[HN Gopher] Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy
___________________________________________________________________
Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy
Author : maxerickson
Score : 465 points
Date : 2022-04-15 12:09 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu)
| watchdogtimer wrote:
| > Hair cells die off when exposed to loud noises or drugs
| including certain chemotherapies and antibiotics.
|
| Does this mean this treatment works only for these conditions,
| and not common aging-related loss?
| maxerickson wrote:
| They haven't really gotten to the point where they even know it
| works.
|
| The mechanism should work if there are viable progenitor cells
| present (so I would expect it to be of some use in most cases
| of hearing loss), but they may not be able to develop this drug
| into a reliable treatment.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| I really hope this could also help revert tinnitus. This is a
| life wrecking condition that currently has no cure (suicide
| attempts 9% for women with severe tinnitus and 5.5% for men).
| biggieshellz wrote:
| But you can certainly learn to ignore it. After one
| particularly loud concert, my ears started to ring, and they
| have never really stopped. I was depressed, disappointed, and
| angry with myself for not having taken better care of my ears.
| But you know what? After 6 months to a year, I habituated to
| it. I notice the ringing on a super quiet morning in the
| countryside when there aren't any other sounds, but other than
| that, it doesn't bother me. I can still listen to music; in
| fact, that helps mask out the ringing.
|
| If you have severe tinnitus, look at getting hearing aids --
| they fill back the affected frequencies so your brain doesn't
| crank up the gain and fill them with the phantom sound. Or look
| at Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. But most people do habituate to
| it. What you read online on the tinnitus forums and so forth
| has selection bias. People post on the forums how terrible
| things are right after they develop tinnitus, but after they
| habituate to it, they don't post as much about that.
| AndyPa32 wrote:
| "Certainly" is a wild stretch. That may be true for mild
| cases, but then there are people out there where the Tinnitus
| sound is louder than 100 decibel. One cannot learn to ignore
| that, especially not when it is permanent.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| While you can habituate to it and will after several years,
| it's still a ghastly condition that can come back and
| negatively impact you. Personally, I have it since birth and
| have never experienced silence. Most of the time, I cannot
| hear it but it's always there lurking behind a thin veil of
| distractions.
|
| I recently caught the covid virus. The symptoms were bad but
| far from what annoyed me the most from it. The worst is how
| since I have had it, my tinnitus is back to the forefront of
| my life and louder than ever. Many people who have managed to
| ignore their tinnitus will have it come back when they are
| exhausted, tired, sick, stressed, etc.
|
| Being dismissive and saying you can learn to ignore it is not
| really helpful, this is true of most conditions. This article
| however offers a tangible cure.
|
| Not to be dismissive either but the ringing from hearing
| music that is too loud is the mildest case most commone case
| of tinnitus that exists and will often simply reduce by a
| large margin on its own. Chronic tinnitus is defined as a
| tinnitus that lasts more than six months.
|
| In my case, it's at the level of a lawnmower behind a thin
| wall when at it's worst and mosquito near the ear when at
| it's mildest. In some other cases, it's car engine and even
| jet engine level. To me your message (while probably not on
| purpose) comes across like someone with an amputated finger
| talking to someone with two amputated legs about how you can
| learn to live with it (especially with the talk about
| selection bias, which is useful when looking at trends but
| not when talking to individuals). Yes you can control it and
| yes it's the same medical condition. But it's not the same
| beast.
| depressionalt wrote:
| Can people please stop posting this in every tinnitus thread?
| It's an actual trigger that makes tinnitus worse for others.
| There's nothing useful brought upon by falsely correlating
| suicidal and tinnitus, and in fact it creates some major
| negative externalities by making folks have massive tinnitus
| flare ups or even trigger suicidal ideation.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| Tinnitus is mentionned in the first paragraph of the article.
| Talking about the suicide rate is usually a simple way to get
| people who know nothing of the condition to understand how
| serious it is, most people imagine the faint temporary noise
| that happens after listening to a loud movie but it's much
| more worst than that.
|
| I grant you, some people who use "trigger warnings" would
| have added one before talking about suicide rates. I however
| do not use them outside mental health forums and such.
| nanidin wrote:
| 9% of women with tinnitus attempt suicide, or 9% of women that
| attempt suicide have tinnitus?
|
| I find it curious since I've had tinnitus since I was very
| young and it isn't life wrecking - but maybe that's because it
| is just part of my default life experience.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| "Suicide attempts happened with 9% of women with severe
| tinnitus."
| ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 wrote:
| It's funny to me seeing everyone in this thread acting like
| tinnitus is the worst shit ever and they're suffering everyday.
| Look up Meniere's disease. It can be so much worse.
|
| And yes, I understand that suffering is relative and that there
| are worse things than Meniere's disease, thank you.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| It's not a race. I have conditions that are considered worst
| than tinnitus.
|
| Having a lawnmower in my head at all time is not the end of
| the world. But it's certainly exhausting and sometimes
| disabilitating.
|
| It's meaningless to compare health conditions. What's the
| worst between something that kills you, something that
| paralyzes you, something that gives you constant pain and
| something that triggers constant fear in you?
|
| All of them. All of them are the worst to people who suffers
| from them.
|
| Tinnitus is brought up in the article, this is why people are
| talking about it. Not because it's a condition that is worst
| than others.
|
| Reading about a possible cure is one of the are form of hope
| someone with tinnitus will ever have.
| IYasha wrote:
| At least someone talks about more or less natural regeneration,
| not inventing more crutches (like mechanical organs or
| nanorobots).
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Disclosure: I own FREQ stock.
|
| The failure of the prior trial was suspected, and I believe it,
| due to a refractory response by overdosing the inner ear with too
| frequent administrations of the drug, and then testing for effect
| too soon. I bet even those candidates of the phase IIa trial
| though would, if checked on now, show some improvement.
|
| Animal research has shown that natural cochlear hair cell
| regeneration and resultant hearing restoration is very real, we
| mammals just don't have the natural cellular signaling to
| redifferentiate those base cells - small molecule drugs like
| FX322 do exactly that. I am optimistic they'll eventually find
| the right dosing regimen to see reliable and optimal clinical
| effect, and it will be a seismic advance in medicine.
| Thebroser wrote:
| "Animal research has shown that natural cochlear hair cell
| regeneration and resultant hearing restoration is very real" -
| Although exciting, we also need to remember that
| translatability rates from animal models to humans is
| notoriously low, usually in the single digits for most
| therapeutic areas. This is some cool tech, but just wanted to
| point it out that success in animal models =/= we will
| eventually get to see the realized treatment.
| gumby wrote:
| > Although exciting, we also need to remember that
| translatability rates from animal models to humans is
| notoriously low, usually in the single digits for most
| therapeutic areas.
|
| This is true of humans as well -- there are plenty of
| programs that get interesting and clear results in Phase 2
| (the dose ranging phase: essentially "what dosage is most
| efficacious") that die in Phase 3 (roughly: "OK, how does
| that dose really work on a statistically significant
| population that also represents the demographics of the
| country"). These studies are so expensive that nobody goes
| into Phase 3 unless they believe Phase 2 pretty certainly
| demonstrated that the drug works, and well.
