My Cure Tinnitus

While it’s mostly been a fantasy in science fiction movies, biotechnology is inching closer to reality and a company by the name of MicorTransponder is developing neuro-stimulation devices to cure tinnitus. During a recent clinical trial, they treated tinnitus patients with a neuro-stimulation device that delivered very positive results. While this is not a definitive tinnitus cure, it is a start in the right direction. MicroTransponder will continue to test this technology through their Serenity System, which is a neuros-stimulation based system with a small implanted battery and wires that internally connect to the vagus nerve in the neck. The patient also wears headphones and every time they hear a tone, the receive a small burst of neuros-stimulation to their vagus nerve.

Biomedical Research For Tinnitus Cure
sciencedude.ocregister.com

The goal of this strategy is to retrain the brain to shrink the abnormal representation of the phantom sound. In plain speak, they are attempting to rewire damaged neural circuits in the auditory cortex, which is what most researchers believe is the root cause of tinnitus symptoms. All of the firms technology is based on the premise that certain disorders arise from over or under-stimulated nerves, damaged neural pathways or over-allotment of neurons to specific tone frequencies. Here is what Sue Karlin had to say in a recent article about MicroTransponder at www.spectrum.ieee.org.

In 2008, when writers from game developer Eidos Montreal began mapping out the third of its Deus Ex game series, neuroengineer and Deus Ex fan Will Rosellini offered to bolster the scientific plausibility of their story lines.

Rosellini is the CEO of MicroTransponder in Dallas, which develops neurostimulation technology to treat neurological disorders such as tinnitus, chronic pain, stroke-induced motor loss, and post-traumatic stress. The technology uses implantable electronic devices to deliver small pulses of energy to nerves, triggering chemicals that enable the brain to remap specific parts.

A former Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher, Rosellini’s fascination with sports performance led him to neuroscience after his athletic career ended. He has since earned a law degree, an MBA, and a master’s in computational biology, and will soon have a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Texas at Dallas. He helped launch MicroTransponder in 2007 to commercialize the research of Larry Cauller, a now-retired associate professor of neuroscience, who worked on robotic prosthetics that interfaced with human nervous systems.

The Human Revolution writers tapped Rosellini’s knowledge to portray more believable technology for the year 2027, when its story takes place. They came to the table with a wish list of 30 superhuman abilities for their characters. Rosellini whittled it by a third according to how existing science might realistically evolve, even helping them smooth over a major criticism involving rapid healing of characters.

“Players didn’t like automatic health regeneration, because it made the game easier,” says Rosellini. “But it was a necessary part of a game play feature, so I spent a lot of time examining how vagus nerve stimulation [which exists today as a treatment for depression] could speed the healing process. We added that information to booklets laying around and in e-mails you can see on computers in the game.”  You can see the rest of the original article here.

While this sounds like pure science fiction, scientists and researchers are capable of much more than we can currently imagine, and we are truly on the cusp of augmenting our bodies by using technology and science, and the reality is that researchers are closer than most can imagine to making these augmentations a reality that many might no care to believe.

Between this technology and all of the research that is going on with drug treatment studies, we feel sure that a tinnitus cure is just around the corner.  While we expected something like this to be forthcoming soon, we were excited to finally hear officially that MicorTransponder is developing neuro-stimulation devices to cure tinnitus, and that they were already having some small successes.  In time, nerve stimulation and nerve regeneration might be a common occurrence.  Any help in reducing the growing number of tinnitus sufferers would be welcome news to those that suffer from tinnitus symptoms.

It’s now believed that a certain structure in the brain could be very important in finding a tinnitus cure!  Southern Illinois and the University of Illinois at Urbanna-Champaign have received a federal grant to help researchers target a specific part of the brain in order to help cure tinnitus.  These researchers believe that a chemical in the brain called GABA plays a role in tinnitus, and they are receiving a grant of almost one million US dollars in order to help develop a drug to treat the ringing in the ear symptoms that plagues up to to ten percent of the adult population in the United States alone.

