DIY Low-Level Laser Therapy for Tinnitus on a Budget — LLLT Under 100,-

[Cityjohn]

Several all day long? I found the clicks to be uncomfortable to say the least. I hope you don't have H too.

Let us know what the ABR's show. Why do you need multiples?

Since I'm doing the ABR myself using my own equipment and measuring techniques, and I want to develop a multispectral version I'll have to work it longer I just hope the instruction I have are good enough for me to replicate it and that I can then improve on it.

@Cityjohn do you think a laman could repeat this based on your posts here, someone with no knowledge? I did graduate high school but dropped out of college. I know nothing of lasers it all seems futuristic.

Yes, I'm sure everyone could replicate what I'm doing right now, but let's find out if it's worth it first.

 

[ehrfried]

Hi @Bobby B !

I was in a very loud rock disco many years ago for four hours.
I had hearing loss but now I hear better than almost all of my friends.
My worst hearing test was - dependin on frequency - between 5 and 15 db HL.

My current hearing test is 0 - -10 db HL on all common frequencies.
I guess my T is above 8000 Hz so there is still some HL - otherwise my T would already be gone completely.

I can say that after supplements and laser (but especially supplements) and hearing protection:

-I hear veeeery high frequencies again : 18,19kHz
-I have a very low hearing threshold again (maybe even lower than before the disco as the streets and so on already appear very loud for me nowadays - not Hyperacusis but they do appear loud!)
-and i still have T but it is so quiet that I cannot even hear it in most quiet apartments at home. Only in very quiet rooms in apartments that are located far away from streets and of course when I wear earplugs in quiet areas.


I am totally sure I will get completely rid of it and I want to tell you all that to give you hope and to work on your hearing and as a proof that all this feared hearing damages are in fact curable! Wilden is right.

 

[Ian Mac]

Since I'm doing the ABR myself using my own equipment and measuring techniques, and I want to develop a multispectral version I'll have to work it longer I just hope the instruction I have are good enough for me to replicate it and that I can then improve on it.



Yes, I'm sure everyone could replicate what I'm doing right now, but let's find out if it's worth it first.

Cheers! I'll be tagging along.

 

[Reinier]

I've also noticed that while I'm doing it my tinnitus goes up slightly, maybe 15% which is odd.

Exactly the same experience. When I start the LLLT my tinnitus pretty much instantly goes up in level!
No way of knowing if this is good or not?

 

[Cityjohn]

No way of knowing if this is good or not?

To be frank I haven't thought about it much but given the fact that we are changing the energy content of all cells at the mitochondrial level it would seem quite reasonable to conclude that other cellular processes would be affected, perhaps intensify. I don't know how this would influence Glu-GABA turnover or cellular noise. Since cellular noise, or erroneous firing of neurons, is caused by chemicals this would be the place to look.

 

[Rings-a-Bell]

It could be that your T goes up as soon as you start LLLT simply because you are likely paying that much more attention to it while trying to treat it. I know that if I think about my T for a few minutes it goes up. Actually even reading this website makes it go up

 

[Bobby B]

T definitely goes up and changes in pitch a few hours later after treatment but this happened at first during the first months of treatments
@ehrfried

15db isn't even considered hearing loss if that's your worst spot.

I had 40db @4khz and 25@6khz , 50db@8khz then no hearing after 12khz.

Even Wilden said that 15db is so little that the body can heal itself fine without light therapy provided you protect your hearing

 

[Reinier]

It could be that your T goes up as soon as you start LLLT simply because you are likely paying that much more attention to it while trying to treat it.

I am pretty certain it is the LLLT that is doing this and not my focus on tinnitus. This is my personal experience.
I lay down and adjust the lasertips. Than I start the laser. Instantly my tinnitus goes up. In < 10 sec.
When I stop the laser after 20 minutes the tinnitus does not go down immediately. That takes a while. I am not sure yet how long.
But I am always interested to experiment. I will try to follow exactly the same procedure except starting the laser an listen what happens. Also it is my experience in everyday life, my tinnitus gets noticeable after the level increased. So thinking about tinnitus when it is at a low level does not appear to influence my tinnitus.

Since cellular noise, or erroneous firing of neurons, is caused by chemicals this would be the place to look.