|
| It's also hard to figure out just how the animal's hearing is
| improving (you can't simply ask). I'm sure they have some
| experiments, but growing the hairs back may be necessary but
| not sufficient. Look at all those Alzheimers programs aimed
| at removing the plaque that haven't demonstrated any value in
| the clinic. The plaque might not even _be_ alzheimers itself
| -- it could merely be the body 's response to some different
| underlying effect of the disease.
|
| The choice of animal is very important, and the FDA cares a
| lot. Mice are popular because they are cheap. I worked on a
| program years ago that used guinea pigs because mice couldn't
| get the disease. We didn't use rats as the compound caused
| cancer in rats, and someone else had had their program
| derailed because the FDA required a separate analysis and
| study to demonstrate that the cancer was specific to rats and
| not other species (rats get lots of cancers). For our program
| the FDA required some studies in (non-guinea) pigs before
| they were willing to allow any human trials.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| It's also hard to figure out just how the
| animal's hearing is improving (you can't simply ask)
|
| This seems relatively easy, right? Play a sound at a given
| frequency, associate it with a food reward. Like Pavlov's
| dog, but vary the frequency of the bell.
|
| Oversimplification obviously, and "easy" is extreme
| relative to all the other hard parts involved but that part
| seems very doable
| gumby wrote:
| One sobering lesson from my time working in the life
| sciences is that everything is insanely complex and once
| you've isolated everything in your problem space into a
| small, relatively isolated set, you still end up with an
| insanely complex space.
|
| Essentially it's fractally complex.
| crackedbassoon wrote:
| Except it is actually quite easy to measure hearing
| thresholds in nonhumans as well as human babies via
| auditory brain responses (ABRs).
| fierro wrote:
| life is "fractally" complex. Sometimes I feel computing
| is also fractally complex.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| I guess you can easily damage a rats/monkeys hearing
| consistently (may we find peace for our sins) and I guess
| you can easily strap those animals into an MRI or strap
| an EEG measuring device onto one.
|
| Seems simpler than training a significant amount of them!
| ddingus wrote:
| Well, there's more to it than binary to text you. I agree
| with you, in that the signaling perception is probably
| easy. However, let's say that that frequency is coupled
| with several others, making for noise for poor
| discrimination.
|
| For that kind of thing, we're going to need real people
| who can communicate in detail.
| gumby wrote:
| Yeah, fitting and tuning a hearing aid is quite
| complicated, and there are intelligent people at both
| sides of the process.
| pygy_ wrote:
| More simply, play a loud sound in a narrow band and check
| if there's a startle response.
| bsder wrote:
| The brain also needs time to "rewire" once it starts
| accepting more and better input.
|
| "Rotating your eyeball" as a treatment for macular
| degeneration is a good example. Your brain needs a week
| or so to "reorient" even though the physical procedure is
| done in a couple hours.
| pyinstallwoes wrote:
| You may enjoy: https://youtu.be/tONF9OSUOSw
|
| "How Loud Can Sound Physically Get?" - amazing breakdown
| of the subjective nature of loudness.
| crackedbassoon wrote:
| Unlike your Alzheimer's example, hair cell loss is
| definitely the cause of hearing loss in many cases. There
| are other possible causes but this is the first or second
| most common biological antecedent.
|
| Basically, if we can regrow them, there's a good chance of
| restoring hearing, provided the rest of the auditory system
| hasn't atrophied too badly.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Why would they deliberately come up with a study design that
| harms their evaluation, trust, reputation, etc. and not one
| that optimized for best lab-condition results, like any
| sensible hair loss product company, for example?
| lr4444lr wrote:
| I don't think any failure was deliberate. This is the cutting
| edge of cochlear medical research, and mistakes will happen.
| Perhaps they thought a little was good and more would be
| better? I am neither an employee or board member.
| FLORESFIB wrote:
| taf2 wrote:
| Looks like FREQ stock got really beat down over the last few
| months- any idea what happened was it the negative outcome of
| the study you mentioned?
| lr4444lr wrote:
| There was suspected fraud on the part of the C(E?)O that he
| was soliciting investor money (and sold stock himself) with
| advance knowledge of the disappointing results of the trial I
| was mentioning and did not disclose it. Class action suits
| were filed.
|
| The trials preceding the Phase IIa results were all extremely
| promising, and even the Phase IIa one showed statistically
| significant effect on a sound _discrimination_ , which many
| long time hearing sufferers can tell you is even more
| frustrating a problem than the inability to perceive sound.
|
| Biomedical research stocks are inherently risky. I could be
| deluding myself, but my lay reading of the research, and as
| someone who has suffered from tinnitus for a long time
| brought on my noise overexposure, I think there is a very
| promising shot at this drug. Maybe FREQ will not be the ones
| to realize it and some other company will take the patent
| into real life clinical medicine, and FREQ is certainly not
| the ONLY company pursuing this angle. But their successes so
| far have kept me holding the stock, and I keep buying more.
| victor106 wrote:
| Interesting. Thanks for the honesty.
|
| What other companies are working on this problem?
| christmm wrote:
| Do you have more links, which make you have confidence in
| FX-322 and related treatments ?
| samstave wrote:
| I have increasing;y bad tinnitus. Will this help with that?
|
| I hear a permanent and constant low-volume very high pitch
| "squeal" in my ears at all times,
|
| I was never a big loud music listener, and I have always
| brought ear-plugs to loud events - and have had no big ear-
| rupturing moments (such as a gun firing close to my head
| without protection etc...
| biellls wrote:
| I would be interested to know that too. I imagine it would
| depend on the kind of tinnitus as it can be independent on
| hearing loss.
| chasebank wrote:
| I vaguely remember hearing something about tapping on the
| back of your head can greatly reduce tinnitus. I think there
| are plenty of instructional videos on youtube and it's worth
| a shot to try.
| brewdad wrote:
| I've tried this in the past and, for me, it never helped
| for more than a few minutes. But it DID work. It's amazing
| how interconnected various systems in our bodies can be and
| how little we truly understand.
| swinglock wrote:
| It helps some but only for tens of seconds to a minute.
| Just enough for a tech preview or nostalgia trip (depending
| on your level of optimism or acceptance), not a solution.
| socialcapital wrote:
| I have tinnitus - give yourself a wet willie. Seriously,
| suck your pinky, stick it in your ear, wiggle it around.
| Def helps for a while!
| shrubble wrote:
| My personal albeit anecdotal evidence is that certain foods,
| or possibly too much sodium, can cause tinnitus. When I have
| tinnitus I drink a lot of water and reduce my sodium intake -
| I think that acesulfame postassium (NutraSweet) can cause it
| for me as well.
|
| You might want to experiment with changing your diet,
| drinking more water, etc.
