INSOMNIACS place to talk in the wee hours

Spookie LOL, The drug company that made minoxidil as an antihypertensive quickly picked up on the side effect of minoxidil that has led to millions(Billion?). Hair start growing on the palms of the hands, face, chest and other places. HEAD was considered a happy place to have it grow. It became Rogaine. When reports started circulating in the early 80's(70's?) lot's of laughs. Particularly the hands. But the company worked it out. You may think it's out there, but makes me wonder if they ever looked at the inner ear with minixodil studies originally or since.cuz hair was growing everywhere .......Okay Saturday. I don't like to drive over the same day as a meet or appt. To worrisome with traffic.

Loverly, and Chevy, and Jazzy(?). I will fill in stuff here as I find it.

Well written evidence based research(EBR) by a professor that teaches nurse practitioners. This is from Medscape which is a huge resource for EBR. It's from 2002, but it's one of those articles that won't go out of date. A real plus is it's written in understandable language. It's a good basis for reading other articles After spending hours reading, this publication is a primer for understanding the subject. This article has probably been used by every researcher from 2002, as a template for completeness. Likely not credited in their bibliographies.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/441216#vp_1

This is a study published in 2014. Well written, but it's written by a psychiatrist. My bias is that psychiatrists are biased. Page 3-4 offer specific related to certain types of problems that cause tinnitus. Page 5 has a description of current treatment. Treatment for the average person would be hard to come by unless they live near a facility. Page 6 is the conclusion. The conclusion is weak kind of hohum My bias is I like conclusions that cause excitement i.e.breakthroughs

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/832660

March 2014 Announcement that the FDA approved a hearing for use through the VA system. The VA may lag in some areas, but has very high standards for development of devices. prosthetics, treatments for wounded and disabled veterans.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/822746

This is an article about a study on women( Nurse Health Study 11). It showed a statistically significant difference between women who drank the equivalent of 6-8 cups of coffee a day over those that drank 3-4 and tinnitus occurrence. That result was unexpected. It is especially significant b/c most recommendations include limiting coffee. It's short and an easy read

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/829992

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The reason I have included these words is they are repeatedly used in all the current research.

Psychopathology^[a] is the scientific study of mental disorders, including efforts to understand their genetic, biological, psychological, and social causes; effective classification schemes (nosology); course across all stages of development; manifestations; and treatment.

Neuropsychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with mental disorders attributable to diseases of the nervous system. It preceded the current disciplines of psychiatry and neurology, which had common training.^[1] However, psychiatry and neurology subsequently split apart and are typically practiced separately. Nevertheless, neuropsychiatry has become a growing subspecialty of psychiatry and it is also closely related to the fields of neuropsychology and behavioral neurology, which is a subspecialty of neurology that addresses clinical problems of cognition and/or behavior caused by

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All the research refers to subjective and objective tinnitus. It's important to have an understanding of these two categories. The following description is from the first link on assessment by Judith Shannon Lynch MS, MA, ARNP, FAANP.

"There are 2 categories of tinnitus:

Subjective: Audible only to the patient. This is the more common form (95%) and may be due to peripheral or central auditory problems, a metabolic abnormality, or anxiety/depression.
Objective: Also audible to the healthcare provider. This is rarely found and is frequently due to a vascular or neuromuscular condition, a tumor within the head, neck, or brain, or a structural defect in the ear, usually the inner ear. Tinnitus may be described as pulsatile and may be synchronous with cardiac rhythm. Any unilateral pulsatile tinnitus should be considered very seriously and referred for evaluation to a specialist."

Me again: Frequently in the study of any condition you will hear or read symptoms and signs that apply to that condition. It's important to know the definition of the term symptom and sign.

Symptoms are subjective. The patient describes them, but the healthcare provider can't see, feel, hear, smell, taste, or measure what the patient describes.

Signs are objective. The healthcare provider can see, feel, hear, smell, taste, and or measure what the patient describes."

Putting this all together. When we are seen by a doc for complaints of tinnitus. It is appropriate for the docs to rule out any known physical condition. The history and exam should follow the assessment as written by Judith Shannon. Her's is a classic thorough head to toe approach. This is what you should expect from your practitioner.

The problem for us that hasn't changed much over time is when practitioners can't find a physical cause, not much is available as a definitive solution. Or the less than perfect solution that is offered is expensive i.e maskers. The outcome is people seek alternative solutions that have no science behind them whatsoever. Desperate people will try most anything when a true solution isn't available.

Another problem is we've all experienced docs discounting our symptoms. At this point is where the psychobabble comes in, the offer of antidepressants/antianxiety agents are a cop out. Plus or minus 50 million people with a problem. Let's get real. Tinnitus is not an easy problem, but it exists.

This link is to a proprietary site that sells a device that supposed to help with tinnitus. Combo hearing & tinnitus aid. From a laypersons point of view they have some good teaching info if you wander through the web site. I will also link to their page about safety. If someone complains, I can be banned just by listing them. Please, don't complain. I'm not recommending that you buy anything.

http://www.ttsrelief.com/about.html

http://www.ttsrelief.com/fda.html

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16419683

http://healthy1st.net/vibration-therapy-to-treat-tinnitus.html

Loverly, couldn't locate the info from long ago. I did locate this pubmed info and then info about Ultra Quiet proprietary device. Somewhere, I read about vibration. What I do? I lay on the vibrating bed with one ear down. Bed turns off in a 1/2 hour. I usually have fallen asleep. Tinnitus is different when I wake up. I usually use it when it get's to loud. I tried a hand held back vibrator against the mastoid, but couldn't keep it against the bone. Otherwise, I do nothing.

Okayyyy Loverly, I'm done. No more revisions. Please, read from the beginning if you read it before it was done. Many revisions before being done. BTW not impressed at all with the lack of resolution in this area

When I was writing the description for s/s's it brought back a memory of an earlier time. Part of the description for s/s's for a cystic fibrosis kid was salty skin. The old accepted method of evaluating this was lick the kiddo's skin.

I was working on something else. Came across an old post

Jun 18, 2011 10:18PM sas-schatzi wrote: Chickadee-----what allot of people don't realize here, is we have lurkers and people that can register and have access to info that can be quoted or if they are registered can be C&P to the outside like FB. So, if there is anything you don't want known to the world ---don't put it here. Our PM's are ours. the outside world can't reach them. So, when writing , think do I care about anyone reading what I write. I was naive at first, when I found this out I changed my username pronto. Wish I had been more creative, I just looked around and it's me and my dog. I love your name Chickadee, I love Tinkertude, and Tigerblood and so many others, but i'm in so deep now it would confuse to many people.

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What's interesting about that post now so many years later. I've become sas-schatzi-------sas-----sassy.