I Found This Site by Googling Tinnitus Terminator. It Sure Looks Like It Is a Scam.

[oldblue]

I'm over 60 yrs old and I've have had tinnitus since 2005. It was self-inflicted. I fell asleep listening to a Neil Young bootleg cd alone. The band was playing acoustic tunes when I fell asleep, but when I woke up it was loud distorted Crazy Horse playing. The ringing has been with me ever since. I have gotten used to it over the years and can ignore it. I sleep with a fan on to buffer the noise in my head and it works for me. I saw that Tinnitus Terminator product pop-up on youtube and had mild interest to see real testimonials. I'm convinced it is a scam.

Although I have signed on as a member I hope that I don't become a regular contributor. I consider myself fortunate to be able to ignore my tinnitus. I still listen to music very frequently but with restraint. I have some musicians earplugs with me when I am enjoying live bands and I sit well back from the PA systems. I do not intend to do further research on tinnitus because I do not want to focus on it - ignoring it has worked for me. I really hope this forum will help others to learn more about it and that supporting one another will help you.

 

[Vinnitus]

I'm over 60 yrs old and I've have had tinnitus since 2005. It was self-inflicted. I fell asleep listening to a Neil Young bootleg cd alone. The band was playing acoustic tunes when I fell asleep, but when I woke up it was loud distorted Crazy Horse playing. The ringing has been with me ever since. I have gotten used to it over the years and can ignore it. I sleep with a fan on to buffer the noise in my head and it works for me. I saw that Tinnitus Terminator product pop-up on youtube and had mild interest to see real testimonials. I'm convinced it is a scam.

Although I have signed on as a member I hope that I don't become a regular contributor. I consider myself fortunate to be able to ignore my tinnitus. I still listen to music very frequently but with restraint. I have some musicians earplugs with me when I am enjoying live bands and I sit well back from the PA systems. I do not intend to do further research on tinnitus because I do not want to focus on it - ignoring it has worked for me. I really hope this forum will help others to learn more about it and that supporting one another will help you.

If you are convinced it is a scam, then why exactly do we have to discuss it again? Tinnitus Terminator has been a confirmed scam for many years now, and I get the impression posts on this forum regarding it are solely made to focus attention on the name. There have been various threads about this topic already.

In fact, any therapy based on sound (like the one you mentioned) will not resolve inner-ear Tinnitus. The only effective therapies for such Tinnitus needs targeting of the root cause (healing of cochlear damage) or stimulation/compensation at the dorsal cochlear nucleus because of lost auditory input.

 

[GregCA]

In fact, any therapy based on sound (like the one you mentioned) will not resolve inner-ear Tinnitus. The only effective therapies for such Tinnitus needs targeting of the root cause (healing of cochlear damage) or stimulation/compensation at the dorsal cochlear nucleus because of lost auditory input.

That "fact" is incorrect: there are quite a few scientific studies you can find on pubmed that show that sound therapy does work for a good amount of people. They will not regrow your hair cells and give you your hearing back, but they will lower the intensity of the perception of Tinnitus (not just a better questionnaire score - even though that alone is positive). They are a bit annoying to follow (in terms of protocol) so it will not work as an "instant gratification solution", but claiming it does not work is not correct.
One example is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19842347 - full paper available in the Tinnitus Journal, which shows very promising results, but again you have to follow a protocol for months. Few people have the discipline to do it.
There are also reasonable results for Tailor Made Music Training type of therapies, as well as Acoustic Coordinated Reset Neuromodulation.
It's not a magic pill nor will it work 100% of the time: it's another arrow in the quiver of the sufferer.

 

[oldblue]

Well Vinnitus, It was suggested by the adminstrators that I introduce myself and I did that. If a google search for that scam brought me here, perhaps google search by someone else of that same scam will direct them here as well. I made it quite clear in my topic that it is a scam to discourage folks from purchasing it. I thought this forum was here for supporting one another and may be useful to find remedies that do help.

Perhaps you should not try to discourage new members from joining the conversation. I read several threads to come to the conclusion that this therapy is a scam. I guess you prefer new members read all the archived materials so we don't waste anybody's time. I'm sorry that you suffer tinnitus. It is a miserable malady and it can cause some folks to be mean-spirited.

 

[Vinnitus]

That "fact" is incorrect: there are quite a few scientific studies you can find on pubmed that show that sound therapy does work for a good amount of people. They will not regrow your hair cells and give you your hearing back, but they will lower the intensity of the perception of Tinnitus (not just a better questionnaire score - even though that alone is positive). They are a bit annoying to follow (in terms of protocol) so it will not work as an "instant gratification solution", but claiming it does not work is not correct.
One example is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19842347 - full paper available in the Tinnitus Journal, which shows very promising results, but again you have to follow a protocol for months. Few people have the discipline to do it.
There are also reasonable results for Tailor Made Music Training type of therapies, as well as Acoustic Coordinated Reset Neuromodulation.
It's not a magic pill nor will it work 100% of the time: it's another arrow in the quiver of the sufferer.

