Member- Apr 29, 2018
- 162
- Tinnitus Since
- March 2018
- Cause of Tinnitus
- Ototoxicity
I have a few thoughts about this I'd like to share. I'd also be interested in how @Bubblegum Witch is doing right now, did her spike perhaps die down or was it indeed permanent damage?
I've always had the mindset that there's risks with absolutely everything, trying the laser, not trying the laser (thus not giving yourself the chance of recovery with LLLT), trying/not trying supplements, going outside your house with or without hearing protection, doing almost anything can be risky. One needs to weigh the risk to (potential) benefit ratio, which is different for different people.
I think people overestimate the dangers of LLLT for tinnitus and underestimate the dangers of ingesting a substance. There's different levels of dangers for ingesting different things, but overall you're playing with complex neuro and body chemistry and who knows what can go wrong. LLLT on the other hand is very localized. I'm not saying LLLT is without dangers, there's dangers to both, but people have been ruined by supplements as well. I seem to have gotten permanent sensitive teeth with Nicotinamide Riboside. People have had bad reactions to HBOT as well, but it gets much less slack for that imo, I presume because it's a official treatment and not alternative like LLLT.
For me, back 2+ years ago, I sort of believed the people criticising LLLT for tinnitus made a lot of sense, but I viewed the risk as something worth taking. It was like a full court shot before the buzzer for the win that ended up swishing through the net. I got lucky. I almost didn't buy the laser but had a spike beforehand that made my situation a lot worse and I realized I could not avoid further spikes like that even if I'd live like a hermit so it was do or die. Other people might have a different level of sense of urgency.
In my success story I outlined 18 things I tried, not gimmicky things but things that actually had a good chance of helping. For me personally, the risk of not trying them outweighed the potential for harm and also the monetary loss. Also, the people who don't try any treatments for their tinnitus, who seem to be the vast majority, often get worse, sometimes much worse.
I think people don't factor into the equation people who get worse without treatments who would have benefited from them and they tend to over focus on the bad stories of getting worse with treatment instead of the stories of success. I guess because in one case you got worse without doing anything, in another you got worse with doing something.
I'll say it again, there's dangers to every treatment there is. I did try 18+ things but was careful with trying them, doing my research and carefully monitoring my response and quitting them if things seemed to not work out, either because they didn't work or because they caused bad side effects. Another thing I do and have been doing since forever is I start with very low doses.
I literally start by taking a spec of a supplement pill or something, if things are fine for a couple of hours, a bit more, and work my way up gradually to full pill within a couple of days sometimes even, depending on how potentially dangerous I think the substance is. There's no real downside to this and big upside of not ruining yourself if you get some bad side effects, especially because they can be permanent. I even did it with the laser, I started with about 5(maybe less can't remember now) minutes at a time and monitoring my response. It took me like a week or more to reach the full duration of time.
Good luck whatever you decide to do.
I've always had the mindset that there's risks with absolutely everything, trying the laser, not trying the laser (thus not giving yourself the chance of recovery with LLLT), trying/not trying supplements, going outside your house with or without hearing protection, doing almost anything can be risky. One needs to weigh the risk to (potential) benefit ratio, which is different for different people.
I think people overestimate the dangers of LLLT for tinnitus and underestimate the dangers of ingesting a substance. There's different levels of dangers for ingesting different things, but overall you're playing with complex neuro and body chemistry and who knows what can go wrong. LLLT on the other hand is very localized. I'm not saying LLLT is without dangers, there's dangers to both, but people have been ruined by supplements as well. I seem to have gotten permanent sensitive teeth with Nicotinamide Riboside. People have had bad reactions to HBOT as well, but it gets much less slack for that imo, I presume because it's a official treatment and not alternative like LLLT.
For me, back 2+ years ago, I sort of believed the people criticising LLLT for tinnitus made a lot of sense, but I viewed the risk as something worth taking. It was like a full court shot before the buzzer for the win that ended up swishing through the net. I got lucky. I almost didn't buy the laser but had a spike beforehand that made my situation a lot worse and I realized I could not avoid further spikes like that even if I'd live like a hermit so it was do or die. Other people might have a different level of sense of urgency.
In my success story I outlined 18 things I tried, not gimmicky things but things that actually had a good chance of helping. For me personally, the risk of not trying them outweighed the potential for harm and also the monetary loss. Also, the people who don't try any treatments for their tinnitus, who seem to be the vast majority, often get worse, sometimes much worse.
I think people don't factor into the equation people who get worse without treatments who would have benefited from them and they tend to over focus on the bad stories of getting worse with treatment instead of the stories of success. I guess because in one case you got worse without doing anything, in another you got worse with doing something.
I'll say it again, there's dangers to every treatment there is. I did try 18+ things but was careful with trying them, doing my research and carefully monitoring my response and quitting them if things seemed to not work out, either because they didn't work or because they caused bad side effects. Another thing I do and have been doing since forever is I start with very low doses.
I literally start by taking a spec of a supplement pill or something, if things are fine for a couple of hours, a bit more, and work my way up gradually to full pill within a couple of days sometimes even, depending on how potentially dangerous I think the substance is. There's no real downside to this and big upside of not ruining yourself if you get some bad side effects, especially because they can be permanent. I even did it with the laser, I started with about 5(maybe less can't remember now) minutes at a time and monitoring my response. It took me like a week or more to reach the full duration of time.
Before first buying the laser, I did ask Konftec what the graph on their site is based on, what science etc. They just ignored my email. Might have also been because the person replying to the email didn't know or because she didn't want to/was too lazy bother the higher ups or whatever, but I take it with a grain of salt. My tinnitus is high frequency and so is my hearing loss, but I need both of the wavelengths that I have (808 and 660).
Good luck whatever you decide to do.