Scientist will be using rats while trying to identify differences in brain chemistry between those with tinnitus and those without.  If they can find and identify these differences, they believe that they can develop an effective drug to help treat tinnitus symptoms, particularly the ringing ears that most people develop that have the condition.  There appears to already be drugs that these researchers have in mind, but they would not identify them.  The fact that they have these drugs already in mind seems very promising to us.  Here is what Dean Olsen had to say in a recent article about this that was posted at www.enterprisenews.com.

Scientists in Springfield, Ill., believe a specific part of the brain will become a useful tool in developing medicines to treat tinnitus, a chronic ringing in the ears that affects millions of Americans.

This is an interesting story about this individual’s introduction to the world of tinnitus.  I am posting this here on our website because it is a great example of how one small moment in time can change everything.  This story describes, in very interesting details, how a simple prank by good friends affected this persons hearing forever.  While a tinnitus cure could restore a single innocent moment in time, for now we continue to treat our tinnitus symptoms with the best available options while researchers work frantically for the magic bullet that might end tinnitus forever.

While I can only speculate as to whether or not the foreboding premonition was real or only added to spice up the story, it’s still has an eerily haunting feel for me and probably anyone else that suffers from tinnitus symptoms, particularly the ringing in the ears variety.  We search the Internet regularly looking for anything new or interesting about tinnitus, yet this story grabbed my attention immediately, and I knew almost instantly that I had to share it on our website.

Here is what Roger Ling had to say about his experience with tinnitus at www.stationr.org:

Cure Tinnitus (www.sunshinereflections.wordpress.com)

A lifetime ago we had a friend named Biz whose father owned some property with an abandoned farmhouse in a place called Pleasant Grove, high on a mountaintop in Jackson County, Alabama. Once in a while we would go out to sweep the dust, mow back the grass, and spend the night out there in the woods. The house wasn’t much more than a shack with a sagging front porch, a musty little kitchen, a living room, and two bedrooms. There were bees living inside the outer wall of one bedroom, and you could hear them in there during the night. We’d stay up drinking warm beer and playing cards before retiring cautiously, careful not to make too much noise and alarm the bees.

One night around 1984 Annie and I were out at the cabin with a couple of friends. I have a picture of Annie holding Uno cards, a big Budweiser there on the table. I had been drinking a few beers myself and during a break in the cards I went out onto the front porch, my Walkman playing Roger Waters. There was a tree growing right next to the porch that almost begged to be climbed, so up I went into the night. No sooner had I settled on a branch high above the roof when a picture flashed unbidden into my mind.

I saw a dark, hooded figure moving through the woods behind the house, somewhere out there in the distance, coming toward us in silence and darkness. I saw no face or features, just a man-like figure threading through the trees, but what I saw in my mind was pure evil, Satan himself.

Funny how the mind plays tricks, how an idea so simple could be so powerful. I had been alone in the dark countless times, up in trees at Percy Warner Park in Nashville, on the beaches of Mississippi at 3 AM, alone in the woods, caves, in graveyards and empty buildings, and I tended to take it all at face value. What you saw was what you got; I wasn’t scared of the dark and a little proud of that. But this split second of imagination, a moment of video that for whatever reason played in my head, frightened me. That vision of a dark, evil figure moving toward me scared me enough that I immediately came down from the tree to go back inside with the others.

I have to confess it was years later that I made the connection between that vision and what came next, the sad and stupid little event that changed my life subtly but forever for the worse. Like most turning points it was a tiny thing, nothing dramatic despite the fact that it involved a gun. In those days one of my friends liked to play with a muzzle-loader rifle, and he had left it there in the living room.

I have never cared much for guns, and had no real knowledge or interest in a muzzle loader, but in idle boredom I picked up the rifle. I was being cautious enough that I would never have pointed the gun anywhere near a person, but for reasons I don’t understand I hefted it up towards my shoulder and sighted down the barrel at a window. I wasn’t even holding it right, kind of up in the air and forward; my finger was nowhere near the trigger, but I’ll accept responsibility for picking the thing up. What happened was my fault. In that senseless moment as I stood there someone reached over and pulled the trigger. Blam! The gun went off and I was sure I had blasted out the window, but the guys were laughing at my expression of horror, knowing they had just pulled a good joke. The barrel had been empty, no bullet or gunpowder there, but the small charge in the flintlock, intended to set off the real blast, had been present. When that little charge went off like a firecracker, it was no more than an inch or two from my right ear.

