Lenire — Bimodal Stimulation Treatment by Neuromod

[gameover]

I just heard on NPR Here & Now, they were promoting Lenire. A doctor out of Boston said his patients were having good rates of success. I was surprised considering how lackluster an experience everyone here seems to have.

I saw the guy - Fligor. I think he is suspect. He sells Lenire and sits on the "US advisory board" of Neuromod.

 

[Stuart-T]

I just heard on NPR Here & Now, they were promoting Lenire. A doctor out of Boston said his patients were having good rates of success. I was surprised considering how lackluster an experience everyone here seems to have.

That's the difference between private medicine and government run health service.

PROFIT MOTIVE.

Prozac has been sold by the same people despite it not working.

So why not Lenire?

 

[linearb]

Look, if we didn't allow crony capitalism, the capitalists wouldn't be able to Wealth Redistribute to their cronies.

All is going according to plan, it's just that to the extent "we" are part of the plan, it's bad for us

 

[dd314]

Keep it simple. Neuromod have never controlled for placebo. Susan Shore has.

Keep in mind that improvement lasted 12 weeks past the treatment cut off. That's a very long time for the placebo effect to occur, and I have a hard time believing that people with severe tinnitus tricked themselves into thinking it was quiet for 12 weeks.

 

[UKBloke]

I have a hard time believing that people with severe tinnitus tricked themselves into thinking it was quiet for 12 weeks.

Personally, I've reached the end of the road where further discussion of Lenire (and in fact Dr. Shore's device) is concerned. It's been going on for years and years, and for me, enough is enough.

It really boils down to the following: if you read this and the User Experiences thread in their entirety, and then take account of the various information releases from Neuromod (weighed, evidently, against your aforementioned comment regarding the lack of placebo), you (or anyone else for that matter) should be in a position to take a view on whether or not, based on the balance of probabilities, Lenire will work for you. If you feel it could help then buy the product.

Dr. Shore added a layer of rigour by controlling for placebo, but I have to say I have a real issue regarding a certain aspect of their trial in lieu of the trial recruitment criteria correlated with the washout period into crossover. I believe in Dr. Shore and feel she has done good science, but I tried to raise my concern with her in the Q&A only to have my question go unanswered. I raised the issue further here but it was largely ignored so I'm afraid that in light of that I've really got nothing else to say other than I'll never trust Neuromod.

What I will do is wait and see if Dr. Shore ever release her device, and if she does, wait for as much independent user information as I can get before deciding whether or not to proceed to the next stage, which would be to try the device for myself. Until that time, I'm genuinely done discussing this entire area of tinnitus research.

 

[Stuart-T]

Keep in mind that improvement lasted 12 weeks past the treatment cut off. That's a very long time for the placebo effect to occur, and I have a hard time believing that people with severe tinnitus tricked themselves into thinking it was quiet for 12 weeks.

Go for it then. Put your money down and let us know.

 

[Jonno02]

I've had a hard time forgiving myself for trying it. The last thing I wanted was for my tinnitus to be worse. I was concerned about that but put faith in the research, the manufacture, the reviews, the FDA and the clinic that it was safe. But it's not. I have had people discount my experience stating the device couldn't have made your tinnitus worse. I know without a doubt my experience and the new noise I now hear every day and every night.

Good luck to you all. We endure an unforeseen burden. I'm hopeful that we all can experience relief at some point and just maybe enjoy a day of silence.

You must absolutely forgive yourself! You tried a supposedly 'proven treatment' for tinnitus.

Unfortunately Lenire is anything but. It's a poorly researched, appallingly trialled joke of a device marketed by snake oil salesmen preying on the desperation of people looking for some peace from this affliction.

I hope that Dr. Shore's device will undo the worsening of Lenire and also give you the silence that we all seek.

 

[ErikaS]

Lenire made my tinnitus worse. It started a new noise that I still have 8 months after using the device which will likely never improve.

This is my first post. I will try to keep it brief.

I'm hopeful that @Lon_p sees my post because I'm highly certain we attended the same seminar at the Minnesota clinic in early May. I traveled from KC to attend the seminar and to purchase the Lenire device.

