I know that we're all reaching a certain age and that our hearing is going right in the you know garbage. I am super excited right now to have two guests on the show. One of them my longtime friend and has really done so much for Chuck in terms of
battling his tonightis doctor Patty from Colorado. Tonightis in hearing center, and she has brought in from across the pond, as they say, or they used to say, doctor Ross O'Neill, who has invented something that is an actual treatment for tonight's instead of what's been available at to this point, which are pretty high speed hearing aids that actually mask the sound of tonightis. And this is kind of revolutionary, doctor Patty.
It is.
You're right typically, you know, in the last twenty years. That's when we started our clinic twenty years ago, you know, really when we started out.
All we had was maskers.
Eventually, other products have come out over those last twenty years that you know, have come and gone unfortunately where we've tried them for maybe six months to a year and they've gone. But hearing needs really have been the mainstay of bringing that patient because most of the time if there's hearing loss, most of the time patients ninety percent of patients are going to say they have ringing
in their ears. Right, So if we bring that hearing up and correct for that hearing and give that brain back what it's deprived, a lot of times patients will say, yeah, I noticed some improvement.
And many years ago, doctor Patty explained to me in a very rudimentary fashion, what tonight's is, and it is not an actual ringing. It is that parts of your brain little little you know, feathers or for lack of a better way to put it, they're damaged, but they're still sending or the brain is perceiving them as sending signals that are no longer being accepted. So it's basically the brain filling the gap of that damaged hearing. I have explained this to so many people it's not even funny.
So if I'm wrong, you need to correct me now.
And as that.
No in your correct is as that brain has a hearing loss or is auditorily deprived, that that neurosensory what we call hyperactive, tries to fill it in because it's not getting the stimulation, kind of like a phantom limb syndrome. Right, you got the foot off patient still saying hey, my foot hurts.
So again it's.
That hyperactivity in ross can give you the neuroscience behind it, but but yeah, it's just bringing that stimulation back up so that brain is not looking for that signal.
So doctor Neil, let me come to you, because this is how did this become your field of study?
What led you here?
Well?
Originally, I so I'm a PhD biomedical engineer by trades, of course, and I was I was looking at phantom limb pain actually originally, and then I started to look at the kind of wider disorders that are related to doctor are called illusory perceptual disorders. So tennessis is one. You know, there's one for every sense. Probably the strangest one is one for vision. It's called Charles one a syndrome.
It's where you see things, you have non psychotic visual illusions because so you see things like World War two soldiers at the bottom of your bed and they're not really there. So yeah, it's really really strange, and I've spoken to some people that have it and it's very bizarre. But there's one for every condition. And I was going
to work in phantom limb. But around about that time, my eldest daughter had profound hearing loss, so I started becoming more increasingly interested in hearing health.
And I just kept stumbling on this this problem.
It was just seemed like it was just a huge problem and nobody was really tackling it.
I will tell you because we're about to talk about brain plasticity, which is a huge thing.
My daughter's fifteen years old.
When she was born, she suffered significant brain trauma during while she was being born. Before Actually we don't know what happened, but it is what it is. And I had a fascinating conversation with a pediatric neural pediatric specialist who said, you know, we know nothing, especially about baby brain plasticity, and the fifteen years since it's made me aware of all these things. It feels like the area of brain plasticity has seen a huge influx of research and curiosity.
Is that true or am I just paying attention to it better?
Yeah?
No, I think you're right.
I think with the advent of brain imaging technologies and stuff like that, we've discovered thath We used to believe that the brain was kind of hardwired at birth, or soon after, And that's just not true. The brain wires and re wires constantly over the course of your lifetime.
I mean when I was a kid, it was like, don't kill those brain sills because they don't grow back.
So when you kill them, you're done.
Obviously, I am proving that incorrect every single day. So what exactly are we talking about when you're looking at the signals that are being sent.
In the brain, and how does your linear.
Treatment that you invented, how does that fix that disconnect?
Yeah, so what essentially what's happening in teresus is thatash your brain is paying too much attention to this one tenative sound and that's not a real sound. It's an illusory sound that's coming arising from hearing losses.
You guys discussed.
But essentially what happens is you hear the sound, you realize it's not a real sound, and you start to pay more attention to it, and you're kind of frightened by it. And that combination of attention and fear in the brain or kind of a lethal combination. Now they're the reason that we are top of the food chain. That's what has led to our survival. But Unfortunately, in
the case of tenatus, it works against us. So you keep paying attention to this sound, you keep being frightened by it, and the more you do that, the more likely you are to do it. So that's how it becomes habituated. So we looked every time I talked to people who used hearing aids for tenatus, they said, the hearing aids are great, but when I take them off at night, my tenative spikes and attack gets sleep. So we were trying to develop a long lasting hearing aid.
So there's an old approach culpaired associative stimulation, and that dates right back to Pavlov and these dogs. It's where you pir pair one stimulation or one stimulus with with a reinforcing signal.
