What Would Be Your Last Treatment Experiment Before Suicide?

My dad has permanent hearing loss and tinnitus as a result of the common cold a month ago. I feel so bad for him, I don’t even care about my own tinnitus anymore.
He only heard it was likely permanent from the doctor yesterday, so he’s in shock still. Before he thought it was simply a clogged ear that would resolve.

Anyway, he mentioned euthanasia. Of course I hope he does come out of this OK mentally and I will help him as much as I can, but it got me thinking. Let’s say you do decide to end it. Would there be any high risk treatments that you would consider? I read in another thread somebody wanting to inject NT-3 in their ear, for example.

 

Based on the study I cited, NT-3 is meant to reverse hearing loss relating to trouble hearing in background noise and music, it won't work for total loss of hearing such as the inability to hear a high pitch noise.

If anything the people who need those therapies would most likely have an audiogram that displays mild hearing loss, since the audiogram is just dead wrong.

 

I think you might be missing the point of suicide. Most people like myself who will likely be dead soon don’t reach that conclusion because of just having severe tinnitus... Our lives have been absolutely levelled by the onset of severe tinnitus.

So even if we were cured we are still suffering from PTSD, hopelessness, unemployment, relationship failure, isolation, debt, terrible self esteem, crippling depression, paranoia and other health issues brought on by the enormous stress. Basically we are hit with a totally unmanageable tsunami of issues that then spiral and lead to more and more problems until murdering yourself becomes the only option left.

Basically tinnitus is like stepping on a landmine. And once it’s gone off the damage goes far beyond the initial blast.

 

So annoyed I was not allowed to participate in the Regain study because my audiogram wasn't bad enough. Bish, pls.

I would probably fly out to Dr. Shim in South Korea. Hell, I still might if JohnAdams results are good enough.

I would also consider a sneaky Panama trip for some PRP. I seem to recall Mel Gibson saying his dad travelled there for some PRP injections that aren't legal in the US (it's been a while since I listened to that podcast, so I will go back and listen, I don't want to spread misinformation)>

Less risky is ACRN (Desyncra's device). It costs a huge amount (£5k), but I've seen some success stories, maybe 1 or 2. I think the cost itself is prohibitive for most, but I've read testimonies where it has given people hours or even days of silence. If Neuromod doesn't launch this year, I'll look into it as my tones are more stable now than at the outset.

 

Sorry to hear that Bam. My dad is over 60 though with enough money saved to last for the rest of his life. Money and self esteem are not really an issue for him. I understand that if you are very depressed yourself there is not much motivation for an experiment. But perhaps someone around you (in this case me) does have the motivation to try and help that person for the last time

 

Sorry you posed the question, ‘let’s say you decide to end it.’ In that respect I wasn’t referring to your father. However if I was sixty and struck with this and was already talking about euthanasia with my kids after one month I would suspect depression may have crept in and my self esteem might take something of a hit.

 

How bad is your dad's hearing loss? Is he able to use a hearing aid? Would he be a candidate for a cochlear implant?

The third audiologist I saw informed me his mother has Meneire's disease and that, as a last resort, the doctors removed her cochlea. She now has lost all her hearing and has tinnitus. I cannot fathom going on at this point.

 

@Bam it saddens me to hear you talk like this. Please don't give up hope yet. There are companies like Frequency Therapeutics who are very close coming up with something that can help us. You would be greatly missed on TT and I'm sure in the real world too. We are all suffering. You are not alone though I know sometimes you may feel like you are. As a community we are in this together.

 

Thank you Flamingo. Those are very kind words. I’m going through a torrid time right now with this I’m afraid. It deeply saddens me that here we are firing out desperate SOS signals from our leaking lifeboats and all these companies are just dragging their heels and setting their sites on 3 or 4 years from now when some of us will have already drowned in abject misery.

 

@Bam if your tinnitus did go you might find you were ecstatic.

We don't know what Neuromod will be like but if you'd got tinnitus even 5 years ago no 500 person clinical trial was on the horizon. Anyway I am sorry you are going through such a hard time and so hope it gets better.

 

True. It’s just the longer this goes on the more my hope and my life force dwindle.

 

Sorry to hear that you are so low Bam xx
@Bam

 

@Bam - my dear buddy.
I know - I know - and you know that ‘I know.’
We are all struggling so hard with this:

We do actually ‘need’ you with us here my
lovely Bam.
You are one of us - and we all love you my friend.
Dave x
Jazzer

 

First of all

Tinnitus tends to fade for most people. This process often takes 12-24 months. Hopefully your dad will notice some fading in about 3 months. If that happens, the chance that he reaches that "can hear it only in quiet room" stage in a year or two would be very good.

