!

 

Yeah i was also thinking about that recently. I think technology is really going to help a lot of people in this century. The internet was a revolution in the XXth century, but i really hope for a medical revolution. Not infinite life but easier, happier life

 

@Champ, @James White

if the cosmic fly were to come i am sure we'll have a solution within a couple of years....n...Now where can we find one.

I have real high hopes for nano tech and gene therapy using virus as vectors. there is already a trial for haulting eye sight damage by a rear disease. they've haulted the trial at the moment as they detetcted some impurities in their stuff but so far have not reported any adverse effects, so atleast thats good right. i'll post the link to that later, for the moment have a look at this one in mice

http://www.newscientist.com/article...=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|stem-cells#.UhS9KNIxHlM

 

I take great comfort in my belief that things will be better in the future. In my imagined (not too distant) future, there is a medication that can dull or eliminate tinnitus by acting on some central neuronal pathway, common to all sufferers. While I wait, I take good care of my body by eating right and exercising, and also by protecting my ears. This way, when the day comes, I'll be fully prepared to enjoy my new noise-free life! -G

 

I look forward to the future when my kids discover how coat-hangers work they struggle with this - yet algebra and quadratic equations they master ???

 

Here's my prediction:

• I think that tinnitus is due to a voltage/current on an efferent nerve that is connected behind the cochlear. This is a place that is "hard to get at". This little nerve is causing all our problems. It's the only explanation that makes sense to me.

• Eventually, doctors will realize the above reason is "The Cause". There will be a few holdouts who believe in homeopathic medicine, who will never agree about "The Cause" (hey, that's why we have chocolate and vanilla, right?). But, a few important influential doctors (with Harvard degrees) will come to agree about "The Cause". The rest of the medical community, will remain apathetic because it doesn't concern them.

• These few doctors will be able to hack their way through the political bushes in Washington and will be able influence some U.S. Congressman to introduce a Tinnitus Bill for the research that will actually fix this thing. It will be called "The T-Bill", and will be subject to intense political debate.

• The insurance industry bean counters will do a cost analysis, predicting how much the T-Bill will cost them. They will determine it will cost big bucks, and will not be good for profits. They will develop a political strategy to defeat the T-Bill. Lobbyists will wine and dine and play golf with certain key players in Congress. Promises will be made. There will even be some religious fanatics that will claim that tinnitus is a good thing. Some ministers will even mention tinnitus in their sermons. Meanwhile, Europeans will shake their heads about American politics - again.

• We will hear the usual political b.s. and name calling. Politicians will take sides based on party lines about the T-Bill. But, eventually, they will agree that they need to find a fix for tinnitus, because. otherwise, they will lose votes. A few tinnitus extremist groups will defend the "right to have tinnitus".

• The current attempt by the US military to cure tinnitus will fail after throwing billions into approach. Presently the US military is attempting to administer a drug into the cochlea. But, eventually, they will give up, simply because they are making an approach from the wrong side of the cochlea. The problem is behind the cochlea, not inside the cochlea. (Dah)

• Finally, a doctor will write a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, asking "How can we get a drug behind the ear to stop tinnitus?". Future historians will call this letter a serendipitous question that will lead to a way to fix this puzzling condition.

• After deciding they need to administer a drug behind the cochlea, doctors will look for a way to inject a numbing drug behind the cochlea. Eventually doctors will determine they need to drill a little hole in the skull, to serve as the injection location. It will really be no big deal, ...but, the big question, who will pay? My God, will insurance companies have to pay? Will companies be expected to pay?

• Using MEG/MRI scans, doctors will be able to determine exactly where this little hole needs to be, for each patient with tinnitus. This will become a routine procedure.

• After drilling a little hole through the skull, a numbing drug will be administered behind the cochlear which will silence tinnitus.

• The "T-Bill" will continue to require taxpayer funding, even though it will have achieved its purpose. States will misappropriate T-Bill money to pay other things, causing a scandal that will be exposed on CBS "60 Minutes".

This will become a routine procedure, like going to the dentist for a filling.

It will become an easy thing to fix. The ATA will build a statue in their office courtyard, commemorating all the suffering that has occurred. The ATA will continue.

"Tinnitus Talk" will shut down, because there will no longer be a need for it. There will appear an article in Wikipedia describing the history of Tinnitus Talk.

Someday, in the future, children will be taught that people once heard noises that never went away. The current situation that we live in will be considered barbaric.

 

@Karl Didn't you offer your suggestion regarding tinnitus treatment (i.e., drug delivery "behind the cochlea") to the ATA? I believe you offered something to the ATA, but never got a response. I can't remember your contribution, however.

 

The future will be so cool when doctors no longer say: "Sorry, you have tinnitus, I can't help you and there is nothing you can do about it."

 

Yes. I even wrote a short paper that I sent to the ATA, showing sketches. What I learned is, so far no researcher has been able to measure the voltage/current in the efferent nerve connected to the back of the cochlea. It is very difficult to setup an experiment with an animal and be able to measure that voltage. No one has done it yet. Many researchers have postulated that this is the cause of tinnitus, but it has yet to be proven.

I'm convinced there will be a cure. This little story I've layed-out is meant to satirize the obstacles that will be faced.

This reminds me of a story about the building of the Panama Canal: The French were the first to attempt digging a canal. They had meetings to decide the best way to dig a canal. Their planning committee proposed a plan, we'll call it "Plan A". At these meetings, there was a man who was not on the planning committee, who suggested flooding an area in Panama to make a lake. Let's call this "Plan B". Well, due to the internal politics of who was in charge on the planning committee, the French decided to go with "Plan A". As a result of this poor choice, the French eventually lost 50,000 lives to malaria and yellow fever attempting to build the Panama Canal. Later, the Americans came along. They used "Plan B" and got the job done.

Society is full of inertia and red tape. But, eventually, I suppose that entropy causes society to go in the right direction.

 

"When I was young if our ears rang, we just dealt with it." - Old former tinnitus sufferer

"Gosh, how could you just deal with something like that? I don't think I could." - Youngster

"You will find that you can deal with anything in life if you don't have a choice about it. If you have no choice about it, you finally realize you have a choice about your reaction." - Old former tinnitus sufferer

It's the idea of habituation, yes. I think tinnitus is a lesson for many life situations. There are multiple times in our lives where we are faced with things we have no control over. We either have to accept them and move on, or continue living in suffering.

I like your thoughts, Karl.

 

@Karl
There may be good logic to what you have to say. Let's say there is some amount of damage to the haircells. This intern would cause an imbalance in the gain each neuron is asked to apply. Suddenly the neuron looses input but continues to apply the gain. So it's a sort of amplifier feedback that is percieved as tinnitus. If you stop or decrease or instruct the neuron to stop applying the gain......tinnitus may decrease

All theory but fits I suppose

Cheers

 

@Karl
Your theory seems logical .Here is study of electrophysiological changes in T patients;
http://www.tinnitusjournal.com/detalhe_artigo.asp?id=349
also you can google auditory evoked potentials in tinnitus, which reflect electrical activity in auditory nerve.