My point is that it does not "resolve" the Tinnitus. It might indeed reduce your perception of it or maybe even cause some beneficial neuroplastic changes, but sound therapy is not the final solution. I am talking about taking away the Tinnitus altogether, and that takes more than just a sound therapy. It takes a multidisciplinary approach and I believe Susan Shore is currently working on a device which facilitates such approach. I do not doubt sound therapy has some effect for some people though, but I don't see it as being able to fully undo the neuroplastic changes which cause Tinnitus.

 

[Vinnitus]

Well Vinnitus, It was suggested by the adminstrators that I introduce myself and I did that. If a google search for that scam brought me here, perhaps google search by someone else of that same scam will direct them here as well. I made it quite clear in my topic that it is a scam to discourage folks from purchasing it. I thought this forum was here for supporting one another and may be useful to find remedies that do help.

Perhaps you should not try to discourage new members from joining the conversation. I read several threads to come to the conclusion that this therapy is a scam. I guess you prefer new members read all the archived materials so we don't waste anybody's time. I'm sorry that you suffer tinnitus. It is a miserable malady and it can cause some folks to be mean-spirited.

I am sorry if my post sounded a bit harsh to you. Everyone is of course welcome to join the conversation, but there has been an extensive forum thread about it already here: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/scam-tinnitus-terminator.10009/page-6

In that thread, there are various posters with just 1 post, seemingly only to mention the name "Tinnitus Terminator" (probably to optimize search results for it in search engines, after all negative publicity is publicity too). Anyone can find free download links for the "therapy" offered by them if anyone is concerned. I think it is superfluous to give such scam any more attention than it really deserves.

 

[GregCA]

My point is that it does not "resolve" the Tinnitus. It might indeed reduce your perception of it or maybe even cause some beneficial neuroplastic changes, but sound therapy is not the final solution. I am talking about taking away the Tinnitus altogether, and that takes more than just a sound therapy. It takes a multidisciplinary approach and I believe Susan Shore is currently working on a device which facilitates such approach. I do not doubt sound therapy has some effect for some people though, but I don't see it as being able to fully undo the neuroplastic changes which cause Tinnitus.

I don't know what your criteria is for "the final solution", but for me at least, it's something that can take a symptom that severely impacts your quality of life, to a level where you don't notice it, barely notice it or you notice it but you can get your quality of life back (i.e. it doesn't bother you anymore).

If you read the studies I've suggested for your perusal, you'll find that in some patients the Tinnitus disappeared completely, as in "taking away the Tinnitus altogether" as you put it. In other patients, it went from a "difficult to bear" state to a state where it was not an issue anymore (as claimed by the patient).
I don't know about you, but if I can get mine to drop by 75% (in terms of loudness), I'll be very happy (that's the actual number for the study I quoted). If it did go away as it did with some of the patients, then I'd be more than just "happy".

Also realize that for most people, a perfect cure isn't required. The first milestone we'd jump up and down for is something that gives us enough relief to regain critical quality of life.

Very few cures (even for other conditions) are perfect. My stapedotomy closed my air-bone gap, but not completely: I got within 5-10 dB of the bone conduction. Still, it's considered a wild success to go from 50 dB gap to 5 dB, and I'm very happy about that. It's night and day, albeit imperfect.

I'm not sure where your feeling about sound therapy is coming from, but you seem to be open to educating yourself on the issue, so I really urge you to read up on these types of therapies. I have been doing that recently, in particular because I've implemented some of them (from an engineering perspective) so I've had to learn a lot about the specifics of the sound that needs to be created, and it's been quite an eye opener.

What I did find out in my research is that there was a difference between "generic sound therapies" and sound therapies that were specifically targeted (i.e. customized) to a tinnitus pattern. The former yielded benefits in terms of habituation (think "TRT" white noise), but not necessarily in terms of measurable stimulus reduction. The latter, on the other hand, did yield actual reduction in loudness, which of course correlated with improvements on the traditional "questionnaires".

Other things that mattered of course is the type of tinnitus (tonal vs non tonal) and its frequency. Frequencies under 8 kHz are easier to target, especially with music, because that's where we have more energy in the spectrum to play with (especially with compressed formats). If you go higher in the frequency, you need to start moving away from pink noise and use white noise, and then use formats that do not apply a low pass filter during the encoding process (such as an MP3 file format). The width of the notch also appears to have an impact on the result.

