Why Is There No Tinnitus Cure?

I am sure this has been asked thousands of time and I am sure there is no easy answer, but I just gotta ask.

Why is there no cure? I've spent hours googling tinnitus and I always come across the same answer there is no cure.

Why? Can anyone give an answer in layman's terms that does not require a degree in rocket science?

 

Because tinnitus is caused by the brain and finding out the exact mechanisms behind it is pretty complicated. It's the same reason why there's no cure for epilepsy, though medication can oftentimes help to control the seizures to a certain extent from what I've read.

 

There are not yet medicines or devices that can target regions of the auditory brain.
There is not yet ways to cure hearing loss.

Scientists are working on it.

Look at Frequency Therapeutics hearing loss regeneration as an example.

 

Because nobody has the same exact symptoms and nobody has the same kind of tinnitus. Because the brain is still a mystery to us. Because there are other diseases where we know the exact cause and still have no cure.

Even ents can't get it right. And it's their job.

 

Science is advancing month to month on tinnitus, however. Make sure to watch the recent Neuromod Q&A, there are several fascinating segments on the research behind the device. The device itself seems to work in proper large-scale clinical trials so the science behind it is probably sound, too.

So although there's no cure because the mechanisms involved are so complex, our knowledge IS actually catching up to the tinnitus beast and the theories ARE finally leading to working treatments. It's no longer entirely hopeless.

 

I shouldn't have asked. There are a number of conditions I have always been terrified of and now that I think about it, I would give my right arm to have any of those, because at least people that have them do get breaks.

 

I've had a long period of severe health anxiety and I've "diagnosed" myself with several horrible afflictions. Believe me, tinnitus isn't the only condition which is incurable and can wreck a life without actually killing you.

My "favorite" was Restless Legs Syndrome which is like the devil's own disease: during the day there are zero symptoms, then during the night you get irresistible urges to move your legs and you literally can't sleep because you must move and you keep on moving for hours and hours even when you're crying with exhaustion. And this just drags on, getting worse month to month. There is no cure, and the medications only help for a while, then actually worsen your condition (called "augmentation").

Turns out I don't actually have RLS (the pains I felt were caused by anxiety and lack of stretching) but I did spend WEEKS basically living on RLS forums and wallowing in all the pain and misery. It's at least as shitty as tinnitus. And, as I alluded to in my previous post, it seems we're finally getting a proper tinnitus treatment. So we might be very lucky to have T and not RLS, for example.

 

What? I'd never heard of that.

 

The easy answer is that T is produced by neurons in the brain, so to stop T, one needs to somehow have an impact on the brain (without having an impact on cognitive functions, etc). The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe.

 

It's real and exactly as I described it, unfortunately.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/restless-legs-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20377168

"Although RLS/WED doesn't lead to other serious conditions, symptoms can range from barely bothersome to incapacitating. Many people with RLS/WED find it difficult to fall or stay asleep.

Severe RLS/WED can cause marked impairment in life quality and can result in depression. Insomnia may lead to excessive daytime drowsiness, but RLS/WED may interfere with napping."

 

@Angel Dust

1) Medical technology is still very primitive.
2) Funding for tinnitus research is very low.
3) Tinnitus is very complex. The more you read about, the more you realize that it is going to take many years and many breakthroughs to get this hellish condition fixed.

 

Why though? Almost nobody cares? I guess.

 

Nobody cares is probably the unfortunate truth.

 

My great grandfather suffered from it...

 

Nobody cares because tinnitus sufferers are the best little patsies in the world. Doctors and their Big Pharma pay masters shovel useless drugs at us for depression and anxiety and we gobble them up like candy making them billions a year. A cure is not in their interests at all. In fact it would lose them money long term so why invest in it?!

The coping industry built up around tinnitus keeps this whole scandal propped up by printing bullshit about ‘tuning it out’ and using drugs to help ‘cope’.

You only have to look at this forum to see how deep this runs. We have dozens of coping industry evangelists infiltrating this site daily like a bad Pawel Jastroboff acid trip, tossing around bullshit coping industry slogans like confetti and suggesting all manner of drugs that ‘helped’ them.

They pop up under the guise of, ‘hey guys! I had really bad tinnitus and now I’m just back to help you out!’ ....... ‘Now take this drugs and that drug and soon you’ll learn to ‘listen out’ instead of ‘listen in’ and you’ll be cured!!

Do not trust these rotten fucking apples. They are scum.

 

Because it is effectively a disorder of the brain and very few disorders of the brain have good treatments, perhaps due to their complexity and our lack of understanding of them. However unlike e.g. Parkinson's it does sometimes clear up by itself.

 

From a link that I once posted has about 10,000 causes listed. Any system/ body process can cause tinnitus as single or in combination with something else - other processes. Like anything else lifestyle, hypertension, and heredity plays a big part.

As a condition the trigeminal nerve and complex is high on the list. To me, the master endocrine gland seems to have some input if not a major influence.

http://tinnitus0.blogspot.com/2009/01/homeopathic-treatments-for-pituitary.html

Read some of the other articles on right side within link.

 

There are a number of reasons really. One is that there are quite a number of causes of tinnitus so even if a cure was found for tinnitus caused by one thing it might not cure tinnitus caused by something else.

