Neuropuncture — An Effective Treatment Method for Patients with Subjective Tinnitus

[David S]

This is a very recent study using Neuropuncture for tinnitus.

Neuropuncture, an Effective Treatment Method for Patients with Subjective Tinnitus Accompanied with Hearing Loss: Case Reports

It seems quite successful. I like he fact that it's not only the needles but also the electric stimulation connected to them.

We already know that both Lenire and Michigan Tinnitus Device use electric stimulation as an essential part of their treatment. It is also well known that a cochlear implant most of the times suppress or eliminate tinnitus. As I understand it, the most likely reason for this is the electric stimulation from the implant. There might also be a small chance that the hyper active neurons get destroyed once the implant is inserted. Unfortunately a cochlear implant is only an option once you have severe hearing loss.

I contribute my tinnitus to overactive neurons and I see electric stimulation as the best option the calm them down. The challenge is how to get enough of current into the cochlea without being too invasive. It might not need to be too complicated with the amount of current, amplitude, sinus, triangle, timing etc. It's more that you need to stimulate the exact right spot.

If this was available in my neighborhood, I would try it.

 

[AfroSnowman]

I wish they had done a better quality study and one not done by the owner of Neuropuncture. I am reasonably sure that this is just snake oil sales, that being said if I was in Florida I'd probably buy some of that snake oil.

What can I say? A sucker is born every day.

 

[David S]

I wish they had done a better quality study and one not done by the owner of Neuropuncture. I am reasonably sure that this is just snake oil sales, that being said if I was in Florida I'd probably buy some of that snake oil.

What can I say? A sucker is born every day.

You might be right but big studies cost a lot of money to fund. There is not much money to be earned on any medical therapies either. They have good feedback on Google as well. I do not know how much that means in reality.

At least I find this more likely to work than just normal acupuncture.

 

[AfroSnowman]

You might be right but big studies cost a lot of money to fund. There is not much money to be earned on any medical therapies either. They have good feedback on Google as well. I do not know how much that means in reality.

At least I find this more likely to work than just normal acupuncture.

Let me preface this by saying again if I was nearby I'd probably give it a shot. Lord knows I want to believe it, but it seems too good to be true that this can be addressed so simplify after all other efforts have failed to make a dent in tinnitus precept.

The things that kind of ring problematic to me about the study:

1) The guy who wrote the study is selling Neuropuncture as a system to other acupuncturists and therefore has a very strong conflict of interest in skewing the results.

2) Even without a control group there was no standard measurement, like THI, used to score the before and after effects.

3) It dramatically worked for everyone in his study, with the exception of one person for whom it worked but then after half a year went back to baseline.

4) It worked for a pulsatile tinnitus patient. Pretty different form of tinnitus to be treated in the same way.

5) He cited things like a 'clicking fingernail' test to test hearing.

Like X-Files, I want to believe, and I'd happily throw down a couple hundred dollars to give it a try but I can't say that I have any confidence that it would work.

 

[MarvinDeguzman]

I am very skeptical of this.

 

[linearb]

Echoing skepticism; single case reports are not very convincing and also enough people get some amount of relief from basically anything that relaxes chronic tension in the jaw and neck that a report where an intervention which we might expect to do that, apparently relieved symptoms in 3 people, is not remarkable.

This has all the hallmarks of scam science; this is not a peer reviewed article, the author discloses an interest in their own "Neuropuncture" device and makes a bunch of claims about it and those claims also can't be backed up by any peer reviewed work, as it appears they have not gone to the bother of doing any real research, just poking people with electricity based on some stuff borrowed from Western maps of nerves in the body and some stuff borrowed from woo-woo meridian acupuncture nonsense.

I mainly wanted to comment that this has nothing to do with UMich / Lenire -- the bimodal therapies targeting the DCN are trying to work at a very specific mechanism. (I thought UMich's device worked when I used it; I am more skeptical of Lenire, but at least they're on solid theoretical ground even if their implementation is bad).