And so that's essentially what we did.
We we paired sound that's not the tenet of sound with a reinforcing signal on the tongue and we do that millions and millions of times over a course of treatment, and it gradually teaches your brain to pay more attention to those sounds and less attention to the sound.
So this is not something you wear all the time. Right, How does this process work?
Yeah, So it's a it's a home use device.
It's you know, like an iPod, and so it has bluetooth headphones that you put on, so it plays sounds through those. And then there's a little kind of lollipop kind of electrode that goes in your mouth. We call it a tongue tip, and it has like a you know, an array of little electrodes, and every time you hear a tone, the corresponding electrode on the tongue activates, So
you're getting it essentially that tone through two senses. You're getting it through your ear and through your tongue at the same time.
So how does this How is it a distraction for your brain? I'm a little confused on that part of it.
Yeah, so the brain.
If you push a signal in on two different senses at the same time, your brain just naturally attends to it.
It's a subconscious kind of phenomenon.
And so we're exploiting that to kind of dilute the amount of attention because your brain can only give so much attention to only one percent, so it's giving too much totenus. So we're over time, we're diluting the attention it's giving ttenatus, and we're forcing it to pay attention to these other sounds.
Now, are the other sounds catered to? Whatever your tonightis is? Because I have developed haven't even talked to doctor Patty about this.
This is new, super excited about it.
A high pitch, just like one of those. So would you formulate or calculate this to that specific noise or am I going to get the same treatment that my husband would get.
It's it's basically personalized to your hearing, but and not to your actual tenasis because that can be quite challenging to kind of, you know, to pitch match people's tents R. So it's it kind of doesn't matter. You know, if we if we basically force your brain to pay attention to the full spectrum of human sounds, then it achieves the same effect.
So okay, I have.
Some very detailed questions from from people who have texted in on the text line. I got this one first earlier today, so I want to get this in Mandy. I know there's various forms of tonight is. How common is it to be related to a spinal nerve issue? Mostly solved mind says this texture with upper cervical chiropractic care. It came out of nowhere when I woke up with a kink in my neck.
So what can kick this in?
Yeah?
So tenosus is a symptom that can have money causes that by far the most common cause is either you know, hearing loss, measurable hearing loss, or an early form of hearing loss that we call sign uptopathy for hidden hearing. But there are for a minority of cases. Yeah, it can be whiplash injuries. It can be TMJ and your jaw. It can be tental part of what mine came from. Yeah, so that's you know, kind of a small percentage of
cases generally there that's good news. So you know you can be you know, it can fix this through I don't know if a spine doctor or you know, a dentist or or if there's some patients have have pulsit so it's in in in sync with your heartbeats.
Oh that sounds awful.
The last thing I need to do is be reminded of my own mortality over and over and over again all day long.
That would be horrible.
Yeah, but that's the important thing is when you come in us determining what it is why it is because some people come in they maybe got tentative staff for COVID. They again, like Ross said, it may be more vascular, so we would refer you to a vascular surgeon to make sure, hey, there's not a corotid blockage or something, or could be a head injury, or could be high
blood pressure, or it could be a dental issue. So the importance is not just plopping something on but really finding out, hey, do we need to refer you to another medical facility position and rule out what it is. Once we've ruled out what it is, then we can move on to treatment.
Okay, somebody said, Mandy Tenetiss not Tonightus. The proper Latin pronunciation is Tonight's Charles Tarrington Elser, my former speech guru on this show who has since passed away.
We clarified this a long time ago.
People can say it however they want, I say it in the proper Latin way.
I'm just saying you can say you want, yes, it either is correct.
The proper Latin pronunciation is always the second syllable. Anyway, Thank you, smarty pants Texter. Somebody asked to your point about getting tonight us after a COVID Mandy, please ask your guests why my tonight iss is ten times worse after the COVID vacs. I don't think anyone knows the answer to that just yet.
Well, I get asked that question a lot, and we actually sponsored some co sponsored some research along with the British Tennis Association. So in the UK they have this thing called the Biobank and they can basically research you know, kind of population level and medical data and they did not find any correlation with COVID antens or COVID vaccines and tenesis.
So I've had I've.
Had tonight before for a brief period of time when I had a really bad head could or really you know, sinus issues, but it's always gone away. Now it's just clinging there.
How long has that been there? No? Probably three months, four months.
Two weeks?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Fact, so weird. So what, doctor Patty, when people.
Come in to see you, what is the process for this? And somebody already asked, does insurance cover this? Insurance doesn't cover a lot of hearing stuff.
It will cover the a lot of times it will cover for the hearing evaluation, just depending we are a tenatives specialty clinic. So when you come into our clinic, you know we're not going to just do a basic heuring test. We're going to do a full blown medical diagnostic hearing avoalve.