But the main reason is that the actual amount of money spent on tinnitus research is tiny compared with the money spent of conditions such as cancer etc.

Moreover, the majority of money going on tinnitus research isn't currently being spent on research for a cure, but on what are described as "management strategies" - and many of the organisations that offer these "management strategies" benefit from the lack of the cure and are keen to make sure that situation continues in the future.

 

there actually may be a cure in existence right now, we cannot conclude that there is no cure.

fx 322 may cure noise, ototoxicity induced tinnitus, but it's caught up in a very slow trial process and we were supposed to get the current trial results by like right now but they pushed it up into next year. this seems like the most likely candidate for a cure in my opinion.

there's a doctor in south korea that claims he can cure hearing loss and tinnitus with a form of stem cell and growth factor treatments, but it's unverified by third parties or official clinical trials. his technique has scientific backing, but that's all we know. nobody here can conclusively affirm or deny that what he is doing is real.

 

As I was in bed last nite, it must've been around 4:30, I started thinking about all the diseases we can cure now that they did not have a cure for back in, say, the 12th century. I mean, wasn't an infection deadly back then? Now you go to your local drugstore with a prescription for antibiotics and fast forward a month and you're fine.

By that rationale, in the year 3200 or 4500, people with T will get their OTC miracle pill and get on with their lives without this. Wrong century to have T I guess.

 

To be fair that won't last much longer the way antibiotics resistance is increasing... We may very well see people dying from infection of a simple cut within our lifetimes again, unless there's a real breakthrough (tamed bacteriophages, nanobots, responsible prescribing practices or some other scifi thing).

 

An infection was deadly as late as 1930s (at that time, antibiotics were still not mass produced). However, drug-resistant antibiotics are a thing, so it is entirely possible that by 2030 we will be back to how it was in 1930s, as far as infections are concerned.

When the Roman Empire ended, development and progress was halted for over 1000 years (i.e., the Dark Ages). Let's just say that I agree with you that it is the wrong time to be alive.

 

Yup. Where are aliens - you know, the ones that built the pyramids - with their advanced medical breakthroughs when you need them?

 

My husband's sister has Huntington's Disease. This a rare disease which can be described as a combination of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and ALS. Her body moves uncontrollably, she has trouble thinking in an organized way and she has drastic mood swings (all symptoms of Huntington's). Death occurs approx 15 years after diagnosis and she was diagnosed 6 years ago. She takes a daily cocktail of drugs to get by for now, but those drugs will cease to help as the disease progresses. Her life will become increasingly joyless as She becomes unable to talk, walk, eat, etc. She is living with us right now, after being evicted because she could not manage her finances or get along with her neighbors.

There is a 50/50 chance of inheriting the defective gene from a parent who has Huntington's Disease. Thankfully, my husband did not inherit it. The detective gene is located on chromosome number 4. If you inherit the gene, you WILL get the disease. Unlike hearing loss and tinnitus which are very complicated, Huntington's Disease is pretty predictable with no environmental factors. Do you think there is a cure for Huntington's Disease? NO!

 

To be fair most of them are just shit doctors.

 

Those members who had severe Tinnitus
- got well - and then came back to help others in true altruistic fashion, did not in my opinion have severe Tinnitus.
Mild Tinnitus is no sweat - I had it for 24 years and never even mentioned it.
Perfectly liveable.
A breeze, to me.
Severe Tinnitus is loud, intrusive, constant, and does not heal itself.
We know that once stereocilia have been destroyed they cannot regenerate.

Those members with nothing more than mild Tinnitus who offer the “I got over it, and you can too” simply prove that they are speaking from a point of ignorance, having no idea what this condition actually is.
All of the above is obviously in MNSHO.

Meditation and deep relaxation may help in the coping department, or so I have found.

 

Spot on @coffee_girl !
Its likely to be very complex.
To date...no one has an answer just theories.
Even when interventions that might help emerge ( Neuromod etc...) they are only likely to help some.
T has many roots I fear.
Not sure ENT ( Ear Nose and Throat ) specialists will be much involved...its more likely to be a Brain or Nerve specialist.
Damn its complex.
All we can do is relax, support each other when the 'wasps' are in our heads, and live the life we have left as best we can.
Wishing all you lovely people some silence ( even if its momentary ), peace and love X

 

Those members who had severe Tinnitus
- got well - and then came back to help others in true altruistic fashion, did not in my opinion have severe Tinnitus.
Mild Tinnitus is no sweat - I had it for 24 years and never even mentioned it.
Perfectly liveable.
A breeze, to me.
Severe Tinnitus is loud, intrusive, constant, and does not heal itself.
We know that once stereocilia have been destroyed they cannot regenerate.

Those members with nothing more than mild Tinnitus who offer the “I got over it, and you can too” simply prove that they are speaking from a point of ignorance, having no idea what this condition actually is.
All of the above is obviously in MNSHO.

Meditation and deep relaxation may help in the coping department, or so I have found.

 

I woke up earlier and my tinnitus wasn't noticeable. Then I fell back asleep and now it is an annoying static. Sometimes gabapentin plus diazepam will knock it out, but will almost always come back with the sleep/awakening cycle. It sure would be nice if we had a consistent treatment/cure.

 

Will you get unequivocal and unwavering support from absolutely everyone from your family to your doctor if you choose to be euthanised? YES!