Combining Treatments to Best Help Hearing Loss

[Madi]

Hey all, I'm new here. For a while, I've noticed that I may have hidden hearing loss (my roommates and I often turn on captioning for TV shows, with the running joke "our ears are not our friends") — mild, but still, not a great thing to have. I have tinnitus that comes and goes (it seems to stick around more when I'm stressed, tired, hungry, etc.) To be honest, the tinnitus doesn't bother me much anymore (at least, not as much as it used to) but I am concerned about possibly losing my hearing. I'm in my early 20s, so seeing all these new treatments on the horizon makes me hopeful that we'll see something that works soon — selfishly, so I don't have to spend the rest of my life with the issues I already do have.

With all of that being said, I've been wandering around on this forum for a while before finally making an account. From what I've seen, it looks like a combination of different treatments would be the best way to tackle hearing loss (and, for many people, tinnitus). Restoring hair cells is a great place to start, and multiple companies are tackling this, but wouldn't you also have to restore synapses, say, with something like the pill Hough Ear Institute is working on? Or is something being worked on that would treat BOTH the hair cells and the synapses?

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or if you have more information! I am generally hopeful that we WILL figure something out, and that a lot of us have happier days ahead.

 

[Walid5]

Hey Madi

Well it really makes me feel better when I hear a story similar to mine. I'm 21 years old and I entered the world of hearing loss and tinnitus 5 months ago. It happened in a club, took cortisone for 10 days, my hearing returned to an acceptable level (bilateral 20 dB loss at 2000 Hz) but mild tinnitus is still there. Since that day, my life took a completely different way, as many of us here. No more clubs without earplugs (and stress), no more headphones (I'm a gamer and music is one of my passions) and I listen much less to music. Tinnitus contributes a lot to this stress and depression, it's bothering and makes me remember the « irreversible » damages in my cochlea. Discovering this summer that serious biotechs works on treatments to cure hearing loss (and maybe tinnitus) really gave me hope and power to continue my life until this dream becomes reality.

I'm also new in Tinnitus Talk (few months) and this forum can really be informative and hope-giving. But be careful, this can become an obsession, making you checking everyday the forum which will make your condition have a bigger place in your life than it has to have (psychologically).

I really hope that science will very soon come up with something that will fix our ears.
Peace.

 

[Madi]

Hey @Walid5, thanks for the reply. I'm sorry to hear about your case, but all the same it also makes me feel better to know someone is kind of similar to me!

I know that it can be scary to listen to music/other things when you find out your hearing isn't what it used to be, but cutting it out completely is just going to make you more depressed. There have been times where I tried to shut myself off from sound, but that just made me feel worse. As someone who went through a lot of trauma as a kid, music was there for me when nobody else was. Just be safe about listening