Well, they can't even be sure of the cause, they can't actually make a clear diagnosis, how can one klnow for sure what works and what not? The AM-101 may not even work at all, or it may work for more than just acute phases. The autiphony will possibly work but we don't know if it cures. My guess is if it works the effects will be temporary, so we 'll have to take it indefenitely.
Agreed. But what can one do? Until a new treatment works and present itself as a cure, what can you do? Dangerous experiments?
I can't speak for everyone but I do understand desperation. I have been there myself and to some extent I still am. People who are desperate will do deperate things. Danger is a relative thing. Dangerous means the risk of losing something of value. If the choice is blowing your own brains out becouse you can't stand your current situation then the amount of danger a procedure has holds no or little value since you're about to kill yourself anyway. Or it might be that your quality of life is so low that you might not have much to lose. It might be hard for you to grasp but then you might not be in that persons shoes. You have no idea what that person is having to stand up with. You accually don't know how bad your tinnitus is. It might be the worst case in the history of mankind but to you it might be bearable. Wheras for someone else something you might consider a slight buzz might be the end of the world and traumatize them to the extent that they cannot function.
Even if the effects of Autifony are temporary it's still a good thing. I have no problem taking a drug for the rest of my life if it eliminates my tinnitus. Drugs are generally covered by insurances and after the patent expires the drugs price will plumet and the cost vill be virtually nothing.
How can you know you don't have hearing loss? The audiograms are not precise procedures, not even objective ones. Let alone they only do upto 8000Hz, so if yours do take a dive after that they won't even know. And they just say the hearing is normal. It is normal compared to what? Perhaps if you haqd gone to the ENT a day BEFORE the tinnitus incident your audiogram would be a lot different, a lot better! But we don't go to the ENT before the problem, do we? Do you hear normal? Don't the T bothers you during the adiogram procedure? Even if you claim you hear fine, doesn't T overlap after certain frequencies? Mine starts to bother me at 6000 when I start to drop, and continues dropping upto 8000. But not above 20db, so many claim it is normal, not even an acoustic trauma! And what of it? They wouldn't know what to do whith it, even if they new I have hearing loss. Sorry, they can't tell us sh*t!
I can't know. But I can hear higher frequencies. I can hear sound of 19,5 khz. I've tried that in a sound generator so I'm not deaf at certain frequencies.
When it comes to testing hearing with tinnitus there are workarounds. For instance in my last test they used oscillating sounds instead of a pure tone. That means that you can pick up sounds of frequencies that would normally be covered by your tinnitus since the sounds oscillate a bit and aren't constant. They are of that frequency that they want to test but instead of it being of exactly 8000 hz it might oscilate between let's say 7980 and 8020 hz so you will pick it up even though your tinnitus has the frequency of 8000 hz.
To my mind, tinnitus and hearing loss are interchangable: The less you can hear the more tinnitus you get. Perception of tinnitus on the other hand, may differ greatly among people! Other may have tinnitus for a long time, but it increased gradually, and they habituated it. They may not even notice it. The brain itself may have put it to the backround. So, as there may be people with T and no hearing loss, there are also them with hearing loss but no tinnitus at all! They may have T but do not notice it. Perhaps there is a basis to the thalamus theory, but I'll be damned if they can make head or tails with it, tinnitus wise. It is just experimentation on human brain. If it works, it works. We sure hope it does, and by perfecting it they will give us relief. And, of course, more will implement it and adapt the cure and the prices will drop to normal levels. Or the insurance will cover it.
Once again there is no proof of tinnitus depending on hearing loss and vice versa. They OFTEN DO! BUT, there are people who are completely deaf and have no tinntus. And there are people that have no hearing loss that have tinnitus. And they have tested peoples hearing above 8 khz. They don't do it here in Sweden anymore but they used to and in many countries they still do.
And when you are talking about the brain filtering sounds and about people that might have tinnitus but don't percieve it becouse their brain filters it, then guess again. Tinnitus is the perception of sound. So if you don't hear any sounds, you don't have tinnitus!