I have had unilateral left ear tinnitus since 2014 but was able to habituate to it. For 9 years, I've been lucky that it did not affect my life. During the day it was not noticeable and at night, I could sleep through it. That all changed after having COVID-19 in February 2023. My tinnitus went from 0 to 100 overnight and I'm not embellishing.

In February, I started searching for help which is how I learned about Lenire. I too was so hopeful for relief that I booked a ticket to Minneapolis, attended the seminar and purchased the device. I used the device only twice for a total of 15 minutes. My 2nd time using the device, I had a horrific experience. I had a surround sound in my head that lasted for 12 hours. I thought for sure this can't be permanent, but I was wrong. The sound the Lenire device created is in my right ear. It's a high-pitched uncomfortable squeal. I'm very disappointed because I had considered my right ear to be my good ear and I was very protective of it. I asked during the seminar whether the device will hurt my right ear. I was told that 'tinnitus may increase but it will go back to baseline'. With that, I did not expect for Lenire to create a new noise in my right ear. I've been anxiously waiting for it to go away, but the reality is it won't.

I had spoken to the clinic after using the device the first time in their office because it made me dizzy. I was told that when I go home use it for only 10 minutes (not the recommended 1 hour), but after my 2nd use of 8 minutes it had already done lasting damage.

I've had a hard time forgiving myself for trying it. The last thing I wanted was for my tinnitus to be worse. I was concerned about that but put faith in the research, the manufacture, the reviews, the FDA and the clinic that it was safe. But it's not. I have had people discount my experience stating the device couldn't have made your tinnitus worse. I know without a doubt my experience and the new noise I now hear every day and every night.

Good luck to you all. We endure an unforeseen burden. I'm hopeful that we all can experience relief at some point and just maybe enjoy a day of silence.

Hi @Tina P, thank you for sharing your experience. I am so so sorry this was the outcome. It is honestly becoming a crime with how many sufferers have worsened due to Lenire.

I just wanted to share with you that there are practitioners out there that have studied long haul COVID-19 in-depth and have come up with interventions, therapies, etc. to really help the body recover and get rid of those spiked proteins that can lead to those long haul symptoms, including worsening tinnitus. I have come across quite a few success stories online of long haul COVID-19 sufferers who were plagued with many symptoms including tinnitus, and when they worked with these doctors, the tinnitus significantly decreased or even went away. Even if you have no other symptoms, your tinnitus worsening is a long haul COVID-19 symptom. I would look into practitioners that specialize in this area.

 

[UKBloke]

Lenire made my tinnitus worse. It started a new noise that I still have 8 months after using the device which will likely never improve.

This is my first post. I will try to keep it brief.

I'm hopeful that @Lon_p sees my post because I'm highly certain we attended the same seminar at the Minnesota clinic in early May. I traveled from KC to attend the seminar and to purchase the Lenire device.

I have had unilateral left ear tinnitus since 2014 but was able to habituate to it. For 9 years, I've been lucky that it did not affect my life. During the day it was not noticeable and at night, I could sleep through it. That all changed after having COVID-19 in February 2023. My tinnitus went from 0 to 100 overnight and I'm not embellishing.

In February, I started searching for help which is how I learned about Lenire. I too was so hopeful for relief that I booked a ticket to Minneapolis, attended the seminar and purchased the device. I used the device only twice for a total of 15 minutes. My 2nd time using the device, I had a horrific experience. I had a surround sound in my head that lasted for 12 hours. I thought for sure this can't be permanent, but I was wrong. The sound the Lenire device created is in my right ear. It's a high-pitched uncomfortable squeal. I'm very disappointed because I had considered my right ear to be my good ear and I was very protective of it. I asked during the seminar whether the device will hurt my right ear. I was told that 'tinnitus may increase but it will go back to baseline'. With that, I did not expect for Lenire to create a new noise in my right ear. I've been anxiously waiting for it to go away, but the reality is it won't.