My ear was ringing like crazy from the concussion, but of course I didn’t think much of it at the time. It was still ringing when Annie and I crawled into bed later. To my surprise it was still ringing the next morning. That was almost twenty years ago now, and the ringing in my ear has never stopped, not for an instant. Sometimes it rings quietly in the background. Often it’s the single loudest noise I can hear.  You can read the rest of the original article here.

Even if you don’t suffer from tinnitus, you probably still find this story to be an interesting one.  However, if you experienced anything similar or even if your tinnitus came on differently, you were probably like me and hung on every word with a heavy weight, knowing and feeling exactly what Roger felt when his experience occurred on that in Alabama.

If you are new to our website, then you will want to continue exploring all of our information and articles, but if you are a repeat visitor, then you already know that we are focused on tinnitus and tinnitus research and will continue to search weekly for anything new or exciting when it comes to finding a tinnitus cure.

While a tinnitus cure could restore a single innocent moment in time, for now we continue to treat our tinnitus symptoms with the best available options.  We have used this treatment information personally with great results, and we now know and understand that lifestyle and food intake can both directly affect the rate at which our tinnitus symptoms occur.  If you are searching for tinnitus relief, you might want to spend some time looking at this tinnitus treatment option to see if it might help you as well!

Your overall health and many different medications can increase Tinnitus symptoms.  We have another great article located here on our website that already discusses how prescription medications can affect your tinnitus, but now it seems that even over the counter medications can often lead to an increase in your tinnitus problems.  Also, because tinnitus is a symptom of some other underlying health issue, it seems that many different health problems can contribute to that annoying ringing in the ears that is most often associated with tinnitus.

Control Tinnitus Symptoms With Improved Health and Diet (www.stationr.org)

Many times the onset of the ringing is very subtle, but it almost always increases with time and as the damage worsens or as other health issues help heighten the noise that is usually associated with tinnitus.  While there is no way to cure tinnitus, there is a way to improve your tinnitus symptoms.  The best cure is prevention, although no one wants to believe that they are going to be next because there are no warning signs really.  You either have tinnitus symptoms or you don’t, but then suddenly, the damage is done and the perception of sound is there without warning, and then you are forever a tinnitus sufferer from that point forward.

According to a recent article we found at www.waff.com, even caffeine and aspirin can increase the ringing in your ears significantly.  Here is what Bobby Shuttleworth had to say in a recent article he posted at www.waff.com:

Dr. Randall F. Wilks is a 20 year audiologist. He’s very precise about the hearing tests he gives to people. He recognizes complaints about a ringing or buzzing noise in their ears because he also suffers from the condition.

“When you’re perceiving sound and there’s no sound present, that is in a broad range considered Tinnitus,” said Wilks.

He said it can be caused by many things.

“Something as simple as aspirin can turn the volume up and we hear our inner ear’s internal noise,” he added.

And it isn’t always a ringing noise.

“Sometimes the sound is perceived as a roaring water fall,” he said.

Wilks said the sounds can vary as much as the cause. One big reason people develop the condition involves prolonged exposure to loud noises, like a train whistle.

Years ago, Baby Boomers cranked up the tunes, and now they are paying the price.

Very often this condition goes hand in hand with hearing loss.

There are other causes like high blood pressure, infections, and medications.

“When you find nasal allergies and any medical condition in your body, there are medications involved to treat these things. I believe the side effects of medication to treat a variety of things,” said Wilks.

He is in a unique situation in that he also suffers from this condition.

“As I sit right here, right now, my ears are screaming,” he said.  You can read the rest of the original article here.