I'm hoping that all these studies can help us come up with a flow chart that guides the patient to the most efficient sound therapy for his/her particular type of tinnitus. I particularly like these types of therapies because they are not very intrusive, and very flexible in implementation: any audio player can be used. That means it can be made available to a large fraction of the patients, for a reasonable cost. The downside is that there is no "instant gratification", and it requires strong patient compliance. You'd think that is the easy part, but it's not.

 

[Vinnitus]

I'm not sure where your feeling about sound therapy is coming from, but you seem to be open to educating yourself on the issue, so I really urge you to read up on these types of therapies. I have been doing that recently, in particular because I've implemented some of them (from an engineering perspective) so I've had to learn a lot about the specifics of the sound that needs to be created, and it's been quite an eye opener.

I am aware of the sound therapy studies (even have been formerly enthusiastic about them) and I have been reading the study you are referring to in full here:

http://www.tinnitusjournal.com/arti...ective-personalized-treatment-of-tinnitus.pdf

I don't see so swiftly where this study mentions that patients completely eliminated their Tinnitus by the, in this case, notched sound therapy. However, I might be overlooking it. As far as I know, the idea that (notched) sound therapies are actually able to revert maladaptive changes in the central nervous system (and especially to the point of totally and sustainably removing it) is not well established as most studies on the subject have shortcomings, for example in long term followup of patients. I do however not exclude that it "might" work for some in order to reduce the Tinnitus, but still think that for most it requires a multidisciplinary approach as a sound therapy alone doesn't restore the disturbed homeostasis in the dorsal cochlear nucleus. Especially when it comes to complete sustainable elimination.

I have found another more recent study below (2012), which specifically overlooks other studies in retrospect in order to find any conclusive evidence for the reliability of notched sound therapy in Tinnitus resolution and/or reduction. It concludes as follows.

However, there is not yet enough evidence to support that such a form of treatment is ready for clinical implication. The studies that have attempted to study the efficacy of such a treatment remain too few and inconsistent. The studies under review differed in many ways including: forms of notched sound (noise vs. music), tinnitus loudness and frequency matching, length of exposure, outcome measures, and participant inclusion (hearing thresholds, tinnitus characteristics, and age). The latter point is significant clinically as what population such a treatment option would be successful for, if at all, remains unknown. Important to the audiology profession, if those with both and hearing impairments and tinnitus could benefit from this treatment is important. Whether or not such treatment could be used while wearing hearing aids is also an avenue for future research. This of course after the more conclusive evidence to suggest that notched sound can indeed restructure maladaptive neural networks associated with the perception of tinnitus.

https://www.uwo.ca/fhs/lwm/ebp/reviews/2011-12/Bennett.pdf

 

[GregCA]

I don't see so swiftly where this study mentions that patients completely eliminated their Tinnitus by the, in this case, notched sound therapy.

I don't think you will find it in that particular study. In that study I think they mention a mean reduction of 12 dB @ 12 months, equivalent to 75% reduction (on an average basis), if my memory serves.
The mention of full recovery is what I gathered from my research into all the other studies related to sound therapy (I don't know which one off the top of my head).

As far as I know, the idea that (notched) sound therapies are actually able to revert maladaptive changes in the central nervous system (and especially to the point of totally and sustainably removing it) is not well established as most studies on the subject have shortcomings, for example in long term followup of patients.

By definition, any study done in the last 10 years will be missing the 10 year post treatment follow-up. Most of the sound therapy studies, not unlike many other tinnitus studies, are fairly recent, so they will obviously lack long term follow-up assessment.
Still, if the treatment works and there needs to be a continuous "maintenance treatment" for it to keep its symptoms at bay, it's still a massive win. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect to be a very acceptable and useful treatment. As Voltaire said "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien".

I have found another more recent study below (2012), which specifically overlooks other studies in retrospect in order to find any conclusive evidence for the reliability of notched sound therapy in Tinnitus resolution and/or reduction.

They are absolutely correct, which is why you need to read many of them to understand their weaknesses and what exactly they tested and on which profiles, because not all therapies will work on all patients. Sound therapies don't work well if you have too much hearing loss around the T frequency for example. ACRN tones need to be perceptible in order to be efficient. Similarly, accuracy in the pinpointing of the T frequency is important. Lastly, many studies aren't double blind studies, or lack control groups. Others were conducted by the same companies that marketed the device, so there is a natural bias in the way the information is presented.

What is out there in terms of scientific information is certainly not enough to prove that it is a silver bullet (which I will not claim either), but it's also not enough to prove that it cannot work, which is the statement I disagreed with. For any such statement to be disproved, all we need is evidence that it works in certain cases, and we already have that.