| samstave wrote:
| I'm pretty sure you are spot on with Sodium:
|
| I do eat a lot of sodium, but here is an interesting
| anecdote:
|
| A friend's husband had Lyme Disease - and had very bad
| veritgo from it which was exacerbated by a high sodium
| intake (I assume the ear works on the sodium potassium pump
| in some manner?)
|
| but she used to have to make a very careful diet for him so
| as to remove sodium as much as possible, which would
| prevent his vertigo.
| jus101 wrote:
| The vertigo could be due to Meniere's disease. I had it
| for a year or so in my 20s - reducing salty snacks sorted
| it out.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meniere%27s_disease
| dazc wrote:
| I had odd bouts of tinitus as a teenager, like you, no
| obvious causes. It went away and came back with a vengence
| about 15 years ago. That lasted a year or so but over time
| it's become more of a minor irritation than a major handicap.
| I guess, my brain has trained itself to deal with it?
|
| The only tip I can give you is to always have some kind of
| background sound that you can focus on rather than the
| buzzing in your own head.
|
| Also, avoid earplugs and headphones, they just create a wierd
| feedback loop.
| adriand wrote:
| The best advice I ever got about my tinnitus was from my
| mom, who has worse tinnitus than I do: "just forget about
| it". I know that might sound difficult, but honestly, just
| try. When you notice it, reassure yourself that it's not
| really a big problem, and then turn your attention to other
| things. If you are successful with this, eventually you
| will only notice it when you remember that you have it and
| listen for it.
|
| A couple of the things I used to tell myself when it
| troubled me more than it does now:
|
| - There's nothing you can do about this, so just forget
| about it.
|
| - We all accumulate damage as we age. None of us are going
| into the grave in prime condition and if we do, that's a
| mark of a life not well-lived.
|
| - The fact I can hear this noise means I'm alive: "I hear
| ringing, therefore I am".
|
| These may not be helpful to you, so invent your own!
|
| The other thing I would recommend is getting a hearing
| test. If it turns out you have hearing loss, then treatment
| for that (e.g. hearing aids) may reduce your tinnitus (one
| theory is that tinnitus is caused by your brain "turning up
| the gain" on your "audio inputs", so that when you have a
| hearing aid, your brain no longer needs to do that, and
| your tinnitus diminishes).
|
| If it turns out you don't have hearing loss, then you can
| reassure yourself that your tinnitus is not a sign of any
| damage. I had always assumed my tinnitus was the result of
| damage due to a lot of music events but it turns out I have
| excellent hearing, which helps me ignore my tinnitus,
| because I no longer view it as proof that I hurt myself.
|
| You may also notice that certain things make your tinnitus
| worse. For instance, if I have a few drinks, mine gets
| noticeably louder. But because I know the alcohol will wear
| off, I just ignore it because it's temporary.
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| One tip that was indeed helpful in learning to ignore it,
| especially when I was new to tinnitus was: don't keep
| checking your tinnitus level. Once I stopped checking "Do
| I hear it now? Is it as loud?" I started minding/noticing
| it less.
| bashinator wrote:
| I had pretty severe tinnitus. Getting religious about
| earplug usage at music performances plus getting musician-
| specific hearing protection pretty well put it into
| remission. Cymbals with no earplugs are specifically the
| worst.
| cdjk wrote:
| This sounds crazy, but try hearing aids. That worked for me.
| Initially I used the white noise masking feature of them, but
| switched to using just amplification. I stop noticing my
| tinnitus a few minutes after I put them in, and it starts
| again a few minutes after I take them out.
|
| In the spirit of "there's a forum for everything," you can
| get help programming them yourself here:
|
| https://forum.hearingtracker.com/
| 124816 wrote:
| There can be other causes besides noise exposure, like
| TMJ/teeth grinding which can affect the nerves.
| piceas wrote:
| For me ibuprofen (at recommend doses, reasons for use etc.)
| makes it worse/noticeable.
|
| Acetaminophen doesn't have the same problem for me so I'm
| assuming it's not just that I'm clenching my jaw without
| noticing.
| nkmnz wrote:
| Ibuprofen increases blood pressure, which is associated
| with higher levels of tinnitus. You might check in with
| your GP - maybe some intervention to lower blood pressure
| could reduce your overall tinnitus?
| gizajob wrote:
| I have tinnitus too, and would love a cure/solution. I do
| play drums and have been exposed to loud music, but my
| tinnitus nevertheless developed from a glandular fever, and
| my hearing is actually fine. Would just love to get rid of
| the constant 3-4khz sine waves and enjoy silence again.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| That is an open question. Tinnitus is NOT well understood. It
| does have fairly high correlation with SNHL, which IS pretty
| well understood as a matter of cochlear hair cell
| destruction. So there is a lot of optimism that if we can
| treat the latter, the former will go away, but there may be
| other components to it in the central nervous system. It
| certainly would only help to fix SNHL in trying to treat
| tinnitus.
| civilized wrote:
| We recently learned that my daughter is completely deaf in one
| ear. She is a very happy healthy girl otherwise, but it makes me
| sad to know that currently we have no therapy and she could live
| her whole life like this. But maybe there will be something for
| her in a few years.
| kradeelav wrote:
| Hey there - speaking as somebody who was born profoundly deaf
| but has been hearing 30+ years later thanks to the use of a
| cochlear implant (CI) and auditory-verbal training, and almost
| always at the point that people off the street don't realize
| that I have it ... there's options out there, she doesn't have
| to live with that constraint. Would highly encourage you to
| look into the technology there at bare minimum. (The earlier
| that people have the training/implant, the more exceptional
| results tend to happen, given there's less delay in speech.)
|
| Happy to share my story and some resources - my email's in the
| profile. Best of luck to you and your family, and I feel for
| you.
| civilized wrote:
| Thank you so much! I am very interested in CI. Currently
| we're waiting for our appointments with the ENT but I hear so
| much good about it, I'm hoping we can move this forward as
| soon as possible. I will definitely be in touch.
| kayjayem wrote:
| I lost my hearing in one ear 9 years ago when I was 15 as
| the result of an illness. I could get a CI but choose not
| to. Honestly, being deaf in one ear has barely affected me.
| There are some situations (if it is a loud environment and
| the person is on my left) where I struggle to hear people
| and I cannot tell the direction sound is coming from but I
| do not find this has a major impact on my life.
|
| Personally I am concerned that a CI would not improve my
| quality of life and may even make it worse. My
| understanding is that the hearing from a cochlear implant
| is not the same as "normal" hearing so I worry it may
| effect my current experience in a negative way.
|
| Speak to the doctor but I would personally be a bit
| cautious about it, especially if your daughter is not at an
| age where she can properly communicate her experience of
| hearing with you.
| brewdad wrote:
| I'm also essentially deaf (90% loss) in my right ear. It
| really doesn't affect my life in a negative way except in
| situations like you mentioned. Also, wearing a one-eared
| headset offers no advantages over a two-eared set in an
| office environment. I won't be hearing what the person in
| my cubicle says either way until I remove it.
