What To Do?
 

Although this may sound "really insane", I believe I discovered a cure/treatment for multiple hearing disorders.

One problem is that the procedure contradicts all the different theories believed over the past 100 years by the medical community about hearing disorders. The procedure is non invasive, does not use drugs, and with it, the way a person hears will be permanently changed. Probably the most common of the hearing disorders that can be cured/treated is tinnitus (ringing in the ears).

I'm not going to go into detail on how I know that the procedure will work but when I first analyzed what was happening, to me it was obviously more of an engineering problem than a medical problem. To me, hearing is nothing more than a very sophisticated audio system and as I did more research about hearing disorder theories, I couldn't believe that the medical community had missed something so simple and obvious. Initially I actually started believing that they really knew that their theories were wrong but didn't know how to solve the problem so to give people hope, they concocted some bullsh*t theories about broken neurological connections, psychological problems, pink noise, and other off the wall theories.

The procedure is very simple (at least to an engineer) and only requires some off the shelf audio equipment and headphones. The biggest issue is setting up the audio equipment correctly and listening to TV or music at a certain loudness level for a certain period of time and after a specific period of time, the way a person hears will change permanently. There are 3 different procedures that are required for most hearing disorders as each procedure changes the way a person hears until finally the last procedure changes hearing back to the way a person should hear. For one of the disorders, it only takes one procedure to change the way a person hears back to the way a person should hear. Therefore the first two procedures changes their disorder to the disorder that only requires one procedure.

I have a 40 page document that describes a "case study" with information about tests that can be performed, how to setup the audio equipment, time it takes for each procedure, how to determine if the procedure worked and is locked in, temporary changes that will occur and when, frequency spectrum analysis of sounds that exasperate certain conditions, what equal loudness contour hearing tests should look like between ears (never documented before), tests that can be performed when a disorder is severe, and many other bits of information.

The document also describe theories as to what I believe is happening. In fact although I can't prove it but from all the information I collected, I believe that not only can hearing disorders be cured/treated but with the correct procedure, hearing may be able to be improved. Hearing can't be improved for high frequency loss (except maybe through stem cell research) since the hair cells are damaged but for low frequencies, everything points to the possibility that hearing loss in that range could possibly be restored to normal. Also one of the theories strongly suggests that a normal hearing test (pure tone test) does not indicate how a person hears when someone has a hearing disorder.

For one of the disorders called "recruitment", researchers have used a pure tone test using an equal loudness contour test to show how hearing is out of balance between ears but the only conclusion was that it was caused by high frequency hearing loss. That is partially true since if a person didn't have high frequency hearing loss, it is highly unlikely that recruitment would ever occur. However by stopping at that point, they never theorized as to why a person with recruitment hears the same out of both ears. Therefore the equal loudness contour test conflicts with how a person is hearing and if they researched further, they may have possibly discovered why recruitment occurs. As an engineer, everything usually is a sequence of events and when something doesn't look right, it probably isn't right and therefore you have to continue your search.

Even a disorder known as "Acoustic Shock Disorder or Syndrome" which is someone who can't use headphones can be cured/treated with the procedure which requires the person to use headphones and is only dependent on how the audio equipment is initially setup.

The "pink noise" theory for a disorder called "hyperacusis" is completely insane. It claims that a neurological connection between the brain and ears has been broken and listening to "pink noise" tries to establish a new neurological connection. The theory is so widely accepted that hearing aids now have "pink noise" generators and are used to treat hyperacusis. "Pink noise" generators in hearing aids are also used to mask the sounds of tinnitus which is ok but not a cure or treatment.

I could make the document public domain on the internet but decided that is too dangerous and someone could cause real damage since there is not a lot of research done (only one case study) to back up my theories. Also someone who doesn't fully understand what they are doing could get stuck at the end of procedure "one" and that could be worst than his original condition or do something completely wrong causing permanent damage. Finally although I'm 99% sure of everything in the document, there is a 1% lingering doubt that I don't have "all" the answers. Therefore I don't even dare to post a partial summary of my research on a "hearing disorder forum". When I was developing my theory, I did post on hearing disorder forums to ask questions about observations but the feedback was brutal from the experts but from the community, they wanted more information. For instance, one observation I noticed didn't make sense so I posted on the forum and asked if anyone knew why that occurred and got negative feedback by the experts. However many months later, that observation told me why people with a 20 DB hearing loss (4x hearing loss) don't benefit from hearing aids. It also gave me one more clue as to how hearing works.

So back in May, I decided to send the document to a university that was doing research in hearing. There were 10 researchers and eight had an email address so I sent the document to all eight. Since then, I haven't received a response. I suspect one problem is that the vast majority of hearing research is stem cell (that is what they were researching at the university that I sent the document to) and that is fine from a medical point of view but my document is about engineering and that could be over their heads. They could possibly have completely ignored the document, read it and didn't understand what I was talking about, read it and since it contradicted everything that the medical profession believed, it couldn't possibly be correct, or read it and had a good laugh.

Since I didn't get a response from anyone at that university, I am now considering sending the document to anybody that does research in hearing but I'm even concerned about that because the document could then get on the internet and become uncontrolled research by individuals that are desperate.