I had spoken to the clinic after using the device the first time in their office because it made me dizzy. I was told that when I go home use it for only 10 minutes (not the recommended 1 hour), but after my 2nd use of 8 minutes it had already done lasting damage.

I've had a hard time forgiving myself for trying it. The last thing I wanted was for my tinnitus to be worse. I was concerned about that but put faith in the research, the manufacture, the reviews, the FDA and the clinic that it was safe. But it's not. I have had people discount my experience stating the device couldn't have made your tinnitus worse. I know without a doubt my experience and the new noise I now hear every day and every night.

Good luck to you all. We endure an unforeseen burden. I'm hopeful that we all can experience relief at some point and just maybe enjoy a day of silence.

Hi Tina,

I'm very sorry to read your post. I know how difficult managing elevated tinnitus can be, especially for those of us whom had already habituated for many years to the milder garden variety.

I was hoping my prior post in this thread would be the last but clearly the Lenire saga is continuing with negative experiences like yours. Your summary has raised some important questions, which I hope you won't mind me asking at this point in time.

You mentioned that you had COVID-19 in February 2023. Would you be prepared to say whether or not you have taken the "vaccines" prior to infection? We've had members of this forum state that COVID-19 gave them tinnitus. We've also had members who came to the forum stating that the "vaccine" had given them catastrophic tinnitus.

Even knowing your own "vaccine" status it would be impossible to conclude whether or not this played into your COVID-19 diagnosis and/or tinnitus increase. The way it does help, however, is to provide an additional and extremely important data point for a potential data analysis of this site at some time in the future.

You mentioned that you had put your faith in the "reviews" (of Lenire). Can I ask the source of those reviews and whether or not, whilst researching the device, you had encountered Tinnitus Talk?

I, like many others here, have sat through this situation in realtime for nigh on 4 years. Quite early on, some members who had tried the treatment seemed at odds with Neuromod's position and were reporting back that Lenire had spiked their tinnitus in awful ways and to new and unbearable levels. I believe there is clearly some serious contention surrounding the efficacy (and safety) of Lenire.

Of course there's the adage that people tend to go online to report negative experiences rather than positive. So evidently this also raises the question of how the negative experience numbers compare to the positive. I would like to see some truly independent positive users reviews filtering through the Internet from long-term tinnitus sufferers who can state in no uncertain terms that Lenire had essentially "cured" them, i.e. reduced their tinnitus to a habituated level where their lives could continue in normalcy. I'm afraid to say, that in the four years of monitoring this situation I'm yet to see any positive reviews in sufficient numbers to convince me.

 

[RocketJSquirrel]

Lenire made my tinnitus worse. It started a new noise that I still have 8 months after using the device which will likely never improve.

This is my first post. I will try to keep it brief.

I'm hopeful that @Lon_p sees my post because I'm highly certain we attended the same seminar at the Minnesota clinic in early May. I traveled from KC to attend the seminar and to purchase the Lenire device.

I have had unilateral left ear tinnitus since 2014 but was able to habituate to it. For 9 years, I've been lucky that it did not affect my life. During the day it was not noticeable and at night, I could sleep through it. That all changed after having COVID-19 in February 2023. My tinnitus went from 0 to 100 overnight and I'm not embellishing.

In February, I started searching for help which is how I learned about Lenire. I too was so hopeful for relief that I booked a ticket to Minneapolis, attended the seminar and purchased the device. I used the device only twice for a total of 15 minutes. My 2nd time using the device, I had a horrific experience. I had a surround sound in my head that lasted for 12 hours. I thought for sure this can't be permanent, but I was wrong. The sound the Lenire device created is in my right ear. It's a high-pitched uncomfortable squeal. I'm very disappointed because I had considered my right ear to be my good ear and I was very protective of it. I asked during the seminar whether the device will hurt my right ear. I was told that 'tinnitus may increase but it will go back to baseline'. With that, I did not expect for Lenire to create a new noise in my right ear. I've been anxiously waiting for it to go away, but the reality is it won't.