|
| If you ever encounter a person who instead of making eye
| contact seems to be looking just over your shoulder, it
| could be you are about to be attacked or it could be
| someone like me who needs to turn their one good ear
| towards you slightly in order to hear our conversation.
| :)
| throwhearway wrote:
| Hey, I completely lost my hearing in one ear about five years
| ago. I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. But I'd encourage
| you not to be too worried about it.
|
| Personally, I only notice it in very loud situations in which
| someone is speaking to me on my deaf side; otherwise the sound
| bounces around and reaches my working ear anyway. I don't feel
| "disabled" in any way. In fact I rarely think about it. I've
| been given a hearing aid, but I don't bother with it, frankly I
| just don't need it. The body is quite amazing at adapting.
| civilized wrote:
| I'll keep this in mind. I've heard some scary things about
| falling behind in school and having difficulty in noisy
| social situations... but it sounds like there's a lot of
| variation in how well people cope, and she's coping extremely
| well so far.
| dghughes wrote:
| There's a crazy amount of problems that are due to hearing loss.
| There's an increased risk of dementia. Even for balance from
| hearing audio cues when walking.
|
| My mother has poor hearing and she refuses to get a hearing aid
| mainly due to cost. They are ~$4K per ear she doesn't have the
| money but to her an elderly person she imagines it as $40K/ear. I
| also fear dementia has already begun for her. For me I have
| tinnitus so this drug would also be welcome.
|
| Another interesting drug is Vuity for nearsightedness. Between
| hearing and sight it will be amazing if such drugs work and were
| available before my mother or I or anyone dies of old age.
| JibJabDab wrote:
| Where do you live? There are many, MANY different kinds of
| hearings in many different price ranges. I have a top of the
| line OPN 1 and it was 3,000$. There are cheaper versions for
| 2k. Many manufacturers produce models under 2k. I'd advise to
| have her check again, perhaps with a different audiologist.
|
| Heck, if she gets an earmold, I can give her my old Oticon
| Chili. I bet there are other avenues to procure a cheap one.
| intpete wrote:
| My hearing aids from Costco set me back only $1,700. I highly
| recommend them.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I recommend tinnitustreatmentreport.com for news and updates for
| tinnitus.
| Sunspark wrote:
| Word of advice, this is interesting and worth paying attention
| to.
|
| However, hearing loss has already been successfully cured before
| decades ago. I remember reading back in the 80s that it was only
| 10 years away.
|
| It actually worked.. only problem is, the dosage required was
| toxic for humans.
|
| So when they say it is years away, take it literally and assume
| that might be forever.
|
| If you have hearing loss that can be treated by other therapies
| today, do not wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow may not come.
| egberts1 wrote:
| As one who is undergoing mapping of Cochlear Implant, I feel the
| need to put it out there some things about regrowing cilia hairs
| in cochlear.
|
| If you had been subjected to a life-threatening high body
| temperature (106.5+ F, spinal meningitis), your cochlears would
| make for a poor candidate in benefitting from most form of
| treatment of cilia hair regrowth.
|
| The problem is the fibrocyte nerve pathways (the ones embedded in
| the wall of the cochlear spiral) are basically heated to death
| through bursting/disintegration of its Mylar sheathings of its
| nerve cells in the cochlear pathway.
|
| Although, not much research is done with regard to the
| temperature level in various part of the body notably inside the
| skull region during such an infection, it is arguable that
| cochlear is located in the hottest zone of the body given the
| locality of eustachian tube, inner ear and throat region being a
| harbor of Infectionous activity.
|
| Not an expert here but a pretty serious consumer-based researcher
| of CI.
| luminaobscura wrote:
| I lost one of my ears in a high fever episode when i was a
| child. I guess what you wrote means i shouldn't get my hopes up
| for these kind of treatments :(
| egberts1 wrote:
| The treatment is focused on regrowth of cilia hairs; what we,
| the high-temped folks, are really waiting for is a cochlear
| transplant or a regrowth of fibrocyte pathways within the
| cochlear wall (as well as this treatment).
| FriendWithMoon wrote:
| Any patients that reported their Tinnitus getting better? It has
| been a real curse having chronic tinnitus.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| I always knew collecting music in 96khz 24bit FLAC will pay off.
| Who's laughing now?
| wrycoder wrote:
| Related work at Johns Hopkins [2019]:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20685944#20688094
| DantesKite wrote:
| For anybody suffering with tinnitus I highly recommend the
| protocol William Shatner went through. You can train your brain
| so it's not noticeable any more. Like wearing pants, it fades
| into the background.
| loceng wrote:
| Berard Auditory Integration Training and the Tomatis Method are
| also worth looking into depending on what's going on; a book
| called "Hearing Equals Behaviour: Updated and Expanded" goes
| into detail on the above treatments.
| biggieshellz wrote:
| The Tomatis Method is a little pseudoscience-y for my tastes
| -- you have to buy the tapes / app / etc. directly from the
| Tomatis folks, and I've never seen any good studies from a
| non-conflicted third party that support its efficacy.
| loceng wrote:
| All of the science and math behind the algorithms are
| available - you can recreate it yourself, but like most
| things it's easier to buy what someone else has already put
| the work in. I'd recommend getting and reading the book to
| balance out a perspective.
| zackmorris wrote:
| I had tinnitus in my left ear, but it turned out to be related
| to TMJ, and it resolved after I wore an advanced lightwire
| functional (ALF) appliance for maybe 3-6 months to move my jaw
| back into a forward position. I had braces and wore headgear as
| a kid at the height of some 1980s hysteria about overbites that
| left millions of people like me with class II malocclusion
| (baby face) and sleep apnea.
|
| I'm having trouble finding information on it, because there's a
| lot more money in orthodontics than palatal expansion:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_expansion
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_palatal_expanders
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orthodontic_functional...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mew#Orthotropics
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19416436
|
| Right now I'm wearing Invisalign but have a small 1/2 tooth gap
| where the new bone has formed and am having trouble finding an
| orthodontist that will move molars forward to catch up. It's
| like asking someone who just dug a giant hole to fill it in
| again. It may require a temporary anchorage devices (TAD) or
| lever arm to move the teeth without tipping them.
|
| The programmer in me senses a code smell here where the
| orthodontics profession maybe shouldn't endorse practices it
| can't undo. But all I can really do is spread the word and
| encourage anyone considering braces to get a second opinion,
| especially for children. They may just need to wear a retainer
| for a year or two and learn good tongue posture habits,
| especially while they're still growing.
| skybrian wrote:
| I'm curious, how was TMJ diagnosed?
| Klonoar wrote:
| I'm doing something similar (for sleep apnea originally, but
| the crossover due to jaw needing to be forward is a thing).
| Highly recommend.