I can imagine it is the erroneous firing of neurons that we hear? Or is this the sixty-four-thousand dollar question?

15db isn't even considered hearing loss if that's your worst spot.

I agree. On the other hand, I would be so chuffed with 15 dB gain!
Also I sincerely believe that there is so much more damaged than what shows up on a hearing threshold. That is why I think I hear distortion and can still experience difficulty understanding people that do talk loud enough.
Another "discovery" relating to this: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/311584.php
What do we know? New discoveries and revelations about the workings of the inner ear are almost every 3 months.

 

[japongus]

I have examined Dr. Wilden, he really believes it works and has done studies, even presenting the results at anual meetings. His results are in the order of 20% improved T, 80% improved hyperacusis.

Clearly those results are garbage if he thinks a damaged cochlea, or damaged otoacoustic emissions, is a prerequisite for hyperacusis. There are way too many reports pointing to the middle ear being involved, and he's never uttered a word about that part of the anatomy. And the guys from otoclinica are total scammers who tried to convince me I had misophonia when their stupid laser sessions didn't do a thing, when all I really have is TTTS/hyperacusis/myoclonus which are interchangeable words with mixed meanings that coincide and overlap with each other like colors on a spectrum.#


The pain thresholds below is hyperacusis, a mixture of words from pain to pulling.

http://hyperacusisfocus.org/research/feeling-sound/

not whatever nonsense the laser troglodites are peddling.

 

[Cityjohn]

It could be that your T goes up as soon as you start LLLT simply because you are likely paying that much more attention to it while trying to treat it. I know that if I think about my T for a few minutes it goes up. Actually even reading this website makes it go up

Well yes, that's why I have a calibrated sound source that I use at a fixed distance with fixed acoustics so that I can subjectively yet accurately measure my tinnitus level.

15db isn't even considered hearing loss if that's your worst spot.

The reasoning behind this still eludes me though.

Even Wilden said that 15db is so little that the body can heal itself fine without light therapy provided you protect your hearing

If one can heal 15db then why not 150db?

I can imagine it is the erroneous firing of neurons that we hear? Or is this the sixty-four-thousand dollar question?

Yeah, not a big mystery I think but it has me worried a bit as you can imagine... Don't want to make my T worse.

Also I sincerely believe that there is so much more damaged than what shows up on a hearing threshold. That is why I think I hear distortion and can still experience difficulty understanding people that do talk loud enough.

A good way to look at it is by using the poisson noise as an analogy. In astronomy since you only get a few photons per second some times you have to wait a while to fill the picture as it were. Once you have it filled you can wait longer to push up the signal to noise ratio (SNR). In the example below both images have the same brightness per arbitrary area, or in total. But one is obviously less well defined per area. The same holds up for audio signals, the measuring tone is designed to cancel all SNR effects so it will do the exact opposite of revealing a SNR problem. A bad SNR arises when you have too few photons, or in the case of audio signals, too few separate pathways carrying voltage to the brain.
Measuring SNR in the auditory system would be an awesome new diagnostic tool.

Clearly those results are garbage if he thinks a damaged cochlea, or damaged otoacoustic emissions, is a prerequisite for hyperacusis.

Pain in the ear is more likely caused by type II afferent neurons in the cochlea that function as nociceptors. Funnily enough they also cause your eardrum muscle to contract at 10hz in an attempt to attenuate sound.
I don't know what Wilden thinks I just stated the patient results he has published and I believe he actually believes what he says because he attends conferences and symposia where he is presenting his work to other experts in his field... no scientist would do this if he's trying to peddle a lie believe me.

he's never uttered a word about that part of the anatomy.

The middle ear is empty space with some cartilage and the tensor tympani muscle, as such it's only seemingly involved in the ear drum fluttering, and sound conduction.

 

[Alue]

15db isn't even considered hearing loss if that's your worst spot.

If you go from 0db to 15db overnight, then yes it is hearing loss. That's providing you have a baseline established before the hearing damage. 0-20 is the normal range depending on age. There is about a 5-10db margin of error.