Therefore the question is how do I get the attention of the research department at a university?

Re: What To Do?
 

Unfortunately university researchers receive a lot of such enquiries from members of the public.

What is it that you actually want them to do? They would have to apply for grant funding and locate a suitable group of patients to take part in trials. You have already said that experts were not impressed by what you're putting forward, so it's going to be a hard sell.

Re: What To Do?
 

You really need to get some face time with someone. Sending a 40 page document is unlikely to get much attention. (Kind of like cold sending a résumé.) Unfortunately, academic egos get in the way of a lot of things, and I'm having a hard time thinking of how to get that face time. Those egos tend to view outsiders with very little respect. They'll also be unlikely to consider an idea that conflicts with any of their current research.

Given the way you describe things, you may have better luck starting with an academic engineer, and then bringing in the scientists.

As mentioned above, there will be issues concerning funding (where to get, who from, and when) as well as involving humans in experiments. For the latter, the rules are not completely clear until you know who's paying for it.

This is really an interesting question. I've never really thought about what it takes to get attention without the weight of an institution name attached to your own.

Re: What To Do?
 

For me personally, it doesn't make much difference since I'm not looking for financial gain or anything else. However what I described above is just the tip of the iceberg. There are probably over 50 million people around the world that have some sort of hearing disorder that they know they have and probably 1/2 or more are seeking treatment or want treatment. The other half know that something is wrong but it is so minor that they just attribute it to tired ears.

Then there may possibly be millions more that don't even know they have a hearing disorder but have side effects such as headaches, migraines, nausea, and many other illnesses because hearing disorders cause side effects but the illness is not recognized as a hearing disorder since the symptoms aren't there.

In my opinion, acoustic shock disorder along with hearing fatigue and ear fatigue all derivatives of hyperacusis but the symptoms are just different. Tinnitus is also in the same category but I don't want to call it a derivative. They all have something in common and that is a low loudness discomfort level (LDL) but unfortunately only about 50% of people with tinnitus are perceived to have a low LDL. However the medical community doesn't know what is a normal LDL and if they knew, then 90% or better of the people with tinnitus would likely have a low LDL. The other 10% may have had a low LDL at one time but it could have been raised back to normal by just naturally doing something. In fact, procedure "one" is to raise the LDL to normal.

As far as the experts, they are self proclaimed experts. When I tried to fully comprehend and understand equal loudness contour (ISO:226:2003), I asked a question on a hearing web site about it since that is supposed to he the way a person with good average hearing hears. I had a problem understanding why that was different than an audiogram of a person with average good hearing. The experts told me that the equal loudness contour must be indicating something else since people with good average hearing don't hear that way.

Well they were wrong and apparently were never taught about equal loudness contour or even how an audiogram worked and assumed that an audiogram was the way people hear. However an audiogram is produced as a flat line with headphones that have specific response characteristics and electronic equipment made the audiogram flat line so an audiologist can more easily perceive what good average hearing is.

The most shocking part was when I was communicating with an ENT (the most knowledgeable person when it comes to hearing) about hyperacusis and he didn't know what it was.

The de facto expert for tinnitus and hyperacusis is a TRT (tinnitus retraining therapy) therapist who has minimal training on how to adjust the "pink noise" in hearing aids and to psychologically try to convince the patient that they are going to have to live with their disorder. They don't know why TRT sometimes helps except they notice that the patient's loudness discomfort level (LDL) may rise but sometimes a rising LDL makes the disorder worse and sometimes after it rises it drops back down. They don't understand why but I do.

It is almost as if the medical profession has given up trying to solve hearing disorders since for a hundred years, they got nowhere.

In my personal opinion, 99% of the disorders are man made. For instance, I believe it is possible to reduce the possibility of getting recruitment by over 99% because people are doing something that they don't know they are doing. I can't say what it is on the internet since I would likely be sued and have a cease and desist order issued to me.

As far as hyperacusis, hearing fatigue, and ear fatigue, those are assumed to be caused by exposure to loud noises especially rock concerts. In my opinion, that is partially correct but the loud noises of a rock concert in itself should not cause those conditions unless man was also doing something else. There are also some magic numbers that people should know about.

There are some very heart braking stories out there. Some people are confined to their homes and others go through an 18 month TRT program and finally decide they are well enough to go back to work only to discover after 2 weeks, the symptoms return and they have to quit their job but the most heart breaking are the young children that have the disorders.

I'm trying to do it the right way but if the medical community ignores me, I'll have to release the document as public domain and there will be some catastrophic results but there will also be successful results that will get the attention of the medical community. However by that time, the "cat is out of the bag" and is uncontrollable.

Re: What To Do?
 

My original thinking was a face to face but to try to describe all the details of a 40 page document (they are all important) would require a long time and if I just presented a brief summary, they would likely think I'm just blowing gas. Even getting an face to face to give a summary would be very hard.

The very first sentence of the document is that "you'll probably think I'm a nut job and totally insane" to try to get their attention so at least they would possibly have a very good laugh if the document really didn't make any sense. Then they would have something to talk about with other medical professionals and have another laugh.

