MuteButton

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Please, be brutally honest. Do I have a chance to try this technology if I live in Argentina? I'm afraid it will not even be available in my country.
I know I expressed this many times, but I do not know whether to continue reading this thread. After all ... maybe these medical advances are not for me.
I think when it comes to the US, you'll have the opportunity of purchasing one.
 
In the Neuromod Q&A, they state that patients do travel to see them:



So perhaps you could fly out if the local release took too long? Just leave Argentina with its wonderful weather, steaks and women and come to an industrial park in rainy Dublin to have a USB stuck to your tongue. Sounds fun?
 
The original MuteButton has had some success (my TRT therapist knows of some instances) so this newer version should have even better success. And so on. The science seems to be sound enough, after all.

I'm not actually expecting it to work for me at this stage (possibly because I'm a glass half empty kind of gal) but I believe this is the start of an actual effective treatment for tinnitus that just needs further refining. And statistically speaking, some of us here will see significant improvements, if not elimination, from this device. We already have three members.

Science-inclined people please feel free to correct me here, but I wouldn't worry about what type of tinnitus you have - regardless of the cause of tinnitus, it's still neurons misfiring in the brain isn't it? Tinnitus is a symptom, not a condition in its own right.
It's still neurons firing in the brain yes but we should not underestimate the complexity of tinnitus and its heterogeneous nature. Crazy, a simple ringing noise in the head and ears is so difficult to treat but when you read about tinnitus, you'll start to understand why it's so difficult to treat.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong. I know the Neuromod trials had several different parameters they were testing. I think the second trial had something like nine different arms to it. Did they use different parameters on the same patients? I can't help but think some of these stories we're hearing about it not working for people was because they received a less effective timing solution that won't make the final product. Obviously they would be blinded to what set of parameters they got.
 
Please, be brutally honest. Do I have a chance to try this technology if I live in Argentina? I'm afraid it will not even be available in my country.
I know I expressed this many times, but I do not know whether to continue reading this thread. After all ... maybe these medical advances are not for me.
I'm sure it will come to your country, but even if it doesn't, you can always travel. Once it's released, if you want it you can have it.
 
It's still neurons firing in the brain yes but we should not underestimate the complexity of tinnitus and its heterogeneous nature. Crazy, a simple ringing noise in the head and ears is so difficult to treat but when you read about tinnitus, you'll start to understand why it's so difficult to treat.
So you think depending on the type of tinnitus it might need different treatments? As in, you can't get dry until you get out of the shower?

However, I think that, regardless of the cause the same mechanism in brain is malfunctioning.

I also like your posts btw, very informative and level headed. Hope Lim enjoys your knickers :)
 
@Tanni Lets look at it this way. Neuromod is aimed at subjective tinnitus what most tinnitus is. It won't work on pulsatile/objective tinnitus that makes up a much smaller proportion of tinnitus sufferers. Most tinnitus is subjective.

In the trials, the inclusion was subjective tinnitus and they have stated 80% reported improvement and 2/3's (we don't know if Ross O'Neill meant 2/3's of the 80% or 2/3's of the overall test subjects) reported clinically significant improvement.

They have spoken about super responders (90% who have both tinnitus and hyperacusis), responders and non-responders. It is still unclear if they have worked out who is most likely to respond and is most likely not to respond, apart from the brief mention of those with hypercausis being super responders. Other than that, we don't know anything else because they have not told us anything else. Other comments you see on this thread such as age being a factor and other comments you may have come across are just speculation.

What we do know is that the tonality/atonality/pitch have not shown any evidence that it will affect your chance of response.

Nothing else I can think has been mentioned, so other than the points mentioned, you should not think that it won't work for you because at this time we don't know enough.

My personal view is that let's say, for example, antidepressants. There are many different ones. What works well for one may not work for another and so on. There is no best antidepressant because the best one is what works for you. I compare this to Neuromod, because we are all different and some may respond while others may not. Tinnitus is heterogeneous and incredibly complex. Remember that the 'mechanism of tinnitus' is also theory and they still don't know the exact mechanism regardless of what you may read about it.