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| Thanks for the pointer, I'll be looking it up shortly.
|
| Anecdotaly, I've found myself getting a phantom tone in the
| 15khz range (sounds just like a flyback) when in a quiet house.
| This could be entitely placebo effect, but I've gotten some
| relief by doing a bad emulation of active noise cancelling
| headphones, namely playing a quiet 15khz (ish) tone through my
| bone conduction headphones. It's not perfect by any means, but
| often the very act of trying to tune my tone generator to the
| right frequency can be enough to stop it annoying me (it
| becomes less noticeable).
|
| Im curious if anyone else has tried similar?
| xivzgrev wrote:
| I developed it as a kid, and even though I feel a lot of
| anxiety in life, I don't feel anxious about it.
|
| Maybe it's easier for us to accept certain things when we are
| younger. if it happened today I probably would be more anxious
| about it. It also helps that mine hasn't gotten worse - I
| noticed it, took corrective action, and continue to be mindful
| about it thru today
| d4rkp4ttern wrote:
| What kind of corrective action did you take if you don't mind
| sharing ?
| [deleted]
| neals wrote:
| Thanks, now I feel my pants
| derekp7 wrote:
| Reminds me of the Aware of Tongue Peanuts cartoon strip from
| way back when.
| yesenadam wrote:
| Your comment reminded me that I can see my nose.
| gumby wrote:
| In this work from home world, who wears pants anymore?
| Perhaps you are experiencing the "phantom pants" phenomenon.
| notRobot wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation, will look it up. I have friends
| who suffer from tinnitus and I hope it can help them.
| dazc wrote:
| https://www.hear-it.org/Tinnitus-Retraining-Therapy
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| What is the scientific evidence regarding said "protocol"?
|
| I don't get my medical advice based off what some guy who
| starred in a low-budget sci-fi space soap for three seasons
| thinks.
| tester89 wrote:
| To be clear, this is FX-322.
| maroonblazer wrote:
| The article says the treatment focuses on increased speech
| intelligibility. Speech, depending on how you define it, can
| occupy a fairly narrow range of the audio spectrum that humans
| can perceive.
|
| My hearing loss is mostly on the high end (10-12K and above) and
| impedes my ability to hear speech in noisy environments. More
| troubling has been the inability to enjoy music/sound in those
| upper ranges, resulting in the music lacking a certain sparkle
| and brilliance.
|
| I hope this therapy regenerates hair cells across the entire
| spectrum.
| biggieshellz wrote:
| Check out Crescendo (http://refined-
| audiometrics.com/wordpress1/) -- an engineer/musician with a
| hearing loss similar to yours has developed a piece of software
| that's like a "super" hearing aid (non-linear compression per
| Bark band) that helps to bring the sparkle back for music.
| rhubarbcustard wrote:
| Thanks for sharing that, its got some amazingly deep articles
| on audiology. It's really hard though, to find out what
| Crescendo actually is and how to buy it!
| biggieshellz wrote:
| I think you need to email David McClain to buy a compiled
| version, but the source (not including the plugin wrappers,
| etc.) is here: https://github.com/dbmcclain/Crescendo-
| Hearing-Correction
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Have you played around with an equalizer (hardware or software,
| doesn't matter) that offers rather extreme adjustments like
| +15dB or more, to see if you can approximate a flat source+ear
| system? Or is your loss more like a brickwall filter than a
| 12dB/octave slope for example?
|
| I'm an audio engineer, not an audiologist, so I'm just shooting
| from the hip here as it's something I've been curious about in
| case I develop a similar issue as I age.
| ddingus wrote:
| Another thing they could try would be a different eq curve
| overall.
|
| I always find The Sound of Music as reproduced on older
| narrow band with am radios and phonographs interesting. A lot
| of that gear doesn't really produce anything over 10 khz.
|
| But, where they emphasized frequencies in the spectrum is
| different from Modern equipment, which basically is shooting
| for flat response.
|
| My grandfather's old radio, when played in a room have a
| comfortable volume, sounds really good. It's present. And
| even when I use the little transmitter to send it an
| idealized signal, it had a roll off starting around 8khz, the
| absolute high-end was maybe 12khz.
|
| I never took the time to analyze it in detail, and kind of
| wish I had. The usual 62-100 hurts emphasis, like what you'll
| find on your typical loudness button on a 70's or 80's stereo
| was there. But it also shaped the sound in 3 to 8khz range.
|
| The end result was a very natural sound the didn't overpower,
| felt like it should be there in the room with all the other
| sounds.
|
| Wish I could say more but I'm not where I have any detail
| information. I can say the enjoyment of the music is
| different, and fulfilling. It's not bright, like those higher
| frequencies bring to the overall feel of the program being
| produced.
|
| Robust, full, seem descriptive... clear is another one.
| Often, when I hear high bandwidth audio, through limited
| devices, it seems muddy, unclear, not precise. Those older
| radios are not like that. Well, the better ones anyway.
|
| In any case, the eq is different, and that impacts our
| perception related to the overall feel of the sound.
|
| Sorry for the typos. I'm doing this with the voice dictation.
| I may actually go back and revisit this myself. As I age up
| I'm getting be expected, natural roll off most all of us get
| in our later years.
| wrycoder wrote:
| I think one of the reasons for vinyl's reputation is that
| it's often played on old sound systems. Ones with real bass
| and treble controls!
| biggieshellz wrote:
| Please don't do this. This would work for a conductive
| hearing loss (ear drum or bones in your ear messed up, etc.)
| but not for a sensorineural hearing loss (like what you get
| from aging or from noise exposure). You need non-linear
| compression to compensate for loudness recruitment. At a
| basic level, when you have sensorineural hearing loss, soft
| sounds will sound way softer than they should (or be below
| the threshold of audibility), but loud sounds will sound
| about the same as they should. If you crank up the volume for
| the affected frequency bands to make it sound right for soft
| sounds, then with loud transients, it will sound _way_ too
| loud, and potentially do more damage to your hearing.
|
| Look at https://positive-feedback.com/Issue66/hearing.htm if
| you want to hack something together that will work better and
| not damage your hearing.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Quite right! I'm quite "deaf" in the sense that I can't
| understand what people are saying - they sound muffled (and
| I can't separate two people talking at once anymore).
|
| But, I'm actually quite sensitive to loud noises!
|
| What I need is equalization and compression, so I can hear
| the soft noises. I don't need much, if any, overall gain.
|
| Why can't Apple provide that, they have all the necessary
| technology at hand?
