[HN Gopher] Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy ___________________________________________________________________ Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy Author : maxerickson Score : 465 points Date : 2022-04-15 12:09 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (news.mit.edu) (TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu) | watchdogtimer wrote: | > Hair cells die off when exposed to loud noises or drugs | including certain chemotherapies and antibiotics. | | Does this mean this treatment works only for these conditions, | and not common aging-related loss? | maxerickson wrote: | They haven't really gotten to the point where they even know it | works. | | The mechanism should work if there are viable progenitor cells | present (so I would expect it to be of some use in most cases | of hearing loss), but they may not be able to develop this drug | into a reliable treatment. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | I really hope this could also help revert tinnitus. This is a | life wrecking condition that currently has no cure (suicide | attempts 9% for women with severe tinnitus and 5.5% for men). | biggieshellz wrote: | But you can certainly learn to ignore it. After one | particularly loud concert, my ears started to ring, and they | have never really stopped. I was depressed, disappointed, and | angry with myself for not having taken better care of my ears. | But you know what? After 6 months to a year, I habituated to | it. I notice the ringing on a super quiet morning in the | countryside when there aren't any other sounds, but other than | that, it doesn't bother me. I can still listen to music; in | fact, that helps mask out the ringing. | | If you have severe tinnitus, look at getting hearing aids -- | they fill back the affected frequencies so your brain doesn't | crank up the gain and fill them with the phantom sound. Or look | at Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. But most people do habituate to | it. What you read online on the tinnitus forums and so forth | has selection bias. People post on the forums how terrible | things are right after they develop tinnitus, but after they | habituate to it, they don't post as much about that. | AndyPa32 wrote: | "Certainly" is a wild stretch. That may be true for mild | cases, but then there are people out there where the Tinnitus | sound is louder than 100 decibel. One cannot learn to ignore | that, especially not when it is permanent. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | While you can habituate to it and will after several years, | it's still a ghastly condition that can come back and | negatively impact you. Personally, I have it since birth and | have never experienced silence. Most of the time, I cannot | hear it but it's always there lurking behind a thin veil of | distractions. | | I recently caught the covid virus. The symptoms were bad but | far from what annoyed me the most from it. The worst is how | since I have had it, my tinnitus is back to the forefront of | my life and louder than ever. Many people who have managed to | ignore their tinnitus will have it come back when they are | exhausted, tired, sick, stressed, etc. | | Being dismissive and saying you can learn to ignore it is not | really helpful, this is true of most conditions. This article | however offers a tangible cure. | | Not to be dismissive either but the ringing from hearing | music that is too loud is the mildest case most commone case | of tinnitus that exists and will often simply reduce by a | large margin on its own. Chronic tinnitus is defined as a | tinnitus that lasts more than six months. | | In my case, it's at the level of a lawnmower behind a thin | wall when at it's worst and mosquito near the ear when at | it's mildest. In some other cases, it's car engine and even | jet engine level. To me your message (while probably not on | purpose) comes across like someone with an amputated finger | talking to someone with two amputated legs about how you can | learn to live with it (especially with the talk about | selection bias, which is useful when looking at trends but | not when talking to individuals). Yes you can control it and | yes it's the same medical condition. But it's not the same | beast. | depressionalt wrote: | Can people please stop posting this in every tinnitus thread? | It's an actual trigger that makes tinnitus worse for others. | There's nothing useful brought upon by falsely correlating | suicidal and tinnitus, and in fact it creates some major | negative externalities by making folks have massive tinnitus | flare ups or even trigger suicidal ideation. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | Tinnitus is mentionned in the first paragraph of the article. | Talking about the suicide rate is usually a simple way to get | people who know nothing of the condition to understand how | serious it is, most people imagine the faint temporary noise | that happens after listening to a loud movie but it's much | more worst than that. | | I grant you, some people who use "trigger warnings" would | have added one before talking about suicide rates. I however | do not use them outside mental health forums and such. | nanidin wrote: | 9% of women with tinnitus attempt suicide, or 9% of women that | attempt suicide have tinnitus? | | I find it curious since I've had tinnitus since I was very | young and it isn't life wrecking - but maybe that's because it | is just part of my default life experience. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | "Suicide attempts happened with 9% of women with severe | tinnitus." | ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 wrote: | It's funny to me seeing everyone in this thread acting like | tinnitus is the worst shit ever and they're suffering everyday. | Look up Meniere's disease. It can be so much worse. | | And yes, I understand that suffering is relative and that there | are worse things than Meniere's disease, thank you. | Karawebnetwork wrote: | It's not a race. I have conditions that are considered worst | than tinnitus. | | Having a lawnmower in my head at all time is not the end of | the world. But it's certainly exhausting and sometimes | disabilitating. | | It's meaningless to compare health conditions. What's the | worst between something that kills you, something that | paralyzes you, something that gives you constant pain and | something that triggers constant fear in you? | | All of them. All of them are the worst to people who suffers | from them. | | Tinnitus is brought up in the article, this is why people are | talking about it. Not because it's a condition that is worst | than others. | | Reading about a possible cure is one of the are form of hope | someone with tinnitus will ever have. | IYasha wrote: | At least someone talks about more or less natural regeneration, | not inventing more crutches (like mechanical organs or | nanorobots). | lr4444lr wrote: | Disclosure: I own FREQ stock. | | The failure of the prior trial was suspected, and I believe it, | due to a refractory response by overdosing the inner ear with too | frequent administrations of the drug, and then testing for effect | too soon. I bet even those candidates of the phase IIa trial | though would, if checked on now, show some improvement. | | Animal research has shown that natural cochlear hair cell | regeneration and resultant hearing restoration is very real, we | mammals just don't have the natural cellular signaling to | redifferentiate those base cells - small molecule drugs like | FX322 do exactly that. I am optimistic they'll eventually find | the right dosing regimen to see reliable and optimal clinical | effect, and it will be a seismic advance in medicine. | Thebroser wrote: | "Animal research has shown that natural cochlear hair cell | regeneration and resultant hearing restoration is very real" - | Although exciting, we also need to remember that | translatability rates from animal models to humans is | notoriously low, usually in the single