Overcoming the egos are probably by far the biggest challenge. The medical and law profession seem to have very big egos. Once a believer is found, the money should be able to come rolling in.

It's very different for me. If someone sent me an email claiming to have a never before thought of technical concept and could describe in detail how the concept would work, I would get very excited. I wouldn't care in the least if the person was a janitor or had a PHD.

Re: What To Do?
 

Besides egos, there is surprisingly another major problem to overcome since you would think that someone in hearing research would understand how sound works but that is not necessarily the case and in fact, that is rare.

For instance, someone working in stem cell research on hearing doesn't have to and probably doesn't understand how the human voice creates sounds, possibly even what is loudness discomfort level, what is ISO 226:2003, why the audio equipment is needed, and may have never heard of many of the disorders that I refer to.

Without that knowledge, the document won't make much sense.

Re: What To Do?
 

What surprised me the most was that research stopped short not answering simple questions as to why something was happening.

For example, hyperacusis is when someone hears loud noises (some soft noises become very loud). To figure out why that occurs is very complex but researchers also know that if a person with hyperacusis uses ear plugs, the condition gets worse. You would think some researchers would say "why" and look for reasons but they didn't. Believe it or not, it is very easy to determine why with a simple test. But if the researcher believes that hyperacusis is caused by a broken neurological connection, there is no reason to look to see what the ear is actually doing before and after ear plugs are used. Also to the patient the sounds are loud but the researcher should delve deeper into what sounds are louder, what are the characteristics of the complex sounds, and therefore why those sounds are likely louder. But again if the researcher believes that the cause is a broken neurological connection, there is no need to go further.

Another researcher got a grant to test the relationship of LDL at different frequencies for elderly test subjects with high frequency hearing loss. He discovered that if the hearing loss was a X DB, the LDL did not rise X DB which he expected. Another interest thing was that there didn't appear to be any association that he could understand. So that was the end of the research and a white paper was written.

However as an engineer, there is an association but it is a mathematical association. If he would have understood how outer hair cells worked when hearing loss occurred, he'd understand the mathematical association. It's the same reason that a person with a 20 DB hearing loss doesn't need hearing aids.

Also researchers know that a person with a 20 DB hearing loss is not helped by hearing aids but don't know why. Again a very simple test tells you why.

Finally in the case where a patient under TRT therapy, not understanding what is happening where LDLs rise and fall is primarily caused by only checking the patients LDL during his/her bi-weekly appointment and then not looking at anything other than where the LDL is at. However when the LDL raises, strange things immediately occur that indicates that the person is not hearing the way he/she should if the correct tests are performed. The therapist either has to ask the right questions or the patient has to test his/her own LDL and pay very close attention to determine what is happening.

Therefore a bad theory is worst than no theory since a bad theory stifles research. Maybe that is why I could continue the research always looking for clues since I wasn't taught the bad theories.

Re: What To Do?
 

Acoustic Shock Syndrome has become a big issue at call centers as a high number of people develop that disorder. It is believed that it is caused by screeching sounds that may occur or a connection to a FAX line. However that a fairly recent phenomenon for call centers so that theory is probably not correct so I have another theory.

However I don't fully understand what exactly happens but my research points to certain things and a simple change at the call center may be able to solve that problem. This theory doesn't perfectly fit in with other theories but something they do at call centers, I've also seen similar things happen during my research.

The big difference is that many call centers have moved to third world countries in the last 20 years. I'm not going to elaborate further but as a game, maybe you can guess what is the difference.

Re: What To Do?
 

Don't mean to sound cynical but money is more of a motivator in this world than helping your fellow human being or even intellectual curiosity. I would recommend cultivating not university research departments but those who fund university research departments - whoever it is that would stand to make a lot of money from mass-producing/making widely available whatever your remedy is. If it's a drug, it would be a pharmaceutical company, for example, not a hospital or university. If it's based on equipment, then the potential maker of that equipment. It is proper research and experimentation that you need in order to get the larger medical community to pay attention to you, so the support you need is from those with the self-interested ability to make that research happen.

Re: What To Do?
 

I've also thought of doing that and go to medical device makers such as Medtronic but the big money is not in the device making but in patients. Universities are some of the largest holders of patients in the world with some raking in over a billion dollars per year. Since everything can be done with off the shelf hardware but a medical device specifically designed for the process would be better and probably necessary for training the monkeys. Medical devices makers don't have any more knowledge about how audio works or the basic functioning off the ear than researchers at universities so I would probably run into similar roadblocks of finding someone who understands my document. Then even if I did find someone, I don't want them to put a 20 year patient on the process and devices and be the only producer selling equipment for $100,000 instead of $2,000.

I do have an option to get access to a university research department. It's not very well known but someone who are in charge of a research department at a university gets part of the grant money that the university gets and I know someone in that position and he is rolling in the money. I also have a relative who works for a medical device maker but he's in sales. The drawback of either of those is they have absolutely no knowledge of how audio or the ear works. There is a possibility that they know someone in the university or company that might understand that so that is a possibility but if I were to do that, I'd demand part of the action.

There is one type of company that would likely fully understand what I am talking about and I could probably approach then and make $100 million for myself but they would likely only bury it to keep them from being sued for billions of dollars.