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Do hearing aids offer this sort of multiband compression?
| I've heard about hearing aids that act as Bluetooth
| headphones, so presumably your Apple device could send
| its unaltered audio over Bluetooth and then the hearing
| aid's custom programming could handle things from there?
| biggieshellz wrote:
| Yes, they do (in fact, they have custom hardware to do
| it), but the power budget is very, very small, so there
| have to be tradeoffs made, both in terms of the
| processing and in terms of the actual transducer.
| wrycoder wrote:
| People are used to recharging AirPods frequently, and
| their hardware exceeds what is in a hearing aid. So, I
| wish Apple would enter this underserved market and stop
| just making "works with iPhone" deals with the hearing
| aid companies.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Thanks!
| theyeenzbeanz wrote:
| I miss being able to hear every little note with full range. A
| combination of construction noise and some loud music did it
| for me and I can't even "imagine" music with full range in my
| head like I use to before my hearing damage and tinnitus.
| retrac wrote:
| This reminds me of one aspect of my hearing loss that's been
| hard to explain.
|
| Amplification doesn't fix everything. My hearing loss is
| complex, a mix of conduction problems in the middle ear and
| something neurological as well. I can hear very high and very
| low frequencies surprisingly well. There's a big bite out of
| the main speech band, though.
|
| I find that speech, with background noise, that goes through a
| mediocre microphone, 200 - 3000 Hz pass filter, and then a
| digital compression codec, and then through a loudspeaker -- no
| matter how loud -- can sometimes be nearly unintelligible to
| me. It's loud enough. But I can't figure out which sound that's
| supposed to be. It's just too distorted.
|
| I take my hearing aids out to listen to music, most of the
| time. Despite usually being able to better hear the melody and
| lyrics with the hearing aids in. Because I know the sparkle you
| speak of, and it's wrecked by all but the very best-quality
| electronic amplification. Some people think it's odd that I'm
| finnicky about quality speakers, etc. when I'm half deaf. But
| every decibel of SNR counts when I lose most of it in my head.
|
| (And I too hope one day they can fix that for both of us.)
| wrycoder wrote:
| The other thing you miss with hearing aids, and even
| headphones, are the low frequencies picked up more by the
| body than the ears. Sunn O))), for example. I'd rather listen
| raw, too, but I raise the level somewhat, which can bother
| others.
|
| What I probably need is a DAC for my sound system. The music
| streaming services like Apple don't provide an adequate way
| to equalize the audio and balance to compensate for my
| hearing loss.
|
| Edit: I keep hoping that Apple will do a better job here with
| their next release of AirPods Pro. One of the problems with
| Apple Music is they set the max volume too low. I can sort of
| understand the desire to help people protect their hearing,
| but their max level is less than IRL, and there is no way to
| bypass that setting.
|
| Tidal is better. And there are plenty of YouTube channels I
| listen to at half volume, so it's not the Apple hardware
| causing the problem.
| skybrian wrote:
| I tend to listen to instrumental music. In part that's because
| I play an instrument, and in part it's likely due to hearing
| loss making words not that easy to understand. I also find I
| prefer vocals in foreign languages since there's no point in
| trying to understand them.
|
| There's still plenty of good music out there.
|
| I also find that my hearing aids aren't great for music due to
| how much they change timbre from boosting the high end, so I
| use regular ear buds instead.
| ddingus wrote:
| As my own normal, age related roll off advances, I find all
| the good stuff is under 10 to 12Khz.
|
| I mentioned different eq curves down thread. I don't have a
| lot of technical data at hand, but older radios from the
| vacuum tube era where they had response over 10 khz.
|
| A good one, play that a respectable volume in a room, sounds
| pretty great!
|
| What I'm kind of hinting at here is there maybe Equalization
| curves that can satisfy our need for that bright open sense
| that is missing when the higher frequencies are also missing.
| biggieshellz wrote:
| That's not surprising, as what we think of as "presence" is
| usually in the ~4 KHz range, where our ears are the most
| sensitive. What's over 10 KHz may provide a sense of "air"
| but doesn't convey as much information.
| ddingus wrote:
| Yup. Agreed.
|
| Maybe the 4khz range is what was emphasized on older
| audio gear. I am thinking about the great overall impact
| that gear delivered is intriguing to me.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I have sudden deafness in my left ear (meaning: I just woke up
| deaf one day and they don't know why) in _exactly_ the
| frequency range used for speech. Even more than a decade later
| it feels weird that I can still hear certain common background
| noises but humans are almost completely silent on my left side
| yesenadam wrote:
| > I have sudden deafness in my left ear (meaning: I just woke
| up deaf one day and they don't know why)
|
| Ah, me too, but no sound at all. A specialist told me it was
| caused by a virus, but I never looked into which one, or
| asked for more info.. There was no treatment, except cochlear
| implant, which didn't sound too great. Hopefully it doesn't
| happen in the other ear also!
| encoderer wrote:
| What the heck is going on with tinnitus?
|
| https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...
|
| I've been afflicted with tinnitus after a mild covid case in
| January and now that I'm looking it seems like this is a growing
| problem. So many comments here about tinnitus.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Airpods maybe?
| encoderer wrote:
| Big if true, right? I know iPhone will warn you if you've had
| too much loud music on AirPods but people might not take that
| seriously enough.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| Had the same for some time after (first round of) mild covid.
|
| Not the usual steady tone tinnitus either.. almost like a loose
| wire sending a very specific frequency in one ear.
|
| Spontaneously resolved after 4 months or so, no recurrence with
| a second round of covid.
| brihter wrote:
| +1.
| marz0 wrote:
| * Trigger warning *
|
| Texas Roadhouse CEO developed severe tinnitus after having
| COVID and took his own life because of it [0]
|
| [0] https://amp.courier-journal.com/amp/4759047001
| Ancalagon wrote:
| My guess is Covid, earbuds, and in general a much louder
| society than in decades past
| sonicggg wrote:
| I am in the same boat. In my case, I think Covid affected the
| microcirculation in my ear. I've been having success in
| addressing it through therapies to promote blood flow and
| endothelial repair.
| deelowe wrote:
| Hearing loss is one thing but it's the tinnitus that really
| bothers me. Hope something that can reverse the damage becomes
| available in my lifetime.
| d4rkp4ttern wrote:
| Is there any actual "damage" known to be associated with
| tinnitus?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| Tinnitus is a subjective percept that arises from many, often
| independent, causes. Some of those causes involve hearing
| loss, hair cell death, hair cell deafferentiation. Some
| don't.
| deelowe wrote:
| My understanding is it is often due to damaged hairs/cells in
| the cochlea.
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| tinnitus is a known sideeffect of hearing loss, possibly due
| to changes in regulation of nerves making up for reduced
| signals. Another aspect is that often tinnitus and hearing
| loss are both effects of a "horsturz"(there seems to be no
| easy to find translation in english, basically horsturz is
| like a stroke inside the ear and results in severe tinnitus
| and/or hearing loss)
| d4rkp4ttern wrote:
| Interesting. I have mild tinnitus but my hearing is perfect
| (was tested)
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| A search of the comments shows 79 hits for _tinnitus_ and zero
| for _magnesium_. If you suffer tinnitus, look into magnesium
| supplementation. Studies show people with tinnitus have low
| magnesium and anecdotal evidence suggests magnesium helps reduce
| symptoms.
|
| https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/tinnitus-and-magnesium
| adampk wrote:
| Does anyone know if this can finally be a treatment for tinnitus?
| I would love to hear silence again.
| detritus wrote:
| I've got pretty bad - although not constant - tinnitus in my
| left ear after a particularly loud NYE too late in life.