digits for most | therapeutic areas. This is some cool tech, but just wanted to | point it out that success in animal models =/= we will | eventually get to see the realized treatment. | gumby wrote: | > Although exciting, we also need to remember that | translatability rates from animal models to humans is | notoriously low, usually in the single digits for most | therapeutic areas. | | This is true of humans as well -- there are plenty of | programs that get interesting and clear results in Phase 2 | (the dose ranging phase: essentially "what dosage is most | efficacious") that die in Phase 3 (roughly: "OK, how does | that dose really work on a statistically significant | population that also represents the demographics of the | country"). These studies are so expensive that nobody goes | into Phase 3 unless they believe Phase 2 pretty certainly | demonstrated that the drug works, and well. | | It's also hard to figure out just how the animal's hearing is | improving (you can't simply ask). I'm sure they have some | experiments, but growing the hairs back may be necessary but | not sufficient. Look at all those Alzheimers programs aimed | at removing the plaque that haven't demonstrated any value in | the clinic. The plaque might not even _be_ alzheimers itself | -- it could merely be the body 's response to some different | underlying effect of the disease. | | The choice of animal is very important, and the FDA cares a | lot. Mice are popular because they are cheap. I worked on a | program years ago that used guinea pigs because mice couldn't | get the disease. We didn't use rats as the compound caused | cancer in rats, and someone else had had their program | derailed because the FDA required a separate analysis and | study to demonstrate that the cancer was specific to rats and | not other species (rats get lots of cancers). For our program | the FDA required some studies in (non-guinea) pigs before | they were willing to allow any human trials. | JohnBooty wrote: | It's also hard to figure out just how the | animal's hearing is improving (you can't simply ask) | | This seems relatively easy, right? Play a sound at a given | frequency, associate it with a food reward. Like Pavlov's | dog, but vary the frequency of the bell. | | Oversimplification obviously, and "easy" is extreme | relative to all the other hard parts involved but that part | seems very doable | gumby wrote: | One sobering lesson from my time working in the life | sciences is that everything is insanely complex and once | you've isolated everything in your problem space into a | small, relatively isolated set, you still end up with an | insanely complex space. | | Essentially it's fractally complex. | crackedbassoon wrote: | Except it is actually quite easy to measure hearing | thresholds in nonhumans as well as human babies via | auditory brain responses (ABRs). | fierro wrote: | life is "fractally" complex. Sometimes I feel computing | is also fractally complex. | Traubenfuchs wrote: | I guess you can easily damage a rats/monkeys hearing | consistently (may we find peace for our sins) and I guess | you can easily strap those animals into an MRI or strap | an EEG measuring device onto one. | | Seems simpler than training a significant amount of them! | ddingus wrote: | Well, there's more to it than binary to text you. I agree | with you, in that the signaling perception is probably | easy. However, let's say that that frequency is coupled | with several others, making for noise for poor | discrimination. | | For that kind of thing, we're going to need real people | who can communicate in detail. | gumby wrote: | Yeah, fitting and tuning a hearing aid is quite | complicated, and there are intelligent people at both | sides of the process. | pygy_ wrote: | More simply, play a loud sound in a narrow band and check | if there's a startle response. | bsder wrote: | The brain also needs time to "rewire" once it starts | accepting more and better input. | | "Rotating your eyeball" as a treatment for macular | degeneration is a good example. Your brain needs a week | or so to "reorient" even though the physical procedure is | done in a couple hours. | pyinstallwoes wrote: | You may enjoy: https://youtu.be/tONF9OSUOSw | | "How Loud Can Sound Physically Get?" - amazing breakdown | of the subjective nature of loudness. | crackedbassoon wrote: | Unlike your Alzheimer's example, hair cell loss is | definitely the cause of hearing loss in many cases. There | are other possible causes but this is the first or second | most common biological antecedent. | | Basically, if we can regrow them, there's a good chance of | restoring hearing, provided the rest of the auditory system | hasn't atrophied too badly. | Traubenfuchs wrote: | Why would they deliberately come up with a study design that | harms their evaluation, trust, reputation, etc. and not one | that optimized for best lab-condition results, like any | sensible hair loss product company, for example? | lr4444lr wrote: | I don't think any failure was deliberate. This is the cutting | edge of cochlear medical research, and mistakes will happen. | Perhaps they thought a little was good and more would be | better? I am neither an employee or board member. | FLORESFIB wrote: | taf2 wrote: | Looks like FREQ stock got really beat down over the last few | months- any idea what happened was it the negative outcome of | the study you mentioned? | lr4444lr wrote: | There was suspected fraud on the part of the C(E?)O that he | was soliciting investor money (and sold stock himself) with | advance knowledge of the disappointing results of the trial I | was mentioning and did not disclose it. Class action suits | were filed. | | The trials preceding the Phase IIa results were all extremely | promising, and even the Phase IIa one showed statistically | significant effect on a sound _discrimination_ , which many | long time hearing sufferers can tell you is even more | frustrating a problem than the inability to perceive sound. | | Biomedical research stocks are inherently risky. I could be | deluding myself, but my lay reading of the research, and as | someone who has suffered from tinnitus for a long time | brought on my noise overexposure, I think there is a very | promising shot at this drug. Maybe FREQ will not be the ones | to realize it and some other company will take the patent | into real life clinical medicine, and FREQ is certainly not | the ONLY company pursuing this angle. But their successes so | far have kept me holding the stock, and I keep buying more. | victor106 wrote: | Interesting. Thanks for the honesty. | | What other companies are working on this problem? | christmm wrote: | Do you have more links, which make you have confidence in | FX-322 and related treatments ? | samstave wrote: | I have increasing;y bad tinnitus. Will this help with that? | | I hear a permanent and constant low-volume very high pitch | "squeal" in my ears at all times, | | I was never a big loud music listener, and I have always | brought ear-plugs to loud events - and have had no big ear- | rupturing moments (such as a gun firing close to my head | without protection etc... | biellls wrote: | I would be interested to know that too. I imagine it would | depend on the kind of tinnitus as it can be independent on | hearing loss. | chasebank wrote: | I vaguely remember hearing something about tapping on the | back of your head can greatly reduce tinnitus. I think there | are plenty of instructional videos on youtube and it's worth | a shot to try. | brewdad wrote: | I've tried this in the past and, for me, it never helped | for more than a few minutes. But it DID work. It's amazing | how interconnected various systems in our bodies can be and | how little we truly understand. | swinglock wrote: | It helps some but only for tens of seconds to a minute. | Just enough for a tech preview or nostalgia trip (depending | on your level of optimism or acceptance), not a solution. | socialcapital wrote: | I have tinnitus - give yourself a wet willie. Seriously, | suck your pinky, stick it in your ear, wiggle it around. | Def helps for a while! | shrubble wrote: | My personal albeit anecdotal evidence is that certain foods, | or possibly too much sodium, can cause tinnitus. When I have | tinnitus I drink a lot of water and reduce my sodium intake - | I think that acesulfame postassium (NutraSweet) can cause it | for me as well. | | You might want to experiment with changing your diet, | drinking more water, etc. | samstave wrote: | I'm pretty sure you are spot on with Sodium: | | I do eat a lot of sodium, but here is an interesting | anecdote: | | A friend's husband had Lyme Disease - and had very bad | veritgo from it which was exacerbated by a high sodium | intake (I assume the ear works on the sodium potassium pump | in some manner?) | | but she used to have to make a very careful diet for him so | as to remove sodium as much as possible, which would | prevent his vertigo. | jus101 wrote: | The vertigo could be due to Meniere's disease. I had it | for a year or so in my 20s - reducing salty snacks sorted | it out. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meniere%27s_disease | dazc wrote: | I had odd bouts of tinitus as a teenager, like you, no | obvious causes. It went away and came back with a vengence | about 15 years ago. That lasted a year or so but over time | it's become more of a minor irritation than a major handicap. | I guess, my brain has trained itself to deal with it? | | The only tip I can give you is to always have some kind of | background sound that you can focus on rather than the | buzzing in your own head. | | Also, avoid earplugs and headphones, they just create a wierd | feedback loop. | adriand wrote: | The best advice I ever got about my tinnitus was from my | mom, who has worse tinnitus than I do: "just forget about | it". I know that might sound difficult, but honestly, just | try. When you notice it, reassure yourself that it's not | really a big problem, and then turn your attention to other | things. If you are successful with this, eventually you | will only notice it when you remember that you have it and | listen for it. | | A couple of the things I used to tell myself when it | troubled me more than it does now: | | - There's nothing you can do about this, so just forget | about it. | | - We all accumulate damage as we age. None of us are going | into the grave in prime condition and if we do, that's a | mark of a life not well-lived. | | - The fact I can hear this noise means I'm alive: "I hear | ringing, therefore I am". | | These may not be helpful to you, so invent your own! | | The other thing I would recommend is getting a hearing | test. If it turns out you have hearing loss, then treatment | for that (e.g. hearing aids) may reduce your tinnitus (one | theory is that tinnitus is caused by your brain "turning up | the gain" on your "audio inputs", so that when you have a | hearing aid, your brain no longer needs to do that, and | your tinnitus diminishes). | | If it turns out you don't have hearing loss, then you can | reassure yourself that your tinnitus is not a sign of any | damage. I had always assumed my tinnitus was the result of | damage due to a lot of music events but it turns out I have | excellent hearing, which helps me ignore my tinnitus, | because I no longer view it as proof that I hurt myself. | | You may also notice that certain things make your tinnitus | worse. For instance, if I have a few drinks, mine gets | noticeably louder. But because I know the alcohol will wear | off, I just ignore it because it's temporary. | ternaryoperator wrote: | One tip that was indeed helpful in learning to ignore it, | especially when I was new to tinnitus was: don't keep | checking your tinnitus level. Once I stopped checking "Do | I hear it now? Is it as loud?" I started minding/noticing | it less. | bashinator wrote: | I had pretty severe tinnitus. Getting religious about | earplug usage at music performances plus getting musician- | specific hearing protection pretty well put it into | remission. Cymbals with no earplugs are specifically the | worst. | cdjk wrote: | This sounds crazy, but try hearing aids. That worked for me. | Initially I used the white noise masking feature of them, but | switched to using just amplification. I stop noticing my | tinnitus a few minutes after I put them in, and it starts | again a few minutes after I take them out. | | In the spirit of "there's a forum for everything," you can | get help programming them yourself here: | | https://forum.hearingtracker.com/ | 124816 wrote: | There can be other causes besides noise exposure, like | TMJ/teeth grinding which can affect the nerves. | piceas wrote: | For me ibuprofen (at recommend doses, reasons for use etc.) | makes it worse/noticeable. | | Acetaminophen doesn't have the same problem for me so I'm | assuming it's not just that I'm clenching my jaw without | noticing. | nkmnz wrote: | Ibuprofen increases blood pressure, which is associated | with higher levels of tinnitus. You might check in with | your GP - maybe some intervention to lower blood pressure | could reduce your overall tinnitus? | gizajob wrote: | I have tinnitus too, and would love a cure/solution. I do | play drums and have been exposed to loud music, but my | tinnitus nevertheless developed from a glandular fever, and | my hearing is actually fine. Would just love to get rid of | the constant 3-4khz sine waves and enjoy silence again. | lr4444lr wrote: | That is an open question. Tinnitus is NOT well understood. It | does have fairly high correlation with SNHL, which IS pretty | well understood as a matter of cochlear hair cell | destruction. So there is a lot of optimism that if we can | treat the latter, the former will go away, but there may be | other components to it in the central nervous system. It | certainly would only help to fix SNHL in trying to treat | tinnitus. | civilized wrote: | We recently learned that my daughter is completely deaf in one | ear. She is a very happy healthy girl otherwise, but it makes me | sad to know that currently we have no therapy and she could live | her whole life like this. But maybe there will be something for | her in a few years. | kradeelav wrote: | Hey there - speaking as somebody who was born profoundly deaf | but has been hearing 30+ years later thanks to the use of a | cochlear implant (CI) and auditory-verbal training, and almost | always at the point that people off the street don't realize | that I have it ... there's options out there, she doesn't have | to live with that constraint. Would highly encourage you to | look into the technology there at bare minimum. (The earlier | that people have the training/implant, the more exceptional | results tend to happen, given there's less delay in speech.) | | Happy to share my story and some resources - my email's in the | profile. Best of luck to you and your family, and I feel for | you. | civilized wrote: | Thank you so much! I am very interested in CI. Currently | we're waiting for our appointments with the ENT but I hear so | much good about it, I'm hoping we can move this forward as | soon as possible. I will definitely be in touch. | kayjayem wrote: | I lost my hearing in one ear 9 years ago when I was 15 as | the result of an illness. I could get a CI but choose not | to. Honestly, being deaf in one ear has barely affected me. | There are some situations (if it is a loud environment and | the person is on my left) where I struggle to hear people | and I cannot tell the direction sound is coming from but I | do not find this has a major impact on my life. | | Personally I am concerned that a CI would not improve my | quality of life and may even make it worse. My | understanding is that the hearing from a cochlear implant | is not the same as "normal" hearing so I worry it may | effect my current experience in a negative way. | | Speak to the doctor but I would personally be a bit | cautious about it, especially if your daughter is not at an | age where she can properly communicate her experience of | hearing