Video does a better job than I can explaining how the bimodal stuff works but you can see it's extremely precision-timing based and not something you'd get to with random coupling of electrical impulses and environmental noise.

 

[David S]

@linearb, I agree with everything you have to say. It all sounds logical. It's just once my tinnitus spikes through the roof, I start to daydream...

I struggled with this friend of mine for almost 8 years. They always say help is 5, max 10 years away. Just need some hope...

 

[IntotheBlue03]

I know this is an older thread but I don't live far from Dr. Helen Law's practice and am in the process of scheduling an appointment for next week. I'll follow up. Her background is pretty impressive to say the least.

 

[IntotheBlue03]

@David S, just following up but I've been doing neuropuncture with Dr. Law who wrote that study for a few weeks. No results as of yet but I'm going to continue for twice a week for another couple months. My tinnitus is now 7 weeks in. Hopefully the benzos do not influence my outcome.

 

[Ela Stefan]

Echoing skepticism; single case reports are not very convincing and also enough people get some amount of relief from basically anything that relaxes chronic tension in the jaw and neck that a report where an intervention which we might expect to do that, apparently relieved symptoms in 3 people, is not remarkable.

This has all the hallmarks of scam science; this is not a peer reviewed article, the author discloses an interest in their own "Neuropuncture" device and makes a bunch of claims about it and those claims also can't be backed up by any peer reviewed work, as it appears they have not gone to the bother of doing any real research, just poking people with electricity based on some stuff borrowed from Western maps of nerves in the body and some stuff borrowed from woo-woo meridian acupuncture nonsense.

I mainly wanted to comment that this has nothing to do with UMich / Lenire -- the bimodal therapies targeting the DCN are trying to work at a very specific mechanism. (I thought UMich's device worked when I used it; I am more skeptical of Lenire, but at least they're on solid theoretical ground even if their implementation is bad).

Video does a better job than I can explaining how the bimodal stuff works but you can see it's extremely precision-timing based and not something you'd get to with random coupling of electrical impulses and environmental noise.

Hi linearb! What do you think about all the other devices such as a TENS machine, for example? They also try to modulate DCN. Would any of these, already available on the market, get closer to some effect of diminishing tinnitus as Dr. Susan Shore's device?

 

[linearb]

Hi linearb! What do you think about all the other devices such as a TENS machine, for example? They also try to modulate DCN. Would any of these, already available on the market, get closer to some effect of diminishing tinnitus as Dr. Susan Shore's device?

No.

These devices do not try to modulate the DCN.

This is accomplished through paired, precisely timed audio and electrical impulses

You need to impact LTP through this mechanism, that's how it's supposed to work:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike-timing-dependent_plasticity

You're not going to get there with a TENS device. You could probably build your own device based on available, published research at this time. It would be harder than it sounds and there are safety concerns.

 

[HauntedComputer]

My acupuncturist sent me this as a different link:

Neuropuncture for Tinnitus and Hearing Loss

He's an instructor at Jung Dao School of Acupuncture and said he has been practicing with electro-acupuncture and has been encouraged by the results but as yet has no tinnitus patients try it. Mine runs 3/10 to 4/10 now so I am okay with where I am but I am considering giving it a try. I've had traditional acupuncture fairly regularly for more than 20 years and haven't seen direct benefits for tinnitus besides helping clear congestion etc. However, I have gotten great overall health results from acupuncture as it is my primary healthcare over the years.

I think I will let him get a little more electro-acupuncture experience before I become a guinea pig but I don't see a whole lot of downside since the cost is only that of regular treatments. I suppose there's a chance of tinnitus increasing but I believe the key to tinnitus is in the brain and not the ears. If I do experience worsening symptoms, I'd definitely do it, as traditional Western medicine has done very little for me besides help relieve my anxiety around it.

I will update if I give it a try.