Anyone successful in dealing with Tinnitus?

All affected should be aware that there is research to regrow cochlear hair, and so far researchers have been successful in growing more (not re-growing after apoptosis or complete deafness) cochlear hair in mice (a mammal) as of 2-3 years ago, under certain laboratory conditions. They know regeneration is possible, and therefore there is hope.

See http://audiology.advanceweb.com/Article/Regrowing-Hair-Cells-in-the-Human-Cochlea.aspx and http://depts.washington.edu/hearing/InnerEarHairCellRegeneration.php

David12:

Do you have an alternative to syringing for ear wax? I've not had the experience of it aggravating tinnitus, and it certainly improves my hearing, if done from time to time.

John

Ack there you go, simple country Doctors do'nt know all the latest research. The Cochlear hair growth project sounds interesting, though as you know it is probably a long way from day to day clinical application.

john I try to advise tinnitus sufferers not to get syringed. An ENT colleague has confirmed he has seen the same result from syringing, on occasion. I tend to recommend warmed olive oil repeated for over a week. That can be interspersed with baking soda in a little water, though that can cause reactions in the ear, as can many of the proprietry brands of wax softeners you can buy at your pharmacy. If that fails you can go for simple aural toilet, where you use a little hoover gadget to clear out the ear.

I've been to three dr.s and one told me that ear plugs make it worse. Well, I had been wearing those for years at work and I stopped. I did notice some improvement. I started wearing noise suppression headphones and that helped further. (If you're a tradesperson, these are highly recommended) There is a therapy available (neuromonics) but it's $5k and not covered by insurance.

>>1) Symetrical tinnitus developing in your 50's 60's, is unlikely to be clinically significant. It represents hair cell degeneration in the Cochlea, usually, but not always accompanied with some hearing loss, mine is'nt.<<

This statement seems impossible.How could you hear a test frequency when your ringing ears are masking it.I went to one ENT group years back and saw the equipment used for the hearing test and could say it was of poor quality.They said they only need to test the few frequencies that were printed out on the paper they gave me.If your ringing isn't in this this limited test range,it may give the illusion you have no hearing loss.If they changed the standards to high quality tests and equipment,there may be a lot of more accurate results.Apparently,if more money was to be made in this type of medical research,with more profit returns for the pharmaceutical and other interests involved,there might be better help for the affected people.