with you. | brewdad wrote: | I'm also essentially deaf (90% loss) in my right ear. It | really doesn't affect my life in a negative way except in | situations like you mentioned. Also, wearing a one-eared | headset offers no advantages over a two-eared set in an | office environment. I won't be hearing what the person in | my cubicle says either way until I remove it. | | If you ever encounter a person who instead of making eye | contact seems to be looking just over your shoulder, it | could be you are about to be attacked or it could be | someone like me who needs to turn their one good ear | towards you slightly in order to hear our conversation. | :) | throwhearway wrote: | Hey, I completely lost my hearing in one ear about five years | ago. I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. But I'd encourage | you not to be too worried about it. | | Personally, I only notice it in very loud situations in which | someone is speaking to me on my deaf side; otherwise the sound | bounces around and reaches my working ear anyway. I don't feel | "disabled" in any way. In fact I rarely think about it. I've | been given a hearing aid, but I don't bother with it, frankly I | just don't need it. The body is quite amazing at adapting. | civilized wrote: | I'll keep this in mind. I've heard some scary things about | falling behind in school and having difficulty in noisy | social situations... but it sounds like there's a lot of | variation in how well people cope, and she's coping extremely | well so far. | dghughes wrote: | There's a crazy amount of problems that are due to hearing loss. | There's an increased risk of dementia. Even for balance from | hearing audio cues when walking. | | My mother has poor hearing and she refuses to get a hearing aid | mainly due to cost. They are ~$4K per ear she doesn't have the | money but to her an elderly person she imagines it as $40K/ear. I | also fear dementia has already begun for her. For me I have | tinnitus so this drug would also be welcome. | | Another interesting drug is Vuity for nearsightedness. Between | hearing and sight it will be amazing if such drugs work and were | available before my mother or I or anyone dies of old age. | JibJabDab wrote: | Where do you live? There are many, MANY different kinds of | hearings in many different price ranges. I have a top of the | line OPN 1 and it was 3,000$. There are cheaper versions for | 2k. Many manufacturers produce models under 2k. I'd advise to | have her check again, perhaps with a different audiologist. | | Heck, if she gets an earmold, I can give her my old Oticon | Chili. I bet there are other avenues to procure a cheap one. | intpete wrote: | My hearing aids from Costco set me back only $1,700. I highly | recommend them. | 1970-01-01 wrote: | I recommend tinnitustreatmentreport.com for news and updates for | tinnitus. | Sunspark wrote: | Word of advice, this is interesting and worth paying attention | to. | | However, hearing loss has already been successfully cured before | decades ago. I remember reading back in the 80s that it was only | 10 years away. | | It actually worked.. only problem is, the dosage required was | toxic for humans. | | So when they say it is years away, take it literally and assume | that might be forever. | | If you have hearing loss that can be treated by other therapies | today, do not wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow may not come. | egberts1 wrote: | As one who is undergoing mapping of Cochlear Implant, I feel the | need to put it out there some things about regrowing cilia hairs | in cochlear. | | If you had been subjected to a life-threatening high body | temperature (106.5+ F, spinal meningitis), your cochlears would | make for a poor candidate in benefitting from most form of | treatment of cilia hair regrowth. | | The problem is the fibrocyte nerve pathways (the ones embedded in | the wall of the cochlear spiral) are basically heated to death | through bursting/disintegration of its Mylar sheathings of its | nerve cells in the cochlear pathway. | | Although, not much research is done with regard to the | temperature level in various part of the body notably inside the | skull region during such an infection, it is arguable that | cochlear is located in the hottest zone of the body given the | locality of eustachian tube, inner ear and throat region being a | harbor of Infectionous activity. | | Not an expert here but a pretty serious consumer-based researcher | of CI. | luminaobscura wrote: | I lost one of my ears in a high fever episode when i was a | child. I guess what you wrote means i shouldn't get my hopes up | for these kind of treatments :( | egberts1 wrote: | The treatment is focused on regrowth of cilia hairs; what we, | the high-temped folks, are really waiting for is a cochlear | transplant or a regrowth of fibrocyte pathways within the | cochlear wall (as well as this treatment). | FriendWithMoon wrote: | Any patients that reported their Tinnitus getting better? It has | been a real curse having chronic tinnitus. | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | I always knew collecting music in 96khz 24bit FLAC will pay off. | Who's laughing now? | wrycoder wrote: | Related work at Johns Hopkins [2019]: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20685944#20688094 | DantesKite wrote: | For anybody suffering with tinnitus I highly recommend the | protocol William Shatner went through. You can train your brain | so it's not noticeable any more. Like wearing pants, it fades | into the background. | loceng wrote: | Berard Auditory Integration Training and the Tomatis Method are | also worth looking into depending on what's going on; a book | called "Hearing Equals Behaviour: Updated and Expanded" goes | into detail on the above treatments. | biggieshellz wrote: | The Tomatis Method is a little pseudoscience-y for my tastes | -- you have to buy the tapes / app / etc. directly from the | Tomatis folks, and I've never seen any good studies from a | non-conflicted third party that support its efficacy. | loceng wrote: | All of the science and math behind the algorithms are | available - you can recreate it yourself, but like most | things it's easier to buy what someone else has already put | the work in. I'd recommend getting and reading the book to | balance out a perspective. | zackmorris wrote: | I had tinnitus in my left ear, but it turned out to be related | to TMJ, and it resolved after I wore an advanced lightwire | functional (ALF) appliance for maybe 3-6 months to move my jaw | back into a forward position. I had braces and wore headgear as | a kid at the height of some 1980s hysteria about overbites that | left millions of people like me with class II malocclusion | (baby face) and sleep apnea. | | I'm having trouble finding information on it, because there's a | lot more money in orthodontics than palatal expansion: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_expansion | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_palatal_expanders | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orthodontic_functional... | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mew#Orthotropics | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19416436 | | Right now I'm wearing Invisalign but have a small 1/2 tooth gap | where the new bone has formed and am having trouble finding an | orthodontist that will move molars forward to catch up. It's | like asking someone who just dug a giant hole to fill it in | again. It may require a temporary anchorage devices (TAD) or | lever arm to move the teeth without tipping them. | | The programmer in me senses a code smell here where the | orthodontics profession maybe shouldn't endorse practices it | can't undo. But all I can really do is spread the word and | encourage anyone considering braces to get a second opinion, | especially for children. They may just need to wear a retainer | for a year or two and learn good tongue posture habits, | especially while they're still growing. | skybrian wrote: | I'm