If I was in my 20s or 30s, I'd probably approach the smartest engineer I've ever known and discuss it with her and within hours, she'd totally understand what I was talking about and know how to correctly produce the needed products even though she doesn't understand audio and then her and I would look for the businessman that could help us present the concept to venture capitalists as a business that did the research, patient the processes and devices, build the devices, and setup specialty clinics around the world. All of that would probably have to be done to have a good business plan since the Chinese would probably be building knock off products within weeks of the announcement and most of the time in the company would be spent suing the Chinese.

At one time I thought about trying to get my sons involved in this venture but it's way over their heads and at my age, I don't have the desire to run the company.

I've also looked at foundations that fund research into hearing but I doubt that the decision makers are much more than executives. There are looking at researchers from universities to present a compelling case for the grants and not an engineer that doesn't even work in the field that doesn't want grant money.

Re: What To Do?
 

Maybe talk to a patent agent get something provisional filed quickly, I don't know how much you've put in the public domain. Then when you go to someone like Medtronic they can see you've already staked your claim to something of value.

I have some involvement in medical device IP but I'm not an agent or lawyer so can't. Help directly.

Re: What To Do?
 

Why I think I run into a brick wall with medical professionals is primarily they don't even understand the basics of sound. We've probably all been taught about sound in high school but most people seem to forget. Without that knowledge, a person can't advance to the next stage of understanding my document.

I think we all know that there are harmonics with all complex sounds but that is likely the end of our knowledge. If you are a musician, you'll likely know what timbre is. Fully understanding both of those is extremely important to understanding my document.

As stated above, all complex sounds have harmonics. Of all the complex sounds, the human voice is by far the most complex. In fact it is so complex that in my opinion, it is much more complex than understanding the human eye from an engineering point of view. That has been proven out by the inability of engineers to create anything but the most rudimentary voice recognition systems but the technology of simulating the eye is far advanced where it is expected in the near future that there will be driverless cars. Voice recognition is so rudimentary that when a person is in a quiet room and speaks directly into a microphone, the voice recognition system often gets it wrong and engineers aren't even yet considering the possibility of voice recognition when 100 people are speaking at the same time. However the ear is superb at recognizing one voice when 100 people in a room are speaking.

It all has to do with harmonics, timbre, and a superb ear and brain capability that has not yet been able to be reproduced by computer hardware/software.

Before we can even try to understand the more complex part of the human voice, we have to understand the basics of the human voice. The human voice is comprised of a fundamental sound and harmonics. The fundamental sound of most adult male voices is between 100 Hz-120 Hz and the fundamental sound of most adult female voices is between 200 Hz-220 Hz. Along with the fundamental sound, the larynx produces a large number of harmonics that are an increment of the fundamental sound.

Therefore if an adult male at any one moment was speaking with a fundamental sound of 100 Hz, harmonics would be produced at 200 Hz, 300 Hz, 400 Hz, 500 Hz, 600 Hz, 700 Hz, .,.,.,.,.,., 8,000 Hz and if an adult female was speaking with a fundamental sound of 200 Hz, harmonics of 400 Hz, 600 Hz, 800 Hz, 1,000 Hz, 1,200 Hz, .,.,.,.,.,., 8,000 Hz would be produced by the larynx.

The fundamental sound produces the loudness and the harmonics produce the timbre (color or character of the voice) and clarity. The primary timbre in the human voice are the first 4-5 harmonics and the remaining harmonics are primarily for clarity. Therefore for the adult male voice that has a fundamental sound of 100 Hz, the primary timbre will be at 200 Hz, 300 Hz, 400 Hz, 500 Hz, and 600 Hz and all the other harmonics are primarily for clarity. For an adult female with a fundamental sound of 200 Hz, the primary timbre will be at 400 Hz, 600 Hz, 800 Hz, 1,000 Hz, and 1,200 Hz and all the other harmonics are primarily for clarity.

If the ear perceives something wrong in the clarity harmonics, the sound is just muffled and this is what occurs for people with high frequency hearing loss but if something is perceived wrong with the timbre harmonics, the brain can get very confused because it starts to have a problem distinguishing between voices.

Therefore all the disorders are related to the timbre harmonics.

The brain also probably perceives human voices different than what you might suspect. I believe all our brains perceive Gilbert Godfrey's and Fran Dresher's voices as high pitched and annoying and their fundamental sounds are in fact higher than average. We've all hear James Earl Jones deep voice and Mel Gibson's occasionally sort of twangy voice but believe it or not, Mel Gibson's voice has a lower fundamental sound than James Earl Jones. In fact the fundamental sound for James Earl Jones is in the average range at 100 Hz but Mel Gibson's voice has a fundamental sound of 85 Hz. If you ever watched Fox News, there are a lot of bimbos with high pitched sounding voices and CNN's Erin Burnett voice appears to be fairly low pitched. All of those are in the normal range of an adult female voice and it is possible that Erin's fundamental sound is higher than the bimbos on Fox News.

Therefore from the above, you can see that timbre plays a big part in how a voice is perceived by the brain and if that is understood, then a lot of my theories make sense.