I had spoken to the clinic after using the device the first time in their office because it made me dizzy. I was told that when I go home use it for only 10 minutes (not the recommended 1 hour), but after my 2nd use of 8 minutes it had already done lasting damage.

I've had a hard time forgiving myself for trying it. The last thing I wanted was for my tinnitus to be worse. I was concerned about that but put faith in the research, the manufacture, the reviews, the FDA and the clinic that it was safe. But it's not. I have had people discount my experience stating the device couldn't have made your tinnitus worse. I know without a doubt my experience and the new noise I now hear every day and every night.

Good luck to you all. We endure an unforeseen burden. I'm hopeful that we all can experience relief at some point and just maybe enjoy a day of silence.

I was saddened to learn about your Lenire experience. How awful! But it raised a question in my mind.

You said you bought Lenire at a seminar. Was your device properly calibrated against your audiogram and tongue sensitivity? Mine was, when I bought it from an audiologist. I wonder whether you were sold an uncalibrated, and therefore unsuitable for you, device?

 

[Joey72]

I got an email from Lenire yesterday with the names and addresses of clinics in the area. They seem to be distributing the device fairly quickly. I just hope Dr. Shore's device gets out at the same rate.

 

[ploughna]

I got an email from Lenire yesterday with the names and addresses of clinics in the area. They seem to be distributing the device fairly quickly. I just hope Dr. Shore's device gets out at the same rate.

Agreed - not only do they need to bring the product to market, they now need to displace Lenire from a strong install base on top of that.

 

[Jonno02]

Alright, so I have decided to weigh in here for the last time. The reason is that I've grown mighty tired of reading people smear Lenire with a kind of totalitarian mindset.

I don't know this 100% for sure, but I'm pretty confident that I'm the active user with the most experience with Lenire on this entire forum by now. I've used it more than most of you altogether, so I feel I can speak freely here.

Lenire is an experimental device. It doesn't work for everyone. I'm also disgusted by how Neuromod sometimes operates their customer service and the switch to a new profile with a new name seemed like a cheap shot at best to me. I also don't like how they seem to always dodge responsibility when their product doesn't work like a magic button or something.

However - there is a great deal you can do yourself which I feel a lot of you simply do not do. I had to really pry this information from them, but it should also be somewhat obvious that you have to fit the use to your own brain. The 1 hour they suggest is not going to work for all of us. I went through a nightmare to find the sweet spot for me. Duration and the sound level you hear in the headphones matters a lot and you need to adjust that accordingly. You will most likely get better results if you experiment with this, but it will also probably make your tinnitus worse at first. It took me a long, long time before I found the sweet spot for me, which is 20 minutes every other day. Everyone's brain is different and some people are more sensitive than others.

Lenire didn't work for you? I'm sorry to hear that. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work for anyone. This narrative that Lenire is a 100% garbage product that never works for anyone is false. It's simply not true. Lenire has definitely made my tinnitus worse. It has also saved my life many times. On a more long-term perspective, I would say hands down that Lenire has made my life livable while I'm suffering from this dreadful condition.

Please do not be so damn bombastic about things before you have the experience and data to back up your story. If you used Lenire for 1 month and it made you worse, you really don't know anything. Saying that it's a useless scam with that as your foundation is a red herring, to put it nicely. The truth is usually found in the middle and I'm all about a balanced perspective. This thread is anything but balanced and I felt that I had to correct that once and for all.

I'm genuinely happy this has worked for you. But I refuse to put my trust in a company that conducts the most comically selective 'studies' and then leave customers to figure out their own treatment regime [in your own words] and really need to pry any additional information out of them.

You do you man, but don't dare downplay the multiple Tinnitus Talk users that have had their suffering worsened by Lenire and feel you have the authority to 'correct this thread once and for all'.

 

[DeanD]

Alright, so I have decided to weigh in here for the last time. The reason is that I've grown mighty tired of reading people smear Lenire with a kind of totalitarian mindset.

I don't know this 100% for sure, but I'm pretty confident that I'm the active user with the most experience with Lenire on this entire forum by now. I've used it more than most of you altogether, so I feel I can speak freely here.