curious, how was TMJ diagnosed? | Klonoar wrote: | I'm doing something similar (for sleep apnea originally, but | the crossover due to jaw needing to be forward is a thing). | Highly recommend. | BuildTheRobots wrote: | Thanks for the pointer, I'll be looking it up shortly. | | Anecdotaly, I've found myself getting a phantom tone in the | 15khz range (sounds just like a flyback) when in a quiet house. | This could be entitely placebo effect, but I've gotten some | relief by doing a bad emulation of active noise cancelling | headphones, namely playing a quiet 15khz (ish) tone through my | bone conduction headphones. It's not perfect by any means, but | often the very act of trying to tune my tone generator to the | right frequency can be enough to stop it annoying me (it | becomes less noticeable). | | Im curious if anyone else has tried similar? | xivzgrev wrote: | I developed it as a kid, and even though I feel a lot of | anxiety in life, I don't feel anxious about it. | | Maybe it's easier for us to accept certain things when we are | younger. if it happened today I probably would be more anxious | about it. It also helps that mine hasn't gotten worse - I | noticed it, took corrective action, and continue to be mindful | about it thru today | d4rkp4ttern wrote: | What kind of corrective action did you take if you don't mind | sharing ? | [deleted] | neals wrote: | Thanks, now I feel my pants | derekp7 wrote: | Reminds me of the Aware of Tongue Peanuts cartoon strip from | way back when. | yesenadam wrote: | Your comment reminded me that I can see my nose. | gumby wrote: | In this work from home world, who wears pants anymore? | Perhaps you are experiencing the "phantom pants" phenomenon. | notRobot wrote: | Thanks for the recommendation, will look it up. I have friends | who suffer from tinnitus and I hope it can help them. | dazc wrote: | https://www.hear-it.org/Tinnitus-Retraining-Therapy | KennyBlanken wrote: | What is the scientific evidence regarding said "protocol"? | | I don't get my medical advice based off what some guy who | starred in a low-budget sci-fi space soap for three seasons | thinks. | tester89 wrote: | To be clear, this is FX-322. | maroonblazer wrote: | The article says the treatment focuses on increased speech | intelligibility. Speech, depending on how you define it, can | occupy a fairly narrow range of the audio spectrum that humans | can perceive. | | My hearing loss is mostly on the high end (10-12K and above) and | impedes my ability to hear speech in noisy environments. More | troubling has been the inability to enjoy music/sound in those | upper ranges, resulting in the music lacking a certain sparkle | and brilliance. | | I hope this therapy regenerates hair cells across the entire | spectrum. | biggieshellz wrote: | Check out Crescendo (http://refined- | audiometrics.com/wordpress1/) -- an engineer/musician with a | hearing loss similar to yours has developed a piece of software | that's like a "super" hearing aid (non-linear compression per | Bark band) that helps to bring the sparkle back for music. | rhubarbcustard wrote: | Thanks for sharing that, its got some amazingly deep articles | on audiology. It's really hard though, to find out what | Crescendo actually is and how to buy it! | biggieshellz wrote: | I think you need to email David McClain to buy a compiled | version, but the source (not including the plugin wrappers, | etc.) is here: https://github.com/dbmcclain/Crescendo- | Hearing-Correction | hunter2_ wrote: | Have you played around with an equalizer (hardware or software, | doesn't matter) that offers rather extreme adjustments like | +15dB or more, to see if you can approximate a flat source+ear | system? Or is your loss more like a brickwall filter than a | 12dB/octave slope for example? | | I'm an audio engineer, not an audiologist, so I'm just shooting | from the hip here as it's something I've been curious about in | case I develop a similar issue as I age. | ddingus wrote: | Another thing they could try would be a different eq curve | overall. | | I always find The Sound of Music as reproduced on older | narrow band with am radios and phonographs interesting. A lot | of that gear doesn't really produce anything over 10 khz. | | But, where they emphasized frequencies in the spectrum is | different from Modern equipment, which basically is shooting | for flat response. | | My grandfather's old radio, when played in a room have a | comfortable volume, sounds really good. It's present. And | even when I use the little transmitter to send it an | idealized signal, it had a roll off starting around 8khz, the | absolute high-end was maybe 12khz. | | I never took the time to analyze it in detail, and kind of | wish I had. The usual 62-100 hurts emphasis, like what you'll | find on your typical loudness button on a 70's or 80's stereo | was there. But it also shaped the sound in 3 to 8khz range. | | The end result was a very natural sound the didn't overpower, | felt like it should be there in the room with all the other | sounds. | | Wish I could say more but I'm not where I have any detail | information. I can say the enjoyment of the music is | different, and fulfilling. It's not bright, like those higher | frequencies bring to the overall feel of the program being | produced. | | Robust, full, seem descriptive... clear is another one. | Often, when I hear high bandwidth audio, through limited | devices, it seems muddy, unclear, not precise. Those older | radios are not like that. Well, the better ones anyway. | | In any case, the eq is different, and that impacts our | perception related to the overall feel of the sound. | | Sorry for the typos. I'm doing this with the voice dictation. | I may actually go back and revisit this myself. As I age up | I'm getting be expected, natural roll off most all of us get | in our later years. | wrycoder wrote: | I think one of the reasons for vinyl's reputation is that | it's often played on old sound systems. Ones with real bass | and treble controls! | biggieshellz wrote: | Please don't do this. This would work for a conductive | hearing loss (ear drum or bones in your ear messed up, etc.) | but not for a sensorineural hearing loss (like what you get | from aging or from noise exposure). You need non-linear | compression to compensate for loudness recruitment. At a | basic level, when you have sensorineural hearing loss, soft | sounds will sound way softer than they should (or be below | the threshold of audibility), but loud sounds will sound | about the same as they should. If you crank up the volume for | the affected frequency bands to make it sound right for soft | sounds, then with loud transients, it will sound _way_ too | loud, and potentially do more damage to your hearing. | | Look at https://positive-feedback.com/Issue66/hearing.htm if | you want to hack something together that will work better and | not damage your hearing. | wrycoder wrote: | Quite right! I'm quite "deaf" in the sense that I can't | understand what people are saying - they sound muffled (and | I can't separate two people talking at once anymore). | | But, I'm actually quite sensitive to loud noises! | | What I need is equalization and compression, so I can hear | the soft noises. I don't need much, if any, overall gain. | | Why can't Apple provide that, they have all the necessary | technology at hand? | hunter2_ wrote: | Do hearing aids offer this sort of multiband compression? | I've heard about hearing aids that act as Bluetooth | headphones, so presumably your Apple device could send | its unaltered audio over Bluetooth and then the hearing | aid's custom programming could handle things from there? | biggieshellz wrote: | Yes, they do (in fact, they have custom hardware to do | it), but the power budget is very, very small, so there | have to be tradeoffs made, both in terms of the | processing and in terms of the actual transducer. | wrycoder wrote: | People are used to recharging AirPods frequently, and | their hardware exceeds what is in a hearing aid. So, I | wish Apple