Re: What To Do?
 

I initially considered doing that and file the patients in my son's names but decided that since it is mostly procedures, there is only one case study, it would be very boring and time consuming, and a patient attorney wouldn't be of much help other than making sure the correct forms are filed, I decided not to file patients. Also in my case, I'm not in it for the money and if I am the patient holder, it will be even more difficult to attract some university or company to invest time/money in the research and development since their potential for profit will be reduced. Also I hate paperwork unless it is of some use to someone to acquire information.

I've been involved in filing patients before for a company I worked for. Fortunately someone else did all the paperwork but we all got a bonus for filing the patient and I've received invites to corporate headquarters (all expenses paid) to honor patient writers after I retired from the company. One of the patients was so simple (it related to the VPN software that I wrote) but it took over 2 months to write the patient and this is 100x more complex.

Re: What To Do?
 

Ah, patents, not patients. ;-) Now I understand better.

You really can't sell an idea with a 40-page document. You may have more luck with a 1 to 2 page white paper and a simple quad chart. People don't want to read more than that to start. If that gets their attention, you may be asked for something longer, but don't be surprised if it's less than a dozen pages. The technical details can often be the least important part.

It's a little like a job hunt in that you really want that first document to get you a chance to talk directly with someone. More talking and less writing is usually a good thing.

Re: What To Do?
 

Yup I got an extra letter in the word.

I partially agree but the first post is a summary and they'd think I was a nut job because there is nothing to back it up and I am someone who is not of their caliber and intelligence.

Re: What To Do?
 

But they are in it for the money and won't invest their time unless they know protection is in place. If you aren't bothered by money you can then assign the patent to them for a nominal sum. It is just property that can be bought and sold.

Re: What To Do?
 

What about contacting some biomedical engineers? They are sort of the cross between medical professionals and engineers.

Re: What To Do?
 

Corporations are on the bottom of my list. Universities get grants so they are at the top of my list. For a university there isn't any risk just like their stem cell research that many universities are performing since it is all paid for by grants. If they get lucky and figure it out, they can patent it.

The same is true with this. If they believe in what I am saying and they can verify it, they can patent it. If they are the first to show interest, I'll stop distributing the document.

If I didn't do it that way, then I'd have to either get non disclosure agreements before sending them the document making it even more difficult to get their attention or put in the effort of patenting it myself. And if I patented it myself, I'd then play hardball.

So if I patent it and play hardball, then there will likely even be less interest.

Re: What To Do?
 

That is another option but I suspect I would have similar problems in that I'd somehow have to figure out a way to get in contact with someone that that understands sound and hearing. Also I'm not sure I would feel anymore comfortable with a Biomedical Engineering company than a medical device company other than it may possibly be easier to find the right talent. However I suspect there may also be biomedical engineers doing research at universities and since that is my preference, it's a matter of finding those people and sending them the document.

Re: What To Do?
 

The first time I tried to write the document, I thought it would be best if I wrote a summary of one line bullets at the beginning to get their attention. Four pages later I'm still writing bullets. I then decided that bullets that don't fit together, aren't clear, and don't tell a story is not the way to go.

I made that decision since when I read the bullets, I wouldn't have been interested in the project.

When I produced the final document and reread it many times, I was satisfied that it was clear, concise, and told a story that someone with knowledge in the field would understand.

Re: What To Do?
 

When I wrote the document, I told them how to raise the loudness discomfort level (LDL) to normal very early in the document with all the things that happen while raising the LDL. Even if they only have a very basic understanding about hearing, that should have peaked their interest because they should understand the consequences of a low LDL.

I assumed everybody that is doing research in hearing must know that a low LDL means the person will hear sounds louder. Therefore if the LDL is supposed to be 100 DB at 750 Hz and it is 70 DB instead, than a 70 DB sound at 750 Hz will sound like 100 DB even without any other problems. So the document start off very easy.

However if prior to that they didn't understand what each of the disorders were, then they'd likely lose interest.

Re: What To Do?
 

Now I'll get into one of the many complex things that occur with hearing disorders. If you read and understood my post about harmonics and timbre, you'll likely be able to follow this post.

I suspect every doctor in the medical profession knows about the inner and outer hair cells since it is just a part of the anatomy. The concept is pretty easy where the inner hair cells receive sounds and those sounds are passed to the outer hair cells for amplification. Only mammals have outer hair cells so therefore other animals hear the world as it is which is very quiet. In order for humans to develop a language between them, only having inner hair cells wouldn't allow that to occur because the world's sounds are too soft and not correctly separated to allow humans to develop a language for communicating. The outer hair cells change how sounds are perceived by the brain and produces the amplification characteristics of the ears.

Researchers could see that the amplification characteristics of the ears were not correct for recruitment. Researchers plotted equal loudness contour at all frequencies below 1,000 Hz and discovered that the plots were not parallel to each other. They were V shaped. That means the timbre in one ear was different than the timbre in the other ear. According to the plot, an adult male's voice should sound low pitched in one ear and high pitched in the other ear and apparently they terminated their research without asking the test subjects if they heard high pitched complex sounds in one ear and low pitched complex sounds in the other ear but just assumed that was occurring.