It takes a long time. I just want you to know this. It takes a long time to do this. A lot of I can hear it, No I can't.
Yes, yeah, So you know, we want to make sure that we've dotted all of our eyes and make sure that we know what's going on. So once they've gone through that full diagnostic evaluation, a real thorough case history, because that can be everything of how did it start, why did it start, you know, was it a virus, whatever, and then really sitting down and talking with the patient. Are they more bothered by tenatus? Are they more bothered by hearing laws things like that? Are their balance issues?
All of those things come into play. Most TuS treatments are not covered by insurance company.
Which is insane because they've obviously never had it.
You know what.
Making people suffer with this is just awful. Now I have another question where there's an event tomorrow night.
Is that full? It is full? Okay, it is ful, but.
Sorry, I'm not sorry, you never know, we may have some cancelations, so I mean they could always call in and get on our wait list, which I would recommend. So if you call our office, Rebecca Areana can take your your information because as you know, you know, whether different things happen, life happens, So definitely, if you're still interested in coming, definitely you know, calling to get on the wait list.
If you really, if you know you have tonight and you're interested in learning more, the easiest and fastest way to just be making an appointment at the clinic right, just go to help for ringing dot com. Help for ringing dot com is the website. Go ahead and schedule a console. First of all, everyone in this office is so nice. If you're having a really bad day, just go in the office and everyone is so nice. It will are that alone will make your day better. I'm
just going to say that. But I'm excited to come tomorrow night learn more about this. So it's very very interesting. And you brought one of the little Now did you feel the zap on your tongue?
I mean you can feel it.
It feels like carbonated a carbonated train. Yeah, it's just bubbles.
Yeah, yeah, and how long do you have to do this? How long does the treatment last?
So it's thirty to sixty minutes per day and it's for like a minimum of twelve weeks, but that's really to.
Be determined by your doctor, and.
Then the effects last beyond that.
Well, what we all we can say is what we've seen in clinical trials. So in our clinical trials, we've seen that for the majority of patients the effect can last up to twelve months.
So that's great.
Do you have any longer studies than that or are we still so early in the process that we're waiting to find out?
Okay, yeah, yeah, we're quite early. Now.
We're continuing to gather real world data. So the more patients we treat, the more data will have and that'll kind of inform the future development of the technology.
Okay, but I've.
Been doing it for two years and we're still seeing patients maintain when they finish treatment, so just you know, real world clinical evidence. When people have come back in for their follow up.
They're like, yeah, I'm doing great, so and then if it does come back, you could just do the whole thing again, right.
Yeah, Yeah, we see the patients some patients they it might come back and they top up with another treatment. Some patients just love the treatment so much to continue to use it. I've heard one one patient describe it as is daily gin and tonics.
That, yeah, you know.
Whatever works.
I mean, Patty, how are your patients using it practically?
Yeah? Like what are they? How are they doing this?
Because I got to tell you, I'm thinking, oh god, thirty minutes, sixty minutes a day, where am.
I going to put this? What are people?
That's a concern which we really do talk with patients, you know, is this something that you can put in your lifestyle? But what I find is after most people get into it, so it's a treatment, we want you to do it a half hour in the morning, half hour in the afternoon, right or evening whatever. You're listening to a very soothing, calming set of tones, kind of sounds like some motion in the background. Most patients, one they get started, it becomes their me time.
Ore.
They're likeuse, we really want you to sit down, read a book. You know, we don't want you to play on your phone. We want you to just do a puzzle, read a book something. And that's been the hardest thing of getting people off of it because they're like, wow, I've kind of enjoyed my me time.
Yeah, I like that.
I think it's a way for people to just stop take a breath because we live in a very busy world.
It absolutely does.
If you want more information about any of this stuff, doctor Patty is the only authorized provider right in our area in the front range.
In the front Range, she's.
The only authorized provider losing your treatment system. If you want to try and get on the waiting list for tomorrow night's event, you can do that too. Help for ringing dot Com has the phone number. Just give them a call and they'll give you a call if anybody cancels tomorrow.
I did want to mention too, we do have three veteran VA sites that are fitting, which to me is kind of after your own heart with yes. So again I want to tell people, if you know, if it's maybe not coming to us, get plugged into the vast because we've got some really good local vas providing that treatment and we always want to make sure you know they get in the right place. So just kind of inform you on that if they're really in the VA system, check it out.
Yeah, and it is fully reimbursed, as I understand from the for the for the VA.
Oh that's great to know, because I got to tell you, standing around big guns, we'll definitely hurt your hearing. Doctor Patty, Doctor Ross O'Neil, thank you so much for coming in today. Appreciate everything I got to tell you. I have been saying for years. I think with the advent of earbuds and everybody wearing earphones, the millennials, Oh, it's coming for you.
It's coming for you.
Okay, So you can make fun of us all sitting at dinner with our hands up through our ears
But that's your future.