Tinnitus: Eyelid Twitching?

You may have involuntary eyelid twitches in association with your tinnitus. You may have thought of the eyelid twitching as a separate issue from the tinnitus but the two issues may be a sign of non-cilia generated tinnitus. You likely have damage to some other part of your auditory system besides the cochlea. You may be experiencing hyperacusis.

Getting to the source of your tinnitus is important. The source can help you to determine how best to treat the tinnitus. Complete the following survey (for yourself, don't send your results to me).

1. Are one of your eyelids twitching? Y or N

2. Do you sometimes notice a physical tugging sensation inside of your ears? Y or N

3. Do you hear a vrooom sound that moves from one ear to the other? Y or N

4. Do certain sounds (e.g. phone, printer, lawn equipment, high pitch noises) amplify louder than normal, inside of your ears, and trigger your tinnitus? Y or N

5. Are you frustrated that your medical providers are not able to diagnose your condition? Y or N 

6. Does your auditory system seem to react to radio frequency? Y or N

7. Do you experience cricket sounds at random times? Y or N

8. If you experience a tugging sensation, what triggers it? Eye drops? Y or N, Caffiene? Y or N, Fatigue? Y or N

9. Have you ever had a traumatic brain injury? Y or N

10. Have you been overexposed to loud noises such as gunfire, fireworks, lawn equipment, concerts, industrial noise, etc? 

Y or N

If you answered yes to any of questions 1-5, 7 or 8 then you likely are experiencing hyperacusis in tandem with your tinnitus. Hyperacusis can trigger the tinnitus and make it sound even louder. 

If you answered yes to question 6 then you may have electromagnetic sensitivity in association with your tinnitus. It is possible to have all three conditions.

If the hairlike cells inside of your cochlea are not damaged and you don't have some form of brain damage that is driving your tinnitus then you may benefit from surgery. Consult your doctor.

If you answered yes to question 9 then you may have damaged your auditory system as a result of your traumatic brain injury.

If you answered yes to 10 then you likely have broken or bent cilia inside of your cochlea. Only time will tell whether it will be short-term or chronic long-term tinnitus.

If you answered yes to all of the above then you probably have a little of everything, which is rare, but possible. For example, veterans who have experienced explosions and live fire may have been exposed to traumatic brain injury and extremely loud sudden noise at the same time. Police officers, fire fighters and ambulance crews may also experience similar issues for obvious reasons.

I designed this survey to help you to gain a general idea of the source of your tinnitus. Hopefully it may save you years of medical appointments and give you some treatment options to discuss with your medical provider. 

Tinnitus: Herbal Remedies

When first diagnosed with severe chronic tinnitus caused by cilia damage it can be hard to take. Let's face it, no one likes unhappy endings, especially when it is our own unhappy ending. Learning that we will likely never experience a quiet moment again in our lifetime is a difficult pill to swallow.

There is no cure for severe chronic (long-term) tinnitus that is caused by cilia amputation inside of the cochlea. Acute (short-term) tinnitus cures itself. Chronic severe tinnitus caused by cilia damage does not cure itself. Most tinnitus (not all) is typically an amputation of critical hair-like cells inside of the cochlea (cilia) due to noise induced damage.

There are treatments that help people with severe chronic tinnitus to cope. A treatment is not a cure. Some herbal remedy companies that are not approved by the FDA claim to cure tinnitus. They are free to do so. You are free to believe them and try the product. I don't endorse them. When advertisers try to post a link to their site in the comments section of this blog I delete them. Hopefully these advertisers will get the message. They have plenty of space on the internet to sell their products.

If you've stopped at this site to be genuinely informed then you should know that no one has ever cured themselves of chronic tinnitus that is caused by cilia amputation by using an herbal remedy at home. The people who claim a cure occurred are acute tinnitus sufferers who take the herbal remedy and coincidentally their acute tinnitus goes away because the cilia inside of the cochlea have not been amputated and the cilia have stood back up on their own. It had nothing to do with any herbal remedy that the individual was taking at that time. The tinnitus was acute.

Tinnitus can also be caused by other damage besides cilia damage inside of the cochlea. Brain damage, blood pressure issues, auditory nerve damage can all cause the brain to initiate the internal alarm sound of ringing, hissing, crackling, thumping, etc. Consult your doctor as to whether an herbal remedy may help you in that regard. A good treatment team can help you to understand the source of your tinnitus.