Lenire is an experimental device. It doesn't work for everyone. I'm also disgusted by how Neuromod sometimes operates their customer service and the switch to a new profile with a new name seemed like a cheap shot at best to me. I also don't like how they seem to always dodge responsibility when their product doesn't work like a magic button or something.

However - there is a great deal you can do yourself which I feel a lot of you simply do not do. I had to really pry this information from them, but it should also be somewhat obvious that you have to fit the use to your own brain. The 1 hour they suggest is not going to work for all of us. I went through a nightmare to find the sweet spot for me. Duration and the sound level you hear in the headphones matters a lot and you need to adjust that accordingly. You will most likely get better results if you experiment with this, but it will also probably make your tinnitus worse at first. It took me a long, long time before I found the sweet spot for me, which is 20 minutes every other day. Everyone's brain is different and some people are more sensitive than others.

Lenire didn't work for you? I'm sorry to hear that. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work for anyone. This narrative that Lenire is a 100% garbage product that never works for anyone is false. It's simply not true. Lenire has definitely made my tinnitus worse. It has also saved my life many times. On a more long-term perspective, I would say hands down that Lenire has made my life livable while I'm suffering from this dreadful condition.

Please do not be so damn bombastic about things before you have the experience and data to back up your story. If you used Lenire for 1 month and it made you worse, you really don't know anything. Saying that it's a useless scam with that as your foundation is a red herring, to put it nicely. The truth is usually found in the middle and I'm all about a balanced perspective. This thread is anything but balanced and I felt that I had to correct that once and for all.

Do you feel during the times Lenire made things better for you that it lowered the volume of your tinnitus?

 

[Lurius]

Do you feel during the times Lenire made things better for you that it lowered the volume of your tinnitus?

I'm going to ignore @Jonno02's extremely nonconstructive and toxic feedback.

Occasionally it leads to single or multiple days with lowered volume and intensity. The most important aspect though is the increased ability to withstand the noise; a kind of mental fortitude is brought about.

 

[AfroSnowman]

Occasionally it leads to single or multiple days with lowered volume and intensity. The most important aspect though is the increased ability to withstand the noise; a kind of mental fortitude is brought about.

I did 6 months and then one or two more rounds of Lenire over time before finally leaving it in the drawer. My experience, though slightly less positive, was similar. I thought it kind of did something. Somehow took the edge off slightly on average, though I could never swear it was above placebo and ultimately it didn't make a big enough difference to continue the treatment because it was so time consuming for such a marginal gain.

That being said, maybe I should break it out again. 20 minutes every couple of days might make sense from a time commitment stand point.

 

[Lurius]

I just got an email from Otologie or whatever the fuck they're calling themselves these days. Apparently they have merged the part of their company that handles Lenire with a business partner called The Audiology Clinic. Which means that the on-site office in Dublin is changing location. They insist there will be no change in quality of service or anything like that, but it seems that you must manually transfer your medical records if you want the new place to have them.

 

[GlennS]

If you used Lenire for 1 month and it made you worse, you really don't know anything.

IMHO, your post comes across as victim-blaming.

 

[dd314]

Isn't it strange that Lenire never explicitly required "somatic tinnitus", even though the University of Minnesota trials it was based on did require somatic tinnitus. Could that be why it doesn't work for so many people?

 

[ajc]

Isn't it strange that Lenire never explicitly required "somatic tinnitus", even though the University of Minnesota trials it was based on did require somatic tinnitus. Could that be why it doesn't work for so many people?

Lenire is not based on University of Minnesota's trials. Lenire used to be called MuteButton and it came to be long before Hubert Lim started his University of Minnesota work with his device (that never came to fruition because he sold his soul to Lenire).

 

[dd314]

Lenire is not based on University of Minnesota's trials. Lenire used to be called MuteButton and it came to be long before Hubert Lim started his University of Minnesota work with his device (that never came to fruition because he sold his soul to Lenire).

I can remember an interview in like 2018 where the CEO Ross O'Neill referenced those trials as a proof of concept for MuteButton. Those trials required somatic tinnitus.