None of this is really new information, but many people are still not educated enough about what causes tinnitus, so the fact that a medical doctor is telling us these facts was important enough that we wanted to add the information to our website here at My Cure Tinnitus.  If you are suffering from tinnitus symptoms or if you are searching for a tinnitus cure, then you have come to the right place.  Spend some time reading the information that is found here on our website so that you will have the most recent and updated information on exactly what causes tinnitus and how you can treat it.

Even though there is no real way to cure tinnitus, you can treat and manage the symptoms through dies and improving your overall health, particularly through holistic stress management practices or stress reduction techniques.  Don’t continue to suffer any longer:  Spend some time on our site and make sure you understand that your overall health and many different medications can increase Tinnitus symptoms.

It’s not just heavy metal rock stars that are suffering from tinnitus symptoms.  It seems that even classical musicians are searching for help to cure tinnitus symptoms.  What people need to understand is that any loud noise, even a soothing one, can cause damage to our ears if we listen to it for prolonged periods of time.  Don’t think it’s just the heavy metal or hard rock music that is the culprit, because any time our ears are subjected to loud noises for an extended period of time, they can become damaged and you will begin to suffer from the symptoms of tinnitus.

Prevent Tinnitus With Ear Plugs (www.earplugs.de)

We found this recent story about a pianist named Steven Osborne who is a world-class soloists, who is suffering from tinnitus.  The good thing about Steven’s story is that he discovered his symptoms early and being to protect his ears from further damage by using earplugs.  Steven now believes that the ear plugs help him to be a better performer, so this story has a better ending than most tinnitus stories.  Here is what Judith Kogan of www.wbez.org had to say about Steven in a recent article:

Imagine an artist who puts on clouded glasses in order to paint. Or a ballerina who adds weights to her feet.  Now consider a musician who puts in earplugs:  not a rock star, who’s protecting his ears from deafening noises, but a classical soloist who by comparison works in near silence, and who believes that filtering out sound leads to a more nuanced performance.

Meet pianist Steven Osborne and cellist Alban Gerhardt. They’re both world-class soloists who will be featured at Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival, which starts Wednesday in Millennium Park.  And they both consider earplugs as essential to their music-making as the instruments they play.

About 15 years ago, Osborne started to hear a quiet high-pitched noise in his left ear. It came and went; he didn’t think much of it. After a while, it seemed to move from his left to his right ear. And then, alarmingly, one day it stayed. A doctor determined that Osborne had developed tinnitus from practicing too loudly in a small room.

There’s no way to cure tinnitus, but earplugs can keep it from getting worse. Osborne was custom-fitted with a special “musician” pair of earplugs, which filter out a calibrated amount of noise while allowing other sounds to enter.

Osborne discovered that it was helpful to practice with the devices, and shared this with his friend and collaborator Alban Gerhardt, who doesn’t have tinnitus. Curiosity piqued, Gerhardt tried and liked them. He said they forced him to listen more carefully, and he found it easier to hear the “core” of his cello sound, to get to its essence.

“It’s such a big difference playing in a little room versus a big hall,” Gerhardt said. Wearing earplugs in the practice room prevents him from getting seduced by the vibrant acoustics, he said. And that helps prepare him for performances in large concert halls, with stages that can feel big, dry and unforgiving.  He said, for him, wearing earplugs has closed the acoustic gap between playing in a practice room and a concert hall.  You can read the rest of the original article here.

We just did a recent post on how bad ear phones, particularly ear buds can be for our young people’s hearing, so to find a story where ear plugs are actually helping to improve our music is a bit different and a really great story.  If you are a musician or involved with loud music in any way, you may be able to use this information to protect you or someone you care about and prevent them from doing future or even further damage to their hearing.

I believe that we are on the cusp of finding a tinnitus cure, but until then, we need to make sure that people are really educated on the dangers of loud sounds in our ears.  Even moderate sounds that last for extended periods can do damage, and I don’t think young people really quite understand this fact.  The simple fact that even classical musicians are searching for help to cure tinnitus is a good indication of what extended loud noises can do to our ears and our hearing.  If you have young kids, please make sure you monitor their use of headphones, ear buds and any type of noise that goes for extended periods of time.

Below is a YouTube video on how to properly use earplugs.