However according to my research, a person with recruitment always hears complex sounds the same in both ears. Not necessarily the same loudness but the same ratio between ears or in other words, if one frequency in the timbre is 4x as loud as the same frequency in the other ear, then all other frequencies in the timbre must also be 4x louder than the other ear. I also noticed the same V shaped plot was occurring for hyperacusis and the person was also hearing complex sounds the same with both ears.

That told me that what is being plotted with pure tones is not what the brain is perceiving for complex sounds. It appears that if the brain perceived a high pitched complex sounds in one ear and a low pitched complex sounds in the other ear, the brain would get extremely confused not knowing if it was hearing one voice or two voices. Therefore what appears to be happening is that when the brain receives a complex sound and thinks it is from the same voice but one is high pitched and the other is low pitched, it immediately notifies the ears to make them the same and instructs the ears how to do that. For hyperacusis, that usually works pretty well when the person is stable but if he goes where there are a bunch of people talking, the brains voice recognition system starts to go to hell instructing the ears to do the wrong thing to align the ears since now the brain is hearing many people talking and can't distinguish which sounds go together. While the person is in the group, the brain is over taxing itself trying to keep both ears sounding the same.

The next morning the person awakes and has a severe case of hyperacusis where certain short sharp complex sounds are too loud (possibly a door being shut, a cup being placed on a counter, the solenoid in an appliance being engaged, or any other sound that produces high amplitude timbre). It appears that the brain became extremely confused and is now reacting incorrectly when it instructs the ears as to how to align the amplification characteristic of ears for short sharp complex sounds.

The most difficult thing to understand is that if one ear is plugged, the loud sounds will not disappear when a person is unstable.

Re: What To Do?
 

ISO 226:2003

See the first attachment. In the 1930s, researchers wanted to determine how people with good average hearing perceived sounds at different loudness levels and frequencies and put test subjects in a quiet room and generated pure tone sounds at different DB levels and asked the test subjects to indicate when the sound at one frequency was the same loudness as another frequency. They performed the test at the "Threshold" level (the sound level where a person with good average hearing will hear the quietest sounds) to Phon 100 (loud sounds).They noticed that hearing drops off below about 800 Hz and peaks at about 3,000 Hz and then starts to drop off above that. At the "Threshold" level, they had to generate about a 73 DB sound before the test subjects heard any sound but at 1,000 Hz, only a 3 DB sound was required. They also noticed that at different sound levels (Phons), the plots were not exactly the same as other Phon levels. They also couldn't generate pure tone plots at and above 100 DB for frequencies above 1,000 Hz without causing discomfort to the test subjects but could generate pure tone sounds at and above 130 DB at 30 Hz without incurring any discomfort to the test subjects.

Testing was again done in the 1950s and the first ISO standard was created (the blue plot on the chart). In 2003, testing was again done and ISO 226:2003 was created as the standard for people with good hearing. This ISO standard is used to make testing equipment for audiologists so that if a person has average good hearing, there will be a flat line at DB 0 for all frequencies. This standard is also used by manufacturers of headphones, speakers, and other audio equipment to develop products that responded to sounds as the manufacturers desires.

The Ear

The ear has both inner hair cells and outer hair cells. The inner hair cells are used to receive the sound which it passes to the outer hair cells for application. The outer hair cells do not linearly amplify the sounds passed to it but does non linear amplification to create better separation and to amplify sound so that humans hear what they desire to hear and not hear undesirable sounds. Only mammals have outer hair cells so other animals hear sounds as they really occur in the world which are very soft sounds. Without the outer hair cells, man would not have been able to develop a language to communicate with since real world sounds are too soft and separation between different sound levels are not the desired way.

The ISO graph indicates how outer hair cells are amplifying sounds or the amplification characteristics of the ear for a person with good average hearing.

Sound Levels and Discomfort

The second attachment indicates different DB sound levels made by different objects. From the attachments, you might assume that very loud sounds would cause more discomfort then softer sounds since the "Threshold of Discomfort" is 120 DB and the "Threshold of Pain" is 130 DB. However those discomfort levels are at different DB levels depending on the frequency. From the ISO chart, you can see that researchers could plot sounds as high as 130 DB at 30 Hz but couldn't even plot 100 DB sounds above 1,000 Hz since there was too much discomfort for test subjects.

When a person with a hearing disorder indicates that he/she has a "Loudness Discomfort Level" of 70 DB, that is probably at 750 Hz. Their loudness discomfort level below that frequency could be much higher and above that frequency, much lower. A person with a loudness discomfort level of 70 DB at 750 Hz would be low since normal is about 100 DB. That means at 750 Hz, that person perceives 70 DB sounds at about 100 DB. Therefore if that person hear bells or other high pitched complex sounds that are 85 or 90 DB, that sound may be significantly shooting through the "Threshold of Pain" causing the brain to become traumatized causing that person to destabilize, the amplification characteristics of the outer hair cells to move, the loudness discomfort level to drop further, and all kind of side effects since the ear is barely functioning. However the same person may hear a 95 DB motorcycle engine and the sound will probably not bother him/her in any way.