|
| What I find interesting though, is that I distinctly remember
| as a young kid living in the countryside that I found it
| impossible to hear absolute silence. I distinctly remember
| sitting on a bale of hay on a bright summer's day with not even
| a breeze and the quieter I perceived things, the louder a 'TV-
| like wheeee' noise (as I knew it at the time) became to fill
| the void. I always thought I had a special talent for being
| able to tell when a TV (CRT) was on anywhere in the hosue, as I
| could hear its high pitched whirr.
|
| Now as an occasional sufferer of fairly bad tinnitus, I often
| wonder what any of the above means, as there's surely something
| in it.
|
| Only coping strategy I have is to not fixate on it, whereupon
| it dies down. That's tricky those times it crops up at
| nighttime and I'm staring at the ceiling at 4am trying
| desperately to get back to sleep... .
| smooc wrote:
| O that's interesting. I was able to do the same (tv,
| refrigerator, etc). I also lived country side and I have
| hearing loss (35db) and tinnitus (sometimes? moderate?) in my
| left ear, but seemingly due to a virus infection.
|
| I have never encountered someone else that was able to hear
| whether a tv was on or not. At what distance could you do
| that?
| kaybe wrote:
| Some of them used to make noise. Ours stopped for a while
| when you gave it a whack from above.
| detritus wrote:
| At least within the house - we moved around a lot, but I
| lived in a few three storey stonework houses, and could
| generally tell from 'the other end' of the house if the TV
| was on.
|
| I don't recall hearing the same noise from fridges though!
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| It only works with CRT TVs though. It's a 15khz tone, due
| to magnetostriction in the flyback transformer:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer
| ddingus wrote:
| I can hear whether they were on or off, and whether they
| were tuned to a signal or not.
|
| A video signal synchronized up has a very distinct profile,
| and people who can hear about 15 khz can hear the sync
| signals modulating the higher frequency component.
|
| I could at one point, adjust horizontal and vertical hold
| to a stable signal eyes closed.
|
| Some sets were very loud, and I could hear them rooms away.
| Walking The Halls in my primary school, I could walk by the
| classrooms and say they have a TV on oh, and nail it a
| hundred percent every time.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| I had the same experience when visiting an anechoic chamber.
| I think the explanation is that without external stimuli,
| your brain cranks up the input gain to the max, at which
| point you begin to hear the ambient "neural noise" from your
| auditory circuitry. People taking DMT or ayahuasca also often
| experience an extremely high-pitched sound as the drug kicks
| in, which also suggests a neurological basis for the
| phenomenon.
| detritus wrote:
| I must try an anechoic chamber one day - I must!
|
| I never got the 'nee-naw nee-naws' from DMT or Ayahuasca
| when I did such things, but I absolutely did when going
| deep on Nitrous Oxide. DMT was always entirely (and oh my
| gosh so absolutely) visual for me.
| ddingus wrote:
| Another way to do this, that might be less stressful or
| painful, is to just spend a week out in nature.
|
| We go four week long Outdoor Adventures, where nothing
| works except for AM radio late at night.
|
| After a few days, hearing very significantly improves. On
| the last trip we took a Macbook, and watch the movie about
| 4 days in, and we're shocked at just how great that laptop
| sounded! It seems very loud and amazing, where in an
| ordinary City environment it's just normal acceptable
| sound.
|
| Any of you that get a chance to try this really should,
| it's dramatic. And it makes me really appreciate the audio
| engineering that went into those devices. A lot of that
| engineering won't ever be heard by people for in urban
| environments, but it is there, the work was done, and the
| results are pretty fantastic.
| Asooka wrote:
| Wait hold up, you mean that's not normal? Hearing a high
| pitch noise all the time I mean. I thought it was like when
| you're in full darkness and you "see" shapes because your
| brain is trying to interpret the subtle residual signals on
| neurons lacking direct stimulation.
| detritus wrote:
| Apparently not. It's a long-time since, but I remember
| adults largely couldn't hear it (not too surprising) but I
| had friends my age who hadn't a clue what I was on about
| either - a sentiment shared by at least one other
| neighbouring commenter.
| marvin wrote:
| I've always heard ringing at very high frequencies; 17-20kHz
| when it's quiet. Can't remember ever not hearing this.
| Sometimes the ringing has pulsating increases in loudness
| synchronized with my heartbeat. Also have a little bit of
| tinnitus on both ears, different frequencies.
|
| Never really considered the high-frequency experience a
| problem; it's just always been part of my sensory experience.
| beanders wrote:
| Wow, I thought I was the only one with the TV thing! I
| remember it as young as 4-5, but no one knew what I was
| talking about. I've had constant minor tinnitus since then,
| so I can't help but feeling like there's a CRT near my head
| that has been running since the early nineties.
| ddingus wrote:
| I used to be able to hear whether the TV was in sync or not
| as well. Probably still can oh, but I don't know I don't
| really have one handy.
|
| Some of those television sets were super loud!
|
| Some of the minor tinnitus I have, as in those frequency
| ranges. And it doesn't really bother me, because I grew up
| with CRTs.
| antattack wrote:
| I also could hear CRT when on (probably high voltage PSU)
| as a kid. Recently, I thought my tinnitus got worse until I
| found that one of my smart power supplies started making
| high pitch sound (ceramic capacitors in power supplies
| cause it).
| kradeelav wrote:
| I foresee this being wicked cool in combination with current
| cochlear implant (CI) technology which is already quite mature
| (30-40+ years). Not a scientist, but something makes me think
| CI's could at least leap-frog or fill in the gaps of this therapy
| while it's in a less mature state.
| sn00tz00t wrote:
| I've heard anecdotal evidence that psilocybin can help those hard
| of hearing
| armedpacifist wrote:
| You might be referring to a quote from Paul Stamets. I am not
| an expert, so here's my anecdotal take on it: when I drink
| alcohol, my mild tinitus completely fades away. I'm highly
| suspecting it has something to do with lowering blood pressure.
| Psylocybine is also known to affect blood pressure, (both
| rising and lowering). Then again, so is trying to relax. Being
| a micro doser myself, I have become very sceptical about the
| psylocybine craze lately. It's being advocated as a panacea,
| which it's obviously not. I know you are referring to an
| anecdote, but it's not far off from what I've seen being pushed
| by these so called 'institutions' without any substantial
| evidence. The quackery going on is pretty worrysome and will
| end up damaging the image of psylocybine yet again, imho.
| incomingpain wrote:
| >drug candidate stimulates the growth of hair cells in the inner
| ear.
|
| Oh I don't have trouble growing hair in my ears. I have trouble
| hearing.
| eezynow wrote:
| i am an audiologist and see an inordinate amount of ear hair.
| funny, thanks.
| d4rkp4ttern wrote:
| "Hair in inner ear" -- they're talking about microscopic cilia
| in the cochlear passages
| FairDune wrote:
| This would be amazing for me. I have had unilateral hearing loss
| due to mumps since childhood.
| brewdad wrote:
| Same here though mine was probably due to an undiagnosed ear
| infection as an infant.