Follow the thread closely when we can discuss the peer reviewed papers once they come in and hopefully we will know more, until then, hope is all we have.
 
In the Neuromod Q&A, they state that patients do travel to see them:



So perhaps you could fly out if the local release took too long? Just leave Argentina with its wonderful weather, steaks and women and come to an industrial park in rainy Dublin to have a USB stuck to your tongue. Sounds fun?

Haha!

Are there no legal problems to move the device from one country to another?
 
Haha!

Are there no legal problems to move the device from one country to another?
I think there was discussion about this a while back and the consensus was that customs won't be able to tell this device from an MP3 device and a weird kind of toothbrush.

So unless you're smuggling a gazillion of them in shrinkwrapped boxes screaming "NEUROMOD MEDICAL DEVICE", there won't be any issues.
 
It scares me that it's not a one-size fits all. I think all our governments should pay for the treatment and it should be funded/financed by taxes.

No one should lose $1000s if it doesn't work. How many sufferers will give up for good? Sure, maybe, some can afford it but not everyone.

Will it help if your tinnitus is loud?
High pitched / high frequency?

How many times do you have to use the device? Etc. Etc.

Any after effects?

So many questions and unknowns. Pinning hopes is depressing and scary. We all need relief and our society and governments are not even remotely trying.

Thank you to the scientists and researchers but we need more. A lot more. :(
 
It scares me that it's not a one-size fits all. I think all our governments should pay for the treatment and it should be funded/financed by taxes.

No one should lose $1000s if it doesn't work. How many sufferers will give up for good? Sure, maybe, some can afford it but not everyone.

Will it help if your tinnitus is loud?
High pitched / high frequency?

How many times do you have to use the device? Etc. Etc.

Any after effects?

So many questions and unknowns. Pinning hopes is depressing and scary. We all need relief and our society and governments are not even remotely trying.

Thank you to the scientists and researchers but we need more. A lot more. :(
Supposedly, according to the interview, they want this device to possibly be covered by medical insurance. It's supposed to work for all frequencies and pitches: tldr: your tone/fluctuation doesn't matter. You're supposed to use it for 10 weeks, every day for an interval of 30-60 minutes.
 
Supposedly, according to the interview, they want this device to possibly be covered by medical insurance. It's supposed to work for all frequencies and pitches: tldr: your tone/fluctuation doesn't matter. You're supposed to use it for 10 weeks, every day for an interval of 30-60 minutes.
Thanks for the info. But, I suspect some people can't or won't work so they wouldn't have insurance?
 
@PeterJ

Governments in countries such as mine (UK) aren't going to pay for treatments with an evidence base of 500 patients. Things like this need to reviewed by our NHS and they evaluate it on things such as evidence base, cost, efficacy comparative to other treatments.

It's not even launched privately yet never mind being adopted by the NHS!
 
Baby is born with good ears. As baby gets older, hearing ability decreases. By the time baby becomes adult (usually 18 years), most hearing above 16khz is lost. Is that easier for you to understand?
@kelpiemsp I'm 24, and I still have normal 20 kHz hearing, and tinnitus. Makes my head boggle why I have 2 - 3 different tones too.
 
@kelpiemsp I'm 24, and I still have normal 20 kHz hearing, and tinnitus. Makes my head boggle why I have 2 - 3 different tones too.
Is it the same volume or do you have to turn the volume up louder to hear it?

Also... do a sweep with headphones. I guarantee you will find frequencies with loss throughout the spectrum. Every person loses their hearing slowly (or fastly) throughout life.

Also... post your audiogram. I have never seen an audiogram above 16khz.
 
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Why does this thread keep coming back to audiograms and hearing loss, am I missing something?

I saw a stat somewhere saying one in 3 tinnitus sufferers have no significant hearing loss, can't for the life of my find where I read that so take this alternate source;

https://www.audiology.org/news/tinnitus-prevalence

13 Million of those affected with tinnitus in America report no hearing loss. Anecdotally, my audiologist and ENT appointments have both told me I have above average hearing, others here have similar experiences to this.

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought bimodal stimulation doesn't care about hearing loss unless yours is so profound that you can't hear the tones?
 