 

[BuzzyBee]

I did 6 months and then one or two more rounds of Lenire over time before finally leaving it in the drawer. My experience, though slightly less positive, was similar. I thought it kind of did something. Somehow took the edge off slightly on average, though I could never swear it was above placebo and ultimately it didn't make a big enough difference to continue the treatment because it was so time consuming for such a marginal gain.

That being said, maybe I should break it out again. 20 minutes every couple of days might make sense from a time commitment stand point.

You and I have both been her for a while, but I forgot -- do you have hearing loss? I am under the impression that Lenire won't really help those with significant hearing loss, but maybe I'm wrong? Trying to decide if it's worth the $4,000 gamble.

 

[AfroSnowman]

You and I have both been her for a while, but I forgot -- do you have hearing loss? I am under the impression that Lenire won't really help those with significant hearing loss, but maybe I'm wrong? Trying to decide if it's worth the $4,000 gamble.

A mild loss up at 6-8 kHz.

IDK. I wish we had a few people here that had life changing experiences with it. I can't think of a single, "Wow!" sort of a report. I think a reasonable expectation is that if it has a positive effect, it is subtle.

If the $4k is meaningful to your life, it would be hard to recommend.

 

[BuzzyBee]

A mild loss up at 6-8 kHz.

IDK. I wish we had a few people here that had life changing experiences with it. I can't think of a single, "Wow!" sort of a report. I think a reasonable expectation is that if it has a positive effect, it is subtle.

If the $4k is meaningful to your life, it would be hard to recommend.

Thanks for the information. Based on my research and my level of hearing loss, it's probably not worth it. I'm optimistic about a few things in the pipeline, but tired of waiting.

 

[AfroSnowman]

Thanks for the information. Based on my research and my level of hearing loss, it's probably not worth it. I'm optimistic about a few things in the pipeline, but tired of waiting.

I don't know if I'm optimistic or not. All the possibilities that were in front of us over the last few years failed. I'll try the Shore device when it comes out, the science looks good, but the longer we wait, the less invested I am in its release.

For the time being, as poorly received as this is by the Tinnitus Talk community, I'm just focusing on CBT and practicing how to minimize my response to this condition. It is hard to imagine after four years of suffering and disappointments that a magical breakthrough is right around the corner.

 

[Joey Lodes]

Between Tinnitus Talk, X comments, YouTube comments... I haven't come across a single statement that leads me to believe Lenire makes a drastic difference in people's tinnitus... and in some cases makes tinnitus worse, permanently.

Forgive me for being a pessimist right now but my tinnitus is screaming at 10/10 today. I really wanted to read Lenire was working the miracles that we all need. :/

 

[withintention]

For folks who are hopeful about Dr. Shore's device and skeptical about Lenire, why is that?

They seem like very similar devices.

I know Dr. Shore's study was far more rigorous. But it still only worked for 60% of people and the amount it reduced symptoms was quite variable for that group.

Who is to say Lenire would not fair similarly if put through the same rigorous type of study? What about the devices is so different?

 

[Pinhead]

I know Dr. Shore's study was far more rigorous. But it still only worked for 60% of people and the amount it reduced symptoms was quite variable for that group.

Who is to say Lenire would not fair similarly if put through the same rigorous type of study? What about the devices is so different?

I think your numbers aren't quite accurate.

 

[withintention]

I think your numbers aren't quite accurate.

Ah, you're right. I was looking at the "intent to treat" population graph when I should have been looking at the "per protocol" one. It's 70% of the group that actually got the treatment who had a "clinically meaningful" TFI score reduction. It was 60% of the initial population but a bunch of people dropped out for various reasons. I don't know why they include both in the report...

Regardless of my imprecision, the question stands. Are folks excited about this device because it is different technology than Lenire? Or just because it has been tested more rigorously?

 

[Pinhead]

Are folks excited about this device because it is different technology than Lenire? Or just because it has been tested more rigorously?

A bit of both. The science is more rigorous, and the targeting mechanism is more precise.