would enter this underserved market and stop | just making "works with iPhone" deals with the hearing | aid companies. | hunter2_ wrote: | Thanks! | theyeenzbeanz wrote: | I miss being able to hear every little note with full range. A | combination of construction noise and some loud music did it | for me and I can't even "imagine" music with full range in my | head like I use to before my hearing damage and tinnitus. | retrac wrote: | This reminds me of one aspect of my hearing loss that's been | hard to explain. | | Amplification doesn't fix everything. My hearing loss is | complex, a mix of conduction problems in the middle ear and | something neurological as well. I can hear very high and very | low frequencies surprisingly well. There's a big bite out of | the main speech band, though. | | I find that speech, with background noise, that goes through a | mediocre microphone, 200 - 3000 Hz pass filter, and then a | digital compression codec, and then through a loudspeaker -- no | matter how loud -- can sometimes be nearly unintelligible to | me. It's loud enough. But I can't figure out which sound that's | supposed to be. It's just too distorted. | | I take my hearing aids out to listen to music, most of the | time. Despite usually being able to better hear the melody and | lyrics with the hearing aids in. Because I know the sparkle you | speak of, and it's wrecked by all but the very best-quality | electronic amplification. Some people think it's odd that I'm | finnicky about quality speakers, etc. when I'm half deaf. But | every decibel of SNR counts when I lose most of it in my head. | | (And I too hope one day they can fix that for both of us.) | wrycoder wrote: | The other thing you miss with hearing aids, and even | headphones, are the low frequencies picked up more by the | body than the ears. Sunn O))), for example. I'd rather listen | raw, too, but I raise the level somewhat, which can bother | others. | | What I probably need is a DAC for my sound system. The music | streaming services like Apple don't provide an adequate way | to equalize the audio and balance to compensate for my | hearing loss. | | Edit: I keep hoping that Apple will do a better job here with | their next release of AirPods Pro. One of the problems with | Apple Music is they set the max volume too low. I can sort of | understand the desire to help people protect their hearing, | but their max level is less than IRL, and there is no way to | bypass that setting. | | Tidal is better. And there are plenty of YouTube channels I | listen to at half volume, so it's not the Apple hardware | causing the problem. | skybrian wrote: | I tend to listen to instrumental music. In part that's because | I play an instrument, and in part it's likely due to hearing | loss making words not that easy to understand. I also find I | prefer vocals in foreign languages since there's no point in | trying to understand them. | | There's still plenty of good music out there. | | I also find that my hearing aids aren't great for music due to | how much they change timbre from boosting the high end, so I | use regular ear buds instead. | ddingus wrote: | As my own normal, age related roll off advances, I find all | the good stuff is under 10 to 12Khz. | | I mentioned different eq curves down thread. I don't have a | lot of technical data at hand, but older radios from the | vacuum tube era where they had response over 10 khz. | | A good one, play that a respectable volume in a room, sounds | pretty great! | | What I'm kind of hinting at here is there maybe Equalization | curves that can satisfy our need for that bright open sense | that is missing when the higher frequencies are also missing. | biggieshellz wrote: | That's not surprising, as what we think of as "presence" is | usually in the ~4 KHz range, where our ears are the most | sensitive. What's over 10 KHz may provide a sense of "air" | but doesn't convey as much information. | ddingus wrote: | Yup. Agreed. | | Maybe the 4khz range is what was emphasized on older | audio gear. I am thinking about the great overall impact | that gear delivered is intriguing to me. | vanderZwan wrote: | I have sudden deafness in my left ear (meaning: I just woke up | deaf one day and they don't know why) in _exactly_ the | frequency range used for speech. Even more than a decade later | it feels weird that I can still hear certain common background | noises but humans are almost completely silent on my left side | yesenadam wrote: | > I have sudden deafness in my left ear (meaning: I just woke | up deaf one day and they don't know why) | | Ah, me too, but no sound at all. A specialist told me it was | caused by a virus, but I never looked into which one, or | asked for more info.. There was no treatment, except cochlear | implant, which didn't sound too great. Hopefully it doesn't | happen in the other ear also! | encoderer wrote: | What the heck is going on with tinnitus? | | https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... | | I've been afflicted with tinnitus after a mild covid case in | January and now that I'm looking it seems like this is a growing | problem. So many comments here about tinnitus. | macinjosh wrote: | Airpods maybe? | encoderer wrote: | Big if true, right? I know iPhone will warn you if you've had | too much loud music on AirPods but people might not take that | seriously enough. | Earw0rm wrote: | Had the same for some time after (first round of) mild covid. | | Not the usual steady tone tinnitus either.. almost like a loose | wire sending a very specific frequency in one ear. | | Spontaneously resolved after 4 months or so, no recurrence with | a second round of covid. | brihter wrote: | +1. | marz0 wrote: | * Trigger warning * | | Texas Roadhouse CEO developed severe tinnitus after having | COVID and took his own life because of it [0] | | [0] https://amp.courier-journal.com/amp/4759047001 | Ancalagon wrote: | My guess is Covid, earbuds, and in general a much louder | society than in decades past | sonicggg wrote: | I am in the same boat. In my case, I think Covid affected the | microcirculation in my ear. I've been having success in | addressing it through therapies to promote blood flow and | endothelial repair. | deelowe wrote: | Hearing loss is one thing but it's the tinnitus that really | bothers me. Hope something that can reverse the damage becomes | available in my lifetime. | d4rkp4ttern wrote: | Is there any actual "damage" known to be associated with | tinnitus? | hprotagonist wrote: | Tinnitus is a subjective percept that arises from many, often | independent, causes. Some of those causes involve hearing | loss, hair cell death, hair cell deafferentiation. Some | don't. | deelowe wrote: | My understanding is it is often due to damaged hairs/cells in | the cochlea. | jFriedensreich wrote: | tinnitus is a known sideeffect of hearing loss, possibly due | to changes in regulation of nerves making up for reduced | signals. Another aspect is that often tinnitus and hearing | loss are both effects of a "horsturz"(there seems to be no | easy to find translation in english, basically horsturz is | like a stroke inside the ear and results in severe tinnitus | and/or hearing loss) | d4rkp4ttern wrote: | Interesting. I have mild tinnitus but my hearing is perfect | (was tested) | DoreenMichele wrote: | A search of the comments shows 79 hits for _tinnitus_ and zero | for _magnesium_. If you suffer tinnitus, look into magnesium | supplementation. Studies show people with tinnitus have low | magnesium and anecdotal evidence suggests magnesium helps reduce | symptoms. | | https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/tinnitus-and-magnesium | adampk wrote: | Does anyone know if this can finally be a treatment for tinnitus? | I would love to hear silence again. | detritus wrote: | I've got pretty bad - although not constant - tinnitus in my | left ear after a particularly loud NYE too late in life. | | What I find interesting though, is that I distinctly remember | as a young kid living in the countryside that I