The loudness discomfort level is used to test whether a person's hearing may be abnormal. It is used by incrementing pure tone DB levels until the person feels a very minor shock to the brain. Although pure tones define where the brain is shocked for a specific frequency, a person can hear the same frequency at the same DB level in a complex sound and the brain probably won't be shocked.

Nature's Ingenious Design but Not Necessarily for the Modern World

At first glance, it may appear that nature may not have done a very good job designing the ear but ear evolved for sounds produced by nature. Nature has many low frequency sounds that would likely drive a person mad if he/she heard them constantly so therefore as the ear evolved, the drop off in hearing evolved so that human beings wouldn't hear those sounds. The lower frequency outer hair cells have different amplification characteristics than the upper frequencies so that good separation can be perceived for important noises. Nature didn't evolve as much for the higher frequencies since nature seldom produced those sounds at loud levels. The human voice, birds, and other animals produces sounds in those frequencies but not at a very loud level.

However man has made all kinds of machines and devices that produce sounds that were never intended for the ear. Fortunately the ear handles most of them very well. For instance, all motors produce loud sounds below 60 Hz which we refer to as vibrations. With the drop of in hearing, we normally don't hear the vibrations. A heat pump could be producing 90 DB sounds at 30 Hz but since ear can't hear anything at 30 Hz until the sound level reaches about 73 DB and a typical quiet home has 20-30 DB background noise to block out the other noise produced by the heat pump, we don't hear the vibrations.

A person with good average hearing may possibly be able tolerate 140 DB jet engine without significant problems since most of the frequencies are low but a 140 DB church bell may cause the person to go deaf. Also even if a person doesn't go to rock concerts or is not normally around a noisy environment, if that person has bad genes for hearing, the outer hair cells could be damaged just from every day noises such as bells, sirens, horns, alarm clocks, fire alarms, and many other high frequency sounds since those sounds are not part of nature and therefore it was not part of evolution since it was not a problem.

A jet engine produces very loud infrasounds (frequencies below 30 Hz) that can reach more than 130 DB in the cabin of an airplane. Those sounds can make a cabin swing back and forth if the cabin of the airplane had a certain length so designers of airplanes make sure the cabin length is not certain lengths so that the swing won't occur. Even though humans can't hear those sounds, some believe that they can cause illnesses and therefore the housing around the jet engines are coated with lead since only lead can effectively attenuate infrasounds. Therefore infrasounds in an airplane cabin is likely to be approximately 100 DB. Very loud infrasounds may be in your home as a plane passes over since very little will attenuate the sound other than very long distances. Sonar (normally about 83 Hz to 200 Hz) is used when in water because high powered radar (high frequencies) have a problem traveling through water. Since Sonar is used in water, you can imagine how difficult it would be to block significantly lower frequencies from traveling into everyone's home.

Re: What To Do?
 

The Clue to Curing /Treating Most Hearing Disorders

If you have been able to follow this thread, you might be able to understand how hearing disorders can be cured/treated after reading this post.

If a person has average good hearing, the frequencies below 1,000 Hz between ears will align. If a person has a 40 DB hearing loss at 750 Hz in one ear and no loss at 750 Hz in another ear and doesn't have a hearing disorder, all frequencies below 750 Hz will also have a 40 DB loss at the louder sounds in the ear that that has a 40 DB hearing loss at 750 Hz.

The hardest thing for me to believe is 750 Hz controls how hearing aligns below 750 Hz and by nature doing it that way, nature keeps the timbre aligned in the ears. How it is done, I'm not sure but it is possible that they way the outer hair cell bundle is wrapped, the 750 Hz has sort of a electrical short to the lower frequencies making them follow the leader.

For hyperacusis, 750 Hz "lost control" of the frequencies below 750 Hz and for recruitment, 750 Hz is "in control" but the 750 Hz amplification characteristics are incorrect at 750 Hz in one ear (the ears are incorrectly balanced).

If a person has a 90 DB hearing loss at 750 Hz in both ears and doesn't have a hearing disorder, he will be deaf since everything below 750 Hz will also record a 90 DB hearing loss. However it may be that there isn't any damage or less than 90 DB to the hair cells below 750 Hz. Therefore it may be possible to induce the hyperacusis disorder so that 750 Hz will not be in control of the lower frequencies. Although inducing hyperacusis may seem bad, all the loud sounds that hyperacusis produces are usually caused by frequencies around 750 Hz and higher and with those hair cells damaged, the loud noises of hyperacusis probably shouldn't happen. This may possibly allow a deaf person to hear the low frequency sounds but he/she would have extreme difficulty understand language.

In the ears there are all kinds of locks plus a balance. There are locks that occur when the loudness discomfort level is raised to normal. There are locks that associate 750 Hz to the frequencies below it. The ears can be unbalanced, partially balanced, or fully balanced and when the balance changes from one balance to the another, it can be locked into place.

Therefore it is possible that there is a way to raise the loudness discomfort level back to normal and lock it in and then convert hyperacusis to some form of recruitment by setting the locks of the lower frequencies that follow 750 Hz and then balance the ears and lock them in. As long as the disorder is a derivative of hyperacusis, the procedure is the same. Even tinnitus is likely just a frequency that is unlocked caused by a drop in the loudness discomfort level and the hair cell for that frequency is amplifying too much and it pickups up background sounds that we normally don't hear so the procedure should also work to cure/treat tinnitus since tinnitus is also common for people with other disorders but seldom recruitment.