I was doing some research yesterday on T and I found a site that claimed 90% of all tinnitus has some degree of hearing loss, by which they likely meant the type of hearing loss that shows up in an audiogram.
Maybe I'm wrong but I thought bimodal stimulation doesn't care about hearing loss unless yours is so profound that you can't hear the tones?
Dasit, mane. Ross O'Neill gets into it at 39:57.



Also don't forget to sub to the channel while you're here.
 
Why does this thread keep coming back to audiograms and hearing loss, am I missing something?

I saw a stat somewhere saying one in 3 tinnitus sufferers have no significant hearing loss, can't for the life of my find where I read that so take this alternate source;

https://www.audiology.org/news/tinnitus-prevalence

13 Million of those affected with tinnitus in America report no hearing loss. Anecdotally, my audiologist and ENT appointments have both told me I have above average hearing, others here have similar experiences to this.

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought bimodal stimulation doesn't care about hearing loss unless yours is so profound that you can't hear the tones?
High frequency hearing loss, above what is tested in a standard audiogram, may still be important in tinnitus. I have excellent hearing within the standard ranges but my tinnitus ear cannot hear above 14 kHz and my non-tinnitus ear can hear well above that. Hearing loss above 14 kHz is normal at least beyond a certain age, but there's one school of thought that says it's often asymmetry in hearing loss that sets off tinnitus. I can't find the paper right now but another TT user described the issue thus:

"If you go to Wikipedia, look up "superior ollivary complex". These are brain organs where the signals from both the ears are meeting together. There are two of these organs, one on the left side and one on the right side.The function of the superior ollivary complex is to compare ear signals, to locate a sound source.

If one of your ears has less signal than the other, the superior ollivary complex senses this imbalance. As a result of this imbalance, the superior ollivary complex sends a signal back to the ear along the efferent nerve to "crank up the volume". That's what's causing tinnitus. It's a form of feedback from an efferent nerve that has too strong a signal/current"

I wonder if this partly explains why some quite deaf people like my mother have no tinnitus and others with little or no hearing loss in standard ranges still have it.
 
If one of your ears has less signal than the other, the superior ollivary complex senses this imbalance. As a result of this imbalance, the superior ollivary complex sends a signal back to the ear along the efferent nerve to "crank up the volume".
Sounds plausible but doesn't really make sense when you consider the function of stereo hearing being to determine where sounds are coming from. By definition that means a difference in volume between left and right ear, sometimes profound, unless you're hearing nothing but mono audio. I mean, if this mechanism were there, then you could induce tinnitus by merely sticking an earplug in one ear or listening to gimmicky stereo panning music on headphones.
 
I mean, if this mechanism were there, then you could induce tinnitus by merely sticking an earplug in one ear or listening to gimmicky stereo panning music on headphones.
You can induce tinnitus merely by sticking an earplug in one ear!

This research team got 18 healthy volunteers to wear an earplug in one ear for a week and induced tinnitus in most of them.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035238

I think that's how I got my tinnitus too; I was markedly deaf in one ear for months due to an earwax impaction being misdiagnosed, the deafness got much worse after I went swimming, then one week after the worsening I got the tinnitus. Didn't go fully when I got the wax removed and most of my hearing back, but by that time I think there may have been a little damage to my eardrum and high freq. hearing.

Can't find the other paper I was thinking of now, but it said something like... the brain has evolved to fine tune the hearing between both ears because asymmetry messes with your ability locate the origin of a sound coming from behind you. In evolutionary terms you can see why this would be highly selected for in mammals because of predation. Presumably this would mean, if you have asymmetry in your hearing, your brain may try to fine tune correct that by turning up the "auditory gain" in the deafer ear, resulting in tinnitus.

After reading this I tried to find a hearing aid that corrects hearing loss above 14 kHz but I think there's only one or two that claim to do this available at great expense in the United States so I didn't go for it.
 
I noticed the above also very strongly in my first week of hyperacusis. I had it only in one ear, so in order to be able to have phone conversations, I plugged that one ear. During the phone call, my tinnitus would ratchet up, obviously compensating for what it was not hearing. After the call, it would gradually go down again.
 
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