 

[japongus]

Pain in the ear is more likely caused by type II afferent neurons in the cochlea that function as nociceptors. Funnily enough they also cause your eardrum muscle to contract at 10hz in an attempt to attenuate sound.
I don't know what Wilden thinks I just stated the patient results he has published and I believe he actually believes what he says because he attends conferences and symposia where he is presenting his work to other experts in his field... no scientist would do this if he's trying to peddle a lie believe me.



The middle ear is empty space with some cartilage and the tensor tympani muscle, as such it's only seemingly involved in the ear drum fluttering, and sound conduction.

Conferences, anyone can go to conferences. A conference on laser is gonna be crap for our purposes. The one in London last year or so, I was told was crap. Laser, let alone Wilden, was nowhere to be seen at tinnet.

If Wilden is all in on the notion that the cochlea controls the middle ear, then he hasn't read enough. It's not where things are at. When Silverstein did his conference on round and oval window reinforcement, he was uncertain whether the inner ear or the brain caused a hypermobile stapes, or whether it was the other way around. When Vasilia received a tenotomy of her middle ear muscles, she was no longer sensitive to ''fake hyperacusis'' as she called it. When Trashboat did tenotomies and it went wrong, he got a sort of augmented Tullio's or perilymph fistula that was causing him sound sensitivity, if it wasn't the absence of muscles that did it, which wouldn't make sense if the absense cured others but not him. When some chinese doctor cured a low pitched rumbling tinnitus by either closing a tympanic membrane or cancelling out the stapedius or the stapes with botox, something's telling me dead cells inside the bone of the cochlea had little to do with it. And when definite menieres which orthodoxy says is inside the inner ear was cured with middle ear tenotomies, then it looked like it was the cochlea that was being affected by the middle ear. When one of our members was told that the veli palatini, the stapedius or the tensor could be spasming, why would the cochlea have anything to do with it...


There may be some etiology it works for, but there's a huge bunch it probably won't. Some people have pain without pulls or thumps. Laser might be curing issues in the middle ear not the inner one. Laser could be targeting cochlear hydrops or something, but with the middle ear in the way and with the above reports I'd find that more improbable. Neuropathic pain, herpes, could be anywhere.

 

[Reinier]

A bad SNR arises when you have too few photons, or in the case of audio signals, too few separate pathways carrying voltage to the brain.

This sentence generated an imaginary bright light bulb floating above my head.
I am pretty sure I understand.

 

[Leon909]

In total my ear LED's cost me 20,- Euros;

Three AA batteries,
some 28 gauge wiring,
a battery box with an on switch,
two red 2.2-2.4 V LED's,
and some heat shrink tubing.

Hey Cityjohn, 1st of all thank so much for all the information you post. Being a layman in electronics, I'm not able to find the right materials online. Any chance you could post links to the items as to where we could buy them?

 

[whiskeykonteq]

Once you have it filled you can wait longer to push up the signal to noise ratio (SNR). In the example below both images have the same brightness per arbitrary area, or in total. But one is obviously less well defined per area. The same holds up for audio signals, the measuring tone is designed to cancel all SNR effects so it will do the exact opposite of revealing a SNR problem. A bad SNR arises when you have too few photons, or in the case of audio signals, too few separate pathways carrying voltage to the brain.
Measuring SNR in the auditory system would be an awesome new diagnostic tool.

Actually I had ABRs measured in April 2016 and there was column called SNR. When it was too low, next to it would be written "rejected". I had rejected in higher frequencies - exactly where I have T. I will post it here, once I have post stem cells ABRs.

 

[Cityjohn]

If Wilden is all in on the notion that the cochlea controls the middle ear

What do you mean by controls?

It's not where things are at.

What things?

Laser might be curing issues in the middle ear not the inner one.

Why do you believe a laser won't penetrate to the cochlea and that light cannot influence nervous tissues?

I will post it here

I'd be very interested to see, thanks.

 

[Cityjohn]

Hey Cityjohn, 1st of all thank so much for all the information you post. Being a layman in electronics, I'm not able to find the right materials online. Any chance you could post links to the items as to where we could buy them?

Hey Leon, these things are best bought at a local electronical components store or at an online electronics component store that delivers near you. This is an example of a store like that; http://www.conrad.com/ce/en/overview/0212029/Wired-LEDs

 

[japongus]

What do you mean by controls?



