The latest NewSuperstitionist has a big headline about a cure for tinnitus. I read it eagerly, but the article doesn’t live up to its billing.
First, the finding is only about noise-induced tinnitus, which isn’t my problem. I first noticed the ringing around age 8, long before I was exposed to noise, and the baseline hasn’t changed much over the years. It gets worse under stress or inflammation, then returns to the same baseline. Along with the more recent vestibular crap, this probably qualifies as Menieres, not noise or aging.
Second, the new discovery doesn’t seem especially helpful. It finds that noise-induced tinnitus arises in damaged nerves FROM the cochlea, not in damaged sensory hair cells INSIDE the cochlea. Supposedly those nerve wires will be easier to replace than the hair cells, but there’s still no magic mechanism to do either kind of replacement.
Polistra's Mill 