found it | impossible to hear absolute silence. I distinctly remember | sitting on a bale of hay on a bright summer's day with not even | a breeze and the quieter I perceived things, the louder a 'TV- | like wheeee' noise (as I knew it at the time) became to fill | the void. I always thought I had a special talent for being | able to tell when a TV (CRT) was on anywhere in the hosue, as I | could hear its high pitched whirr. | | Now as an occasional sufferer of fairly bad tinnitus, I often | wonder what any of the above means, as there's surely something | in it. | | Only coping strategy I have is to not fixate on it, whereupon | it dies down. That's tricky those times it crops up at | nighttime and I'm staring at the ceiling at 4am trying | desperately to get back to sleep... . | smooc wrote: | O that's interesting. I was able to do the same (tv, | refrigerator, etc). I also lived country side and I have | hearing loss (35db) and tinnitus (sometimes? moderate?) in my | left ear, but seemingly due to a virus infection. | | I have never encountered someone else that was able to hear | whether a tv was on or not. At what distance could you do | that? | kaybe wrote: | Some of them used to make noise. Ours stopped for a while | when you gave it a whack from above. | detritus wrote: | At least within the house - we moved around a lot, but I | lived in a few three storey stonework houses, and could | generally tell from 'the other end' of the house if the TV | was on. | | I don't recall hearing the same noise from fridges though! | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | It only works with CRT TVs though. It's a 15khz tone, due | to magnetostriction in the flyback transformer: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer | ddingus wrote: | I can hear whether they were on or off, and whether they | were tuned to a signal or not. | | A video signal synchronized up has a very distinct profile, | and people who can hear about 15 khz can hear the sync | signals modulating the higher frequency component. | | I could at one point, adjust horizontal and vertical hold | to a stable signal eyes closed. | | Some sets were very loud, and I could hear them rooms away. | Walking The Halls in my primary school, I could walk by the | classrooms and say they have a TV on oh, and nail it a | hundred percent every time. | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | I had the same experience when visiting an anechoic chamber. | I think the explanation is that without external stimuli, | your brain cranks up the input gain to the max, at which | point you begin to hear the ambient "neural noise" from your | auditory circuitry. People taking DMT or ayahuasca also often | experience an extremely high-pitched sound as the drug kicks | in, which also suggests a neurological basis for the | phenomenon. | detritus wrote: | I must try an anechoic chamber one day - I must! | | I never got the 'nee-naw nee-naws' from DMT or Ayahuasca | when I did such things, but I absolutely did when going | deep on Nitrous Oxide. DMT was always entirely (and oh my | gosh so absolutely) visual for me. | ddingus wrote: | Another way to do this, that might be less stressful or | painful, is to just spend a week out in nature. | | We go four week long Outdoor Adventures, where nothing | works except for AM radio late at night. | | After a few days, hearing very significantly improves. On | the last trip we took a Macbook, and watch the movie about | 4 days in, and we're shocked at just how great that laptop | sounded! It seems very loud and amazing, where in an | ordinary City environment it's just normal acceptable | sound. | | Any of you that get a chance to try this really should, | it's dramatic. And it makes me really appreciate the audio | engineering that went into those devices. A lot of that | engineering won't ever be heard by people for in urban | environments, but it is there, the work was done, and the | results are pretty fantastic. | Asooka wrote: | Wait hold up, you mean that's not normal? Hearing a high | pitch noise all the time I mean. I thought it was like when | you're in full darkness and you "see" shapes because your | brain is trying to interpret the subtle residual signals on | neurons lacking direct stimulation. | detritus wrote: | Apparently not. It's a long-time since, but I remember | adults largely couldn't hear it (not too surprising) but I | had friends my age who hadn't a clue what I was on about | either - a sentiment shared by at least one other | neighbouring commenter. | marvin wrote: | I've always heard ringing at very high frequencies; 17-20kHz | when it's quiet. Can't remember ever not hearing this. | Sometimes the ringing has pulsating increases in loudness | synchronized with my heartbeat. Also have a little bit of | tinnitus on both ears, different frequencies. | | Never really considered the high-frequency experience a | problem; it's just always been part of my sensory experience. | beanders wrote: | Wow, I thought I was the only one with the TV thing! I | remember it as young as 4-5, but no one knew what I was | talking about. I've had constant minor tinnitus since then, | so I can't help but feeling like there's a CRT near my head | that has been running since the early nineties. | ddingus wrote: | I used to be able to hear whether the TV was in sync or not | as well. Probably still can oh, but I don't know I don't | really have one handy. | | Some of those television sets were super loud! | | Some of the minor tinnitus I have, as in those frequency | ranges. And it doesn't really bother me, because I grew up | with CRTs. | antattack wrote: | I also could hear CRT when on (probably high voltage PSU) | as a kid. Recently, I thought my tinnitus got worse until I | found that one of my smart power supplies started making | high pitch sound (ceramic capacitors in power supplies | cause it). | kradeelav wrote: | I foresee this being wicked cool in combination with current | cochlear implant (CI) technology which is already quite mature | (30-40+ years). Not a scientist, but something makes me think | CI's could at least leap-frog or fill in the gaps of this therapy | while it's in a less mature state. | sn00tz00t wrote: | I've heard anecdotal evidence that psilocybin can help those hard | of hearing | armedpacifist wrote: | You might be referring to a quote from Paul Stamets. I am not | an expert, so here's my anecdotal take on it: when I drink | alcohol, my mild tinitus completely fades away. I'm highly | suspecting it has something to do with lowering blood pressure. | Psylocybine is also known to affect blood pressure, (both | rising and lowering). Then again, so is trying to relax. Being | a micro doser myself, I have become very sceptical about the | psylocybine craze lately. It's being advocated as a panacea, | which it's obviously not. I know you are referring to an | anecdote, but it's not far off from what I've seen being pushed | by these so called 'institutions' without any substantial | evidence. The quackery going on is pretty worrysome and will | end up damaging the image of psylocybine yet again, imho. | incomingpain wrote: | >drug candidate stimulates the growth of hair cells in the inner | ear. | | Oh I don't have trouble growing hair in my ears. I have trouble | hearing. | eezynow wrote: | i am an audiologist and see an inordinate amount of ear hair. | funny, thanks. | d4rkp4ttern wrote: | "Hair in inner ear" -- they're talking about microscopic cilia | in the cochlear passages | FairDune wrote: | This would be amazing for me. I have had unilateral hearing loss | due to mumps since childhood. | brewdad wrote: | Same here though mine was probably due to an undiagnosed ear | infection as an infant. | | One weird instance happened about 25 years ago. I suffered a | severe blow to the back of my head. My hearing in my bad ear | actually came back for a while but it was like listening to a | poorly tuned radio. Proper volume but full of static. After a | week or so, my hearing returned back to its normal deficient | state. No idea what exactly happened or why. | Workaccount2 wrote: | I wonder if this will treat hidden hearing loss at all. | | I check all the boxes for tinnitus behavior (loud blasting music | hours a day for years) but only have mild tinnitus at worst. I do | however have hidden hearing loss, where I absolutely cannot | understand what people are saying if there is too much ambient | noise. Bars are hopeless situations for conversation, even a fan | on in a room can make conversing difficult. It would be nice to | revert this (and secretly go back to occasionally blasting music | so loud your organs feel it). | magnetic wrote: | AFAIK hidden hearing loss is due to synaptopathy (see | Liberman's work). This work helps regrow hair cells, though. | Does your Pure Tone Audiometry show any losses at all on your | audiogram? It would be surprising that such an auditory insult | had no damaging effect on your hair cells, so you may still | benefit from this if it works. | gedy wrote: | I have sensoneural hearing loss, mostly in one ear, and the | annoying thing about it is hearing aids don't really help much | because of the distorted frequencies and non linear loss. | | Before I had this I assumed wrongly that hearing loss could | always be fixed by making sound louder. (It doesn't, just sounds | like a voice disguiser or someone on Helium talking through a bad | speaker.) | | This looks promising. | navbaker wrote: | I've had two bouts of SSNL, both in the right ear. The first | only took my high end frequencies, so a hearing aid did work, | but the second just about flatlined my hearing in that ear, so | the hearing aid only gives the results you're referencing. I | have a date for surgery to implant a bone-conducting hearing | aid next month, it should hopefully restore hearing from that | side. Definitely talk to your ENT about that option, the | processor mounts magnetically (no cochlear implant style port | in your head), so you can get away from the feeling of a | hearing aid plugging up your ear! | gedy wrote: | Thanks, I thought bone conducting still depended on the | damaged hairs in ear for transferring to nerves though? | navbaker wrote: | It does, but as long as you have a functioning inner ear on | one side, the bone conduction will transmit sound to that | side. | julianlam wrote: | My understanding of hearing aids is not that it makes sounds | louder across the entire spectrum, but only selective | frequencies? | | An audiologist should be able to tune your hearing aids to | amplify only those frequencies that need amplification. | | (Although my understanding is that this is fairly new, and may | not be available around the world) | navbaker wrote: | My hearing loss got to a point where tuning the hearing aid | to the point where it sufficiently amplified sound for me to | distinguish speech made it so loud that it sounded to my | brain like a normal speaking volume, but it caused physical | pain in my ear. | gedy wrote: | Yes I have tuned hearing aids and unfortunately my SNHL still | struggles with speech perception. | rini17 wrote: | Yes hearing aids tuning is a thing, often must be done | repeatedly because of discomfort. | | But the serious problem with hearing loss is the "bandwidth", | meaning the damaged cells send less information to the brain | even if attenuation is compensated by hearing aid, leading to | bad recognition of sounds and speech. | rhubarbcustard wrote: | With most new hearing aids users, multiple tunings are | required as they cannot handle the new volume and intensity | of sounds that hey haven't heard for years. | | An audiologist will typically test someone, see that they | need amplications across the range but send them away with | a much lower amplification for a weeks to get used to | things. Then bring the volume up as time goes by. | | People amy also need to get used to the aid's noise | reduction algorithms as they can seem unatural at first and | is a nightmare for anyone who used to wear an old analog | hearing aid with no noise reduction. | | So, yeah, hearing aids are rarely plug-and-play from day | one - the user needs time to adjust. | rhubarbcustard wrote: | A non-linear loss should not be an issue for any modern hearing | aid, they are designed specifically to deal with that. I've | never seen an audiogram with a complete flat (linear) loss, I'm | sure some have it but its not common. | | I have a severe sensorineural loss in both ears and wears | hearing aids with a lot of success. My loss was the result of | some unknown illness when I was younger - a loss resulting from | illness or drug reaction tend to present randomly across the | frequencies, whereas an age-related loss is almost always a | "ski slope" loss, which means the high frequencies are mostly | lost and the lowers are mostly fine. | | Your experience is very common with new hearing aid users. The | aids are able to increase volume at specific frequencies as | defined by your hearing test(s) and the other features of the | aid, e.g. noise reduction and compression are able to give a | great quality of sound. The problem is usually in the person's | ability to comprehend these new sounds, i.e. their brain, not | their ears. A person with a hearing loss typically takes seven | years to try out hearing aids, in those years their brain has | got used to not hearing certain frequencies and sounds | altogether and it can take time and training to get that | ability back. | | There is not really a great set of tools for brain training | part of the hearing problem at the moment, in my opinion its | badly overlooked by the hearing industry. | | This is a very interesting book: | https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262045869 | eurasiantiger wrote: | There are some interesting avenues of research for | sensorineural hearing loss, such as the non-linearity- and | distortion-inducing effects of some psychedelic tryptamines | such as DiPT. Psychedelics tend to increase neuroplasticity, | and these could do it specifically for aural processing. | vemv wrote: | Earlier this week I started feeling hearing discomfort for | certain textures of sounds - namely those metallic or screeching. | | I don't feel pain or ringing but those sounds definitely irritate | me in a disproportionate way. | | Does that sound familiar to anyone? | | (I have a specialist appointment in the way but I'm quite anxious | in the meantime) | c61746961 wrote: | Look up hyperacusis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis) | pacomerh wrote: | I've seen news related to this FX-322 drug, but it's never clear | to me if this works or not, or if it will be available to the | public somehow. I lost my hi-freq in one ear due to inflammation | if the cochlea (vestibular neuritis). Would love to know if this | could help grow those hair cells back. That also gave me tinitus, | but I don't really care about tinitus, I just want to get those | frequencies back. | | Also found there's FX-345: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4js_9GUwc | egberts1 wrote: | Since it's a trial, I would not recommend deaf/hard-of-hearing | who had spinal meningitis of this trial ... yet. | ensan wrote: | I have been seeing a lot of news articles from university | websites on HN recently. | | Do people realize that they essentially function as hype- | generation outlets and are not intended to provide an objective | and unbiased assessment of the research? | maxerickson wrote: | It's a press release, most people with some amount of media | literacy understand what they are. | | And really, the original press releases tend to be quite a bit | better than the 'science blog' articles that regurgitate them, | coming from a university url isn't a bad thing. | mastercheif wrote: | I think most here are interested in hearing about what cool new | research is being performed at the top universities regardless | if the article itself includes the conclusions of the studies + | peer review. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-15 23:00 UTC)