What things?



Why do you believe a laser won't penetrate to the cochlea and that light cannot influence nervous tissues?

Don't you have any pulling in your ear? What kind of symptoms do you have?

Cochlea controls the middle ear, which it probably doesn't, as opposed to the middle ear, ie myoclonus or TTTS as being the source of pain. What's so hard to understand?

 

[Cityjohn]

Don't you have any pulling in your ear? What kind of symptoms do you have?

Cochlea controls the middle ear, which it probably doesn't, as opposed to the middle ear, ie myoclonus or TTTS as being the source of pain. What's so hard to understand?

You have absolutely no theoretical fundamentals to support any of your claims, that's what is so hard to understand. If you want me to understand any of this you're going to have to tell me how the middle is mechanically causing a 16Khz tone, and how that would be physically possible.

I had a massive brain stem inflammation. My auditory nerve cells were all dying which caused my tensor tympani muscle to contract for a month pulling my eardrums in visibly. All ear fluttering, squeaking, fullness and any other middle ear problems cleared up within three months. So yes, the rest of the CNS clearly controls the middle ear as it does the rest of the entire human body. To claim the stapes would be controlled by anything is ignorant speculation when obviously it can only be affected by a mechanical fault i.e genetics or a knock on the head.
Furthermore a hypermobile stapes, like a hypermobile microphonic membrane, would not make someone more sensitive to sound. It would only render them the ability to more clearly hear very high frequency modulations conductively.

The LT therapy I have designed for myself targets the dorsal cochlear nucleus in my brain stem. It is the result of 4 months of research and is now being tested.

 

[Cityjohn]

Update on DeepLT, ABR, CNS diagnostics:

I have begun treatment now for a few days and have noticed a few things. I had not taken into account the peripheral nerves in the skin while irradiating for deep effects and this may cause a pretty annoying headache as a lot of light is shining directly onto the facial nerve. I'm testing this now by not irradiating the facial nerves today. Also forgoing the ear LT I'm hoping to notice a clearly lacking T increase so that I can then correlate LT to an increase in CNS activity.
If we can correlate these two at least we can determine it does reach the nerves, and now we can think about why it would increase signalling activity in them.

With the headache and some other things that kept me very busy I haven't had time to go do my ABR which is a pity. I'm not quite sure when to do this now as the lab people have gone on holiday and I'm going on holiday around the 30th.

Some good news though. My partner and I will both be doing an experimental 7 Tesla ultra high field MRI today at the Spinoza center for brain imaging. There we'll have the opportunity to talk to some researchers about diffusion tensor MRI's which are quite the new tech, able to distinguish individual pathways inside the brain.

 

[Marlino]

this may cause a pretty annoying headache

Hmm, maybe just coincidence.
How do you focus and which power?

I still do my lllt from times to times. Heats my ear up until I have to switch it off for a while. Hard to say if it improves my T. It definitely doesn't worsen it and it at least makes me feel to do something.

Good luck pal!

 

[Cityjohn]

Hmm, maybe just coincidence.
How do you focus and which power?

I still do my lllt from times to times. Heats my ear up until I have to switch it off for a while. Hard to say if it improves my T. It definitely doesn't worsen it and it at least makes me feel to do something.

Good luck pal!

It differs per day, I use anywhere from 5 to 30 watts before heat losses. Since the frequency domain is spread over 150nm it won't burn like a laser. My headache today is nearly gone after I cut out the transmitter that touch facial nerves. Given that they can stimulate the nerve so heavily I'm now really wondering what the interaction is exactly, and whether my dose is too big for any benefit.

 

[Cityjohn]

Update on DeepLT



The images above show the light crown I had built to transmit light into my brain from all sides but I had run into a snag along the way. The four transmitters opposite to each other lie right on top of the facial nerve and it causes a headache.
Since I've stopped using it my T has increased a little but it might just be a spike from not sleeping too well for a few nights.

To continue my experiments I will make a new version of the crown, the third one, and continue the therapy. My immediate goals are to determine a good dosage level instead of going full blast, and doing a short calculation on how much light would pass through to the DCN. All throughout the therapy I've also used the Ear Leds which elevate my T slightly while using them.