Claiming that someone with long-term/chronic severe tinnitus, caused by cochlear cilia amputation, was cured with an herbal remedy is like saying that an amputee grew his or her arm back by taking an herbal remedy. Just because the amputation inside of the auditory system is microscopic doesn't mean that the amputation is any more responsive to herbal remedies than let's say, an arm. We all know that an herbal remedy cannot grow an arm back.

Once gone the cilia do not grow back...period.  If an herbal remedy ever cured anyone it would be someone whose cilia was still intact but had a different source for their tinnitus besides amputated cilia.

Tinnitus: Stem Cells and Synthetic Cells

Researchers and medical providers know that the most common cause of tinnitus is noise. The noise either bends or breaks the cilia inside of the cochlea. If the cilia is bent it may straighten up over time. The tinnitus goes away when the cilia straightens up. If the cilia is broken off then severe chronic tinnitus is typically the result. It will never stop until researchers find a cure.

Theoretically, if a stem cell cilia were planted inside the cochlea where the fallen cilia used to be plugged in then we may have a future breakthrough. If we think of the auditory system from brain to cochlea and back again as a closed circuit then we can imagine how plugging the appropriate stem cilia cell into the appropriate base would lead to a cure for most tinnitus sufferers. Think of this process as analogous to replacing a blown fuse in an electrical panel. We would have to search for that exact one by trial and error by plugging a new bulb into each holder until suddenly the lights would turn on.

The problem lies in producing and replicating cells at the microscopic level and then having the tools to plug them in. As for the cells, I would guess that Craig Venter is on to something with synthetic cells development.

To my knowledge cilia cell replication has never been accomplished. But Venter et al. could soon figure out the code for cilia cell DNA and generate synthetic cilia cells.

This research is in its infancy but Harvard University is also experimenting with creating microscopic objects that are smaller than a human hair. They've achieved some success in creating microscopic flowers.

If these researchers could somehow create cilia cells (using our own stem cells from skin samples or creating synthetic cilia cells) and if they could invent instruments to perform the surgery necessary to plug in the new cilia cells most cases of severe chronic subjective tinnitus due to noise damage would likely be cured. This is very promising research.

Here is more information on the topic:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2013/05/20/185509508/nanogardens-sprout-up-on-the-surface-of-a-penny?ft=1&f=1007&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=nprscience

Tinnitus: Significant Discovery May Help to Cure Tinnitus

A recent study by Dr. Baraniuk of Georgetown University showed physical damage to axons in the frontal lobe of the brain that cause pain sensations and a multitude of chronic illnesses for Gulf War Era veterans, especially veterans that were deployed in the region.

I've mentioned before on this site that pain is pain regardless of whether it is perceived and interpreted in the brain or not. It is not imaginary just because damage to the brain is causing it. The damage is real. The location of the pain may not be accurate. A damaged brain can accidentally launch pain signals that really feel like the pain is in the lower back, yet there is no damage in the low back...the physical damage is in the brain.

Recently, Dr. Baraniuk and his team of researchers at Georgetown University, published findings that correlate damaged brain axons as a source of many veteran's complaints of pain from Gulf War Illness (GWI).

Tinnitus is like pain. Could damaged axons inside of the brain be causing internal ringing, hissing, popping, or thumping sounds inside of the ears of Gulf War veterans?

Since tinnitus is the number one issue that the Department of Veterans Affairs deals with we have to consider that Dr. Baraniuk may have inadvertently stumbled upon a source of the severe chronic tinnitus that many veterans suffer from. If there is a correlation between his findings and tinnitus it means that ear plugs and/or headsets really would not have helped prevent the axon damage.

So what is the source of this damage. The article suggests a number of chemical and biological exposure possibilities. What it doesn't consider is the possibility of electromagnetic and/or radio frequency radiation overexposure due to radar leakage and radar refraction that may cause charged particles to pass through the brains of service members and flip the switches in the human brain and forever alter the pain receptors. The service member/veteran may experience acute symptoms and heal or slowly debilitate over time. Dr. Baraniuk mentions that the veterans that spearheaded the Gulf War Illness movement 10 years ago are now walking with canes!

If Dr. Baraniuk begins to map the damaged axons to the actual pain areas of the body then researchers, in the future, may be able to isolate and shut off or repair the axons responsible for generating the pain or internal sound generated by the brain thus curing many people. That is my hope.

Here is the article that may lead to a Gulf War Illness or tinnitus cure one day: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0058493