The brain filters sounds all the time. Our bodies make a lot of noise. Our heart makes noise, our blood vessels, arteries, when bones and cartillage grind against eachother and so on. Every time you move your head your muscles contract and tendons stretch. All these things create sounds. But our brain starts to filter out most of it already at birth. There accually is a condition when that filter is not working properly and people hear their own bodies. It's called objective tinnitus.
But until then, we will have to wait for the first people to try it and let us know. Brave and desperate tinnitus people.
As always there is a price for advancement of medicine. Many would not dare to admit it but wars have always had a great positive influence on the advancement of medicine and technology. During the second world war, the field of medicine made greater advancements in just a few years than it normaly makes in decades.
PS: While mentioning gene therapy about curing the damaged nerve, I really ment to say stem therapy. Although what your infoon gene therapy is quite interesting, it mostly hase to do with the atoh1 gene I guess.... I really hope they perfect that procedure and try it on tinnitus people also, not only deaf.
I'm not a big fan of the stem cell therapies either. It would have to depend on what technique is used. I would never let them put cells grown in a petri dish (in vitro) into my body.
You see, there is a big difference between cells grown in vitro (in a petri dish or similar) and in vivo (inside a living organism).
Human cells can't normally survive outside of our bodies. You can't grow human cells like bacteria. You can't just take a few cells from a human, put them in a dish and have them grow. Our cells are made to enter apoptosis (cell suicide) by default. That means that without stimulance of hormones and proteins, so called growth factors, our cells enter a stage called apoptosis. It's when cells commit suicide. Our cells can't survive as single cell organisms like eucaryotic single cell organisms can. Yeast f.i. is such an organism.
Think of it as our cells being electrical appliences and our body as the power grid. If you unplug your TV, it stops working.
So to grow cells outside of the body one must add a serum to the mix that contains these stimulants that make cells proliferate (divide and produce more cells). But the thing is that there are mechanisms in our bodies that are important in controlling cell proliferation. Most importantly systems that check cells for mutations and damage, and then mark them to be taken care of our immune system.
You see, every time a cell in our body divides there is a chance that something will go wrong, like mutations. Mutations are errors that occur in DNA replication where the copy of the DNA are not exact matches in the two cells that arise after cell division (called mitosis). A DNA base might be substituted for another, there may be pieces missing, there might even be chromosomal damage where whole or pieces of chromosomes are missing or being copied one too many times so you end up with cells containing more or less then 46 chromoromes. We generate potential tumor cells on a daily basis. Cells are either repaired or if they are damaged beyond repair our body has mechanisms that mark such cells and they are then swiftly and safely removed. There is lots that can go wrong and it also often does but our bodies takes care of it 99,9999% of the time (cancer arises in that 0.0001% when things go wrong, wich is why everybody gets cancer in the end if they get to live long enough, everytime your cells devide you draw a ticket in the cancer lottery).
Usually when cancer arises these mechanisms have been sidestepped and cells start to proliferate uncontrollably. These cells then quickly accumulate lots of mutations and often there are chromosomal abnormalities and genes that normally aren't active in our normal cells that become activated. Cancer cells become immortal. Among other things they activate genes responsible for production of growth factors (so they start to make their own stimulants) and the production of telomerase (a protein that keeps cells from aging and is normally active only in our reproductive system, the testicles and ovaries).
All of the above normally happens when you grow cells in a petri dish. There are no normal mechanisms for controlling cells. So after a while you will basicly be growing a tumor in bowl wich is not something you would like to put in your body.
Now I got my degree five years ago so I'm not in to the latest and greatest but there are big issues with both stem cell techniques as well as gene therapy. Mostly with safety. That is why they've cured just about any condition in mice. But then again if half of the mice die in the study, who cares. It's still a success. The same does not apply to humans. It's not as easy as one might think. And often the researchers oversell it to get their research funded.
When it comes to techniques of such kind I think it will be a very long time before it will be an accepted aproach for treatment of ailments like tinnitus. The first that will be treated are the illnesses that are terminal.
I'm sorry to say this but I think that this type of technology is at least 10-15 years away. They might cure one person here and there. But for this technology to become a standard procedure...that will take a long time.
). But becouse the onset was after going to bed late one night after sitting and waching tv and playing around at the computer, I can't be sure.
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