Check out
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822
The first tip there refers to
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/spontaneous-recovery-stats-many-recover-3-studies.21441/
but take a look at all tips there - you might find some of them to be useful.

 

I would say that 1 month is not enough time to ‘recover’ from it. People have lived through years of tinnitus and hearing loss, and at least he has got it later in life rather than those who get it young.

That being said, the next hope tinnitus sufferers should keep an eye on is Neuromod. I don't personally follow the regeneration trials daily as Neuromod, because it’s a good few years (if ever) off and XEN-1101 is for epilepsy. There’s a chance it can work for tinnitus. But the next big thing that may happen is definitely Neuromod with a launch of this year.

Being dead is forever, what’s a few more months of seeing if tinnitus is reduced with Neuromod making life happy again?

 

Give your father time, suicide is usually the response one has immediately after discovering that T is permanent. In a few years he will have habituated and the thoughts of suicide will reduce. Suicide sounds easy enough on paper, but it takes a lot more to actually see it come to fruition.

 

@Bam Hey Bam, correct me if I am wrong, but I thought your tinnitus was almost gone?
But I do understand what you are saying.

You are a good son. I am sorry for all the suffering tinnitus has caused you and now your dad.
But he has only had tinnitus for a month, chances are he may get better. Only time will tell.

 

For me personally I would try severing the auditory nerve.

 

some people can be suicidal due to hearing loss, noxacusis or other complications with tinnitus.

 

I don't know if they would do a deep brain stimulation meant for treatment of Parkinson's as a possible treatment for tinnitus. But you might find the following interesting. -- I've also heard of some people's tinnitus going away after suffering a stroke (of all things!). Apparently if an area of the brain that's at least partially responsible for tinnitus becomes injured, it can stop tinnitus.

Something else that might be related to this is scalp acupuncture. It apparently inserts fairly long needles under the scalp and can achieve deeper results than regular acupuncture. My acupuncturist tried it on some of his patients, and they complained how painful it was. But well-trained practitioners can apparently do it with little pain. I"ve read it's been helpful for some cases of tinnitus.

A stroke of silence: tinnitus suppression following placement of a deep brain stimulation electrode with infarction in area L

Abstract
The authors report on a case of tinnitus suppression following deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson disease. A perioperative focal vascular injury to area LC, a locus of the caudate at the junction of the head and body of the caudate nucleus, is believed to be the neuroanatomical correlate. A 56-year-old woman underwent surgery for implantation of a DBS lead in the subthalamic nucleus to treat medically refractory motor symptoms. She had comorbid tinnitus localized to both ears. The lead trajectory was adjacent to area LC.

Shortly after surgery, she reported tinnitus suppression in both ears. Postoperative MRI showed focal hyperintensity of area LC on T2-weighted images. At 18 months, tinnitus localized to the ipsilateral ear remained completely silenced, and tinnitus localized to the contralateral ear was substantially suppressed due to left area LC injury. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of a discrete injury to area LC that resulted in bilateral tinnitus suppression. Clinicians treating patients with DBS may wish to include auditory phantom assessment as part of the neurological evaluation.

 

Sadly wrong. I have seen zero improvement in 16 months or so of having it. I still hear it screaming everywhere 24/7.

 

You could also look into rTMS.

 

Before suicide, I would try living with it for forty to seventy years.

 

100 years tops!

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/worl...-she-approaches-her-129th-birthday/ar-AAxlY49

:-P maybe she should have gone with the adage "smoke 'em if ya got 'em", except it sounds like she's probably mostly been in such abject poverty that they did not, in fact, got 'em.

 

Give it time. At least a couple years. There is a good chance it will improve, possibly go away or you will habituate.

As for treatments, one that I would be afraid to try but may if I was completely desperate would be psycibilian (sp?) mushrooms. They have been proven to rewire parts of the brain but I think it could go one of two ways, improvement or perhaps it could make things worse. I think it would be a roll of the dice. They are working on it for depression as a treatment, it is in clinical trials. If it ever comes out as a treatment for depression, I would likely try it in a clinical setting with a trained Specialist who would be able to guide me etc. Taking them in your basement or a forest could end up traumatic if you have a ‘bad trip’.

 

Thank you @Lane.
This one jumped at me in particular.

The way I understand this, that is this "injury" was surgically done on purpose, it might stop Tinnitus?
If that is indeed the case, there should be some type of trials and/or studies in this area being performed at the very least.

Either way this is very interesting, but practically speaking, if I approached my GP and demanded the Parkinson's stimulation treatment to cure my Tinnitus, they would most likely laugh me out of there.

Edit:
Sorry didn't mean to bump up old thread, but I got mixed up answering another thread, which was linked to this one.
My bad.