|
| One weird instance happened about 25 years ago. I suffered a
| severe blow to the back of my head. My hearing in my bad ear
| actually came back for a while but it was like listening to a
| poorly tuned radio. Proper volume but full of static. After a
| week or so, my hearing returned back to its normal deficient
| state. No idea what exactly happened or why.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I wonder if this will treat hidden hearing loss at all.
|
| I check all the boxes for tinnitus behavior (loud blasting music
| hours a day for years) but only have mild tinnitus at worst. I do
| however have hidden hearing loss, where I absolutely cannot
| understand what people are saying if there is too much ambient
| noise. Bars are hopeless situations for conversation, even a fan
| on in a room can make conversing difficult. It would be nice to
| revert this (and secretly go back to occasionally blasting music
| so loud your organs feel it).
| magnetic wrote:
| AFAIK hidden hearing loss is due to synaptopathy (see
| Liberman's work). This work helps regrow hair cells, though.
| Does your Pure Tone Audiometry show any losses at all on your
| audiogram? It would be surprising that such an auditory insult
| had no damaging effect on your hair cells, so you may still
| benefit from this if it works.
| gedy wrote:
| I have sensoneural hearing loss, mostly in one ear, and the
| annoying thing about it is hearing aids don't really help much
| because of the distorted frequencies and non linear loss.
|
| Before I had this I assumed wrongly that hearing loss could
| always be fixed by making sound louder. (It doesn't, just sounds
| like a voice disguiser or someone on Helium talking through a bad
| speaker.)
|
| This looks promising.
| navbaker wrote:
| I've had two bouts of SSNL, both in the right ear. The first
| only took my high end frequencies, so a hearing aid did work,
| but the second just about flatlined my hearing in that ear, so
| the hearing aid only gives the results you're referencing. I
| have a date for surgery to implant a bone-conducting hearing
| aid next month, it should hopefully restore hearing from that
| side. Definitely talk to your ENT about that option, the
| processor mounts magnetically (no cochlear implant style port
| in your head), so you can get away from the feeling of a
| hearing aid plugging up your ear!
| gedy wrote:
| Thanks, I thought bone conducting still depended on the
| damaged hairs in ear for transferring to nerves though?
| navbaker wrote:
| It does, but as long as you have a functioning inner ear on
| one side, the bone conduction will transmit sound to that
| side.
| julianlam wrote:
| My understanding of hearing aids is not that it makes sounds
| louder across the entire spectrum, but only selective
| frequencies?
|
| An audiologist should be able to tune your hearing aids to
| amplify only those frequencies that need amplification.
|
| (Although my understanding is that this is fairly new, and may
| not be available around the world)
| navbaker wrote:
| My hearing loss got to a point where tuning the hearing aid
| to the point where it sufficiently amplified sound for me to
| distinguish speech made it so loud that it sounded to my
| brain like a normal speaking volume, but it caused physical
| pain in my ear.
| gedy wrote:
| Yes I have tuned hearing aids and unfortunately my SNHL still
| struggles with speech perception.
| rini17 wrote:
| Yes hearing aids tuning is a thing, often must be done
| repeatedly because of discomfort.
|
| But the serious problem with hearing loss is the "bandwidth",
| meaning the damaged cells send less information to the brain
| even if attenuation is compensated by hearing aid, leading to
| bad recognition of sounds and speech.
| rhubarbcustard wrote:
| With most new hearing aids users, multiple tunings are
| required as they cannot handle the new volume and intensity
| of sounds that hey haven't heard for years.
|
| An audiologist will typically test someone, see that they
| need amplications across the range but send them away with
| a much lower amplification for a weeks to get used to
| things. Then bring the volume up as time goes by.
|
| People amy also need to get used to the aid's noise
| reduction algorithms as they can seem unatural at first and
| is a nightmare for anyone who used to wear an old analog
| hearing aid with no noise reduction.
|
| So, yeah, hearing aids are rarely plug-and-play from day
| one - the user needs time to adjust.
| rhubarbcustard wrote:
| A non-linear loss should not be an issue for any modern hearing
| aid, they are designed specifically to deal with that. I've
| never seen an audiogram with a complete flat (linear) loss, I'm
| sure some have it but its not common.
|
| I have a severe sensorineural loss in both ears and wears
| hearing aids with a lot of success. My loss was the result of
| some unknown illness when I was younger - a loss resulting from
| illness or drug reaction tend to present randomly across the
| frequencies, whereas an age-related loss is almost always a
| "ski slope" loss, which means the high frequencies are mostly
| lost and the lowers are mostly fine.
|
| Your experience is very common with new hearing aid users. The
| aids are able to increase volume at specific frequencies as
| defined by your hearing test(s) and the other features of the
| aid, e.g. noise reduction and compression are able to give a
| great quality of sound. The problem is usually in the person's
| ability to comprehend these new sounds, i.e. their brain, not
| their ears. A person with a hearing loss typically takes seven
| years to try out hearing aids, in those years their brain has
| got used to not hearing certain frequencies and sounds
| altogether and it can take time and training to get that
| ability back.
|
| There is not really a great set of tools for brain training
| part of the hearing problem at the moment, in my opinion its
| badly overlooked by the hearing industry.
|
| This is a very interesting book:
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262045869
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| There are some interesting avenues of research for
| sensorineural hearing loss, such as the non-linearity- and
| distortion-inducing effects of some psychedelic tryptamines
| such as DiPT. Psychedelics tend to increase neuroplasticity,
| and these could do it specifically for aural processing.
| vemv wrote:
| Earlier this week I started feeling hearing discomfort for
| certain textures of sounds - namely those metallic or screeching.
|
| I don't feel pain or ringing but those sounds definitely irritate
| me in a disproportionate way.
|
| Does that sound familiar to anyone?
|
| (I have a specialist appointment in the way but I'm quite anxious
| in the meantime)
| c61746961 wrote:
| Look up hyperacusis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis)
| pacomerh wrote:
| I've seen news related to this FX-322 drug, but it's never clear
| to me if this works or not, or if it will be available to the
| public somehow. I lost my hi-freq in one ear due to inflammation
| if the cochlea (vestibular neuritis). Would love to know if this
| could help grow those hair cells back. That also gave me tinitus,
| but I don't really care about tinitus, I just want to get those
| frequencies back.
|
| Also found there's FX-345:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4js_9GUwc
| egberts1 wrote:
| Since it's a trial, I would not recommend deaf/hard-of-hearing
| who had spinal meningitis of this trial ... yet.
| ensan wrote:
| I have been seeing a lot of news articles from university
| websites on HN recently.
|
| Do people realize that they essentially function as hype-
| generation outlets and are not intended to provide an objective
| and unbiased assessment of the research?
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's a press release, most people with some amount of media
| literacy understand what they are.
|
| And really, the original press releases tend to be quite a bit
| better than the 'science blog' articles that regurgitate them,
| coming from a university url isn't a bad thing.
| mastercheif wrote:
| I think most here are interested in hearing about what cool new
| research is being performed at the top universities regardless
| if the article itself includes the conclusions of the studies +
| peer review.
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