 

[ehrfried]

Hi Cityjohn!

There is a german guy called Ulrich Holeschak.
He built a laser himself in 2009/2010 and I contacted him in 2012.
He told me a lot and also here on the thread he tells a lot.

http://forum.tinnitus-liga.de/index.php?page=Thread&postID=22399

As soon as I have time I will upload the mail correspondence, including more pictures and the best parameters for wavelength and power.

I want to team up with you. I already found out so much regarding ears, supplements and also laser and I would like to found a team to put together all the information we found out.
How does this sound for you?

 

[Marlino]

@ehrfried : can you please post it. I stumbled already across this thread you mentioned and I am very curious.

Since you mentioned 2012 which has given you enough time to experiment yourself: do you have some experience with lllt?

 

[Cityjohn]

Hi Cityjohn!

There is a german guy called Ulrich Holeschak.
He built a laser himself in 2009/2010 and I contacted him in 2012.
He told me a lot and also here on the thread he tells a lot.

http://forum.tinnitus-liga.de/index.php?page=Thread&postID=22399

As soon as I have time I will upload the mail correspondence, including more pictures and the best parameters for wavelength and power.

I want to team up with you. I already found out so much regarding ears, supplements and also laser and I would like to found a team to put together all the information we found out.
How does this sound for you?

This thread is here for everyone so if you wanna pitch in please do
Any findings others have made are worth a lot so I'd be very interested to see his experimental parameters.

 

[ehrfried]

I am sorry that this is in german.
But here it is.



And I want to tell you something guys:


Right now I am caught in a foreign country because I just finished my studies there (Elite uni abroad huhuhu) and will now move back to where I live (Austria).

I am just waiting and have nothing todo before I leave......


And I want to found a platform in these 9 days ...... I would like you to help me to fill it with information. You can believe me, I have got a LOT of information.
I also have correspondences with so many people all over the world and I found out so many things.....And I can tell you that I know a lot already about efficacy of many cures.


right now I want to found a team of "fighters" to collaborate more. Would you be interested?



@Marlino: Yes, i have experience with LLLT: I tried it once at Dr. Wilden (5 treatments = 1 week), it helped me and I will do it again (probably amon kaiser or robert kroll this time).
I am i'd say 99,8% cured now through LLLT, Silence and Vitamins.






And about the PDF:

The paramters for the laser are:


-wavelength: 635nm (achieved by cooling down a 640nm diode)
-output: 3,5 mW
-duration: 8hours
-frequency: one time per day (i.e. every night 8 hours)

What the guy achieved: Complete cure - he mentioned, however, that a slight Tinnitus is what everybody has. He found it out by noticing it in his "healthy" ear after wearing earplugs for a long time in a quiet area. He furthermore mentioned that he treated his healthy ear just for fun and noticed that his hearing also improved significantly on his healthy ear.

I myself have to tell you that I also found out that I had tinnitus when I head helathy ears.....I also wore ear protection in a very quiet area for many hours until I noticed that my ears are ringing slightly.....I was just a bit suprised....then I never spent a though on it again until....yeah.....a "real" tinnitus came up.

 

[Ears Hurt]

@Cityjohn How many times a day and for how long do you use the red LEDs in ear? I just want to get some guidance on how much I should use. I know its just trial and error, but it would be nice to be consistent to compare changes. Thank you.

 

[Cityjohn]

I am sorry that this is in german.
But here it is.

No problem

So he went the fiber optic route, I too had ordered some fiber optic cables just in case but it turned out we could just fit the lasers in our ears. 3.5mW seems like a very low power to me. My ear LED's go up to 250mW with the full width half maximum (FWHM) between 625 and 650 nm.

I'll calculate the exact power per wavelength when I get home.

@Cityjohn How many times a day and for how long do you use the red LEDs in ear? I just want to get some guidance on how much I should use. I know its just trial and error, but it would be nice to be consistent to compare changes. Thank you.

An hour a day every day, I skipped one day and am now going to increase it to over 2 hours a day. to be frank you can wear these literally all day, I just don't want to be seen with them

 

[ehrfried]

I know it is low power. If you take a look at his thread, you will see that he used more before.
However, he told me that he found out that it is more effective to do it weaker but longer.