Posted on 03/29/2011 5:30:29 AM PDT by Red Badger
A professor at West Texas A&M University may have discovered a way to help permanently decrease or remove tinnitus, a condition that causes a constant, and often irritating, ringing in the ears.
The American Tinnitus Association reports that tinnitus affects up to 50 million Americans. The causes of the condition vary but include hearing loss, exposure to loud noises, serious illnesses and consumption of substances such as nicotine, caffeine and medicine.
Leslie Dalton, a professor at WT's speech and hearing clinic, has spent the past 12 years developing tinnitus treatment mostly delivered through the use of a chip, software and large headphones. The chip sends a quiet and pre-programmed sound to the headphones, changing the channels sound takes to reach the brain.
Dalton, in his third year at WT, likens the process to reorganizing roads to change the way a vehicle reaches a destination. Whatever conditions lead to tinnitus affect the brain's normal functions, causing the ringing sound, he said.
"It causes the brain to reprocess in the wrong place," he said. "We return the hearing so that the normal part of the brain takes over."
Dalton has seen some success with his work.
Gretchen Mercer, who took Dalton's treatment a few times during the past year, said the method completely removed her tinnitus whenever she put on the headphones.
"The first time I put on the headphones, my whole body just relaxed," she said. "You hear nothing. It totally erases the tinnitus."
One of the goals with the tinnitus research is to create a prototype that can be distributed to local audiology clinics before the end of the summer, said Paige Brittain, owner of Headsets Inc., an Amarillo business that sells aviation and military headsets.
About a year ago, Brittain and Dalton helped start up another company, Dichonics Inc., with plans to later manufacture personal devices that can deliver the sound treatment.
"We will continue to improve the product," Brittain said. "But right now, we're just trying to put it together and put it in the hands of specialists."
While the treatment Dalton performs at WT provides no long-term fix for tinnitus, he said he thinks that giving patients daily access to a device at home would let them train their brains into ignoring the condition.
"Once we get to nano-technology, we can turn into a kind of hearing aid," he said.
While millions of Americans suffer from tinnitus, many more do not report the condition, said Diana Wise-McPherson, an Amarillo audiologist. She said most of her patients suffer from the condition.
"From past numbers I've heard, about half of the world's population has some kind of head noise," she said. "Now whether it bothers their life, that's another thing."
Treatments to relieve tinnitus exist, but none of them decrease or remove the condition, she said. Existing treatments include acupuncture and massage therapy, she said.
"People do all kinds of things, but there's nothing scientifically proven on the market that alleviates tinnitus," she said.
Other treatments include masking the tinnitus with other sounds or sending electricity into the ear's cochlea, Dalton said.
"But the patient still hears something," he said.
Mercer said she developed tinnitus about two years after contracting the West Nile virus in 2004. The virus caused some hearing loss, she said.
"In my experience, it can debilitating," she said. "It can drive you insane. It's a constant humming in your head. Sometimes, you can ignore it, but there are times when it's just loud and it gets worse."
The reason I asked was that some tinnitus early in the morning when you first wake up can be due to higher blood pressure in the inner ear causing a roaring sound. Some studies have shown that taking your blood pressure medicine before you go to bed somehow makes it more effective..............
10 years of Fender and Mesa Boogie amps turned to 11 has left me with ringing ears.
From the article:
“tinnitus treatment mostly delivered through the use of a chip, software and large headphones. The chip sends a quiet and pre-programmed sound to the headphones, changing the channels sound takes to reach the brain”
Just hope the chips are not programmed with subliminal liberal suggestions....
I know the feeling, have had it for yrs. myself.
I know the feeling, have had it for yrs. myself.
Hmmm you are awfully young to be having any health problems! I am in the same boat LMAO same age and now the way I know I need to see a Dr is if it don’t hurt something is wrong.
One thing I would ask is if you are a big salt user’ if you are cut back or cut it out completely. This helped my ringing ears didnt stop it but it is nowhere as bad as it was!
I am now 68 as I type in silence my ears are just screaming, "Thank you for your service" is the constant statement the squealing is saying
Bfl
If its not already been a sci-fi movie plot, it will be.
In the past 20 years, I heard silence for about 60 seconds once in a dentist’s chair, after he had put anesthetic into my jaw near the left ear. (My tinnitus was only on the left side then.) I thought I had discovered a cure! But my dentist said that permanently damaging the nerve would not be a very good idea.
Look at it this way, you are still here. The guy who was 3000 feet away is not...............
I’m 59 and have had this for the past 20 or 25 years. It is not real bad, but some days it just bugs me. I remember being in the fields driving a tractor without a muffler. We had all right hand plows, so our left ear was always exposed to the engine and muffler noise.
I also had a cousin shoot his shotgun at some doves just over my left ear after I had taken out my ear plugs. That was when I really started noticing the tinnitus. I guess that was about 18 years ago.
Thanks!
ʇɐɹɔoɯǝp ----> ʇɐɹɔoɯǝp
There... Equalized the letter sizes a bit for you...'-)
Ping.
Dick Cheney is your cousin?......................
Sucks to be Glenn.
For those of us who have this problem ... imagine just 10 minutes of silence! Boy would I love to get my hands on this thing ... even for 10 minutes!
I have had this pretty much my entire life (also have Meniere’s which is destroying my hearing, sadly)—ANY relief from the ‘phone ringing’ and buzzing and katydid noises would be a great relief...wish it were more permanent results *now* but I would take any help I could get!
IIRC, William Shatner had/has a very bad case of this and when he interviewed Rush Limbaugh about hearing issues, he mentioned there were times he literally was going insane with the sounds. People who don’t suffer from this cannot imagine how aggravating/annoying/sometimes painful this condition is! :-(
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.