I suspect when lock in occurs when the lower frequencies aligned, everything is locked in and hearing never moves again since everything is aligned. However nature appears to have a mechanism to compensate for hearing at 750 Hz where were the lower frequencies move in comparison to what is indicated by a pure tone hearing test. So a pure tone hearing test may not indicate perfect alignment but 750 Hz will align the lower frequencies when complex sounds are heard. However 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 years later or even possibly the next week, nature recognizes that hearing loss has occurred and when something happens, the lower frequencies will lock into place and the alignment will now be perfect when testing with a pure tone test and the lower frequencies will no longer move.

The only major thing missing from your knowledge is how to cause all those movements and locks to occur in order to cure/treat hearing disorders.

Re: What To Do?
 

It is claimed that hyperacusis can be caused by the following.

The most common cause of hyperacusis is overexposure to excessively high decibel levels (or sound pressure levels)

but can also be caused by

Adverse drug reaction
Bell's palsy
Chronic ear infections
Depression
Developmental coordination disorder
Ear irrigation
Facial nerve dysfunction (to stapedius)
Head injury
Lyme disease
MAO inhibitor discontinuation syndrome
Migraine
Ménière's disease
Noise-induced hearing loss
Posttraumatic stress disorder
Severe head trauma
Superior canal dehiscence syndrome (SCDS)
Surgery
Tay–Sachs disease
Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ)* A vestibular disorder
Tension myositis syndrome
Williams syndrome
Sensory Processing Disorder
Autism Spectrum disorder

There is also one major cause that they missed.

I have my doubts about a few of them especially migraines since I suspect that the migraines were caused by hyperacusis but since the hyperacusis symptoms weren't there, they assumed that migraines cause the hyperacusis. Hyperacusis has a tendency to get worse once a person has it. It becomes much easier to destabilize once a person has hyperacusis and every time a person destabilizes, the condition normally gets worse and stabilization takes longer.

Hearing Fatigue and Ear Fatigue are not officially a medical disorder but I suspect that may people develop Hearing Fatigue or Ear Fatigue going to rock concerts or listening to loud music with headphones instead of hyperacusis. However they stabilize very quickly within a couple days rest and many times they only have problems when they again go to rock concerts or listen to loud music using headphones. Sometimes this can continue for years and then it develops into full fledged hyperacusis. Others that are more cautious, may live out their life without ever developing hyperacusis.

Hyperacusis can either be mild or severe and for some people will never get severe while others are destined to be severe since certain characteristics about a person's ears will make it severe.

Re: What To Do?
 

My nephew is a materials engineer PH.D at Cornell in New York. Would that be of use. I could contact him and maybe you could send your paperwork to him? He is always looking for new ideas

Re: What To Do?
 

I think you seriously underestimate how much research, both from the engineering and physiological approach, has already been done, and continues to be done, on tinnitus.

If you think you can cure tinnitus then why don't you just invent something and get rich? There's a huge market demand for the cure. Otherwise, you're just reinventing the wheel.

Re: What To Do?
 

Thanks

That might work but could you ask him to read this thread first. If he thinks this might be in his league or he thinks he can find someone who can possibly understand the thread and have them read it and if they think there might be some possibility that I'm not a nut job, then have him PM me and I'll send the document to him. I'm trying not to send the document to too many people since I'm concerned that it will get put on the internet and I'll likely be sued. I might remove that part anyway since once they understand the concept, they should be able to figure out why a certain disorder most likely occurs but it does leave a big void as to why it occurs.

Re: What To Do?
 

There has been enormous research for the last 100 years but very little has been discovered that can treat any of these disorders. There has been a lot of medical research procedures performed such as attaching electrodes to the outer hair cells of lab animals. There has been a large number of studies. Most of the advances in hearing has to do with infections and surgery including cochlear implants.

I spent months scanning the internet looking for anything that might help me understands any of these disorders but all there was were theories that were based on assumptions that would be ridiculed in science since there was no foundation for that assumption and trials that were so basic, they didn't tell me anything.

For instance, the ISO graph was taken with the test subjects listening with both ears at the same time. One of the things I wanted to find out was what would the plot look like if test subjects listened with one ear at a time and I couldn't find anything about that not even for people with good average hearing. I was not only interested in people with good average hearing but was especially interested in people with hearing loss. This was during the early stage of the case study and I desperately needed that information since I was developing a theory and a person should have some facts to backup a theory and since my developing theory was the core basis of the theory (the assumption), if I'm wrong about what I think should be occurring, then my whole theory will be wrong.

I pondered what to do. Do I just assume that I am correct and possibly get directed in a totally wrong direction or do I somehow try to get that information. SJSU is across the street from where I live and in downtown San Jose, I could probably find some elderly homeless people for the study. Ten SJSU students would probably be enough of a sample for people with good average hearing but I didn't know how many elderly people that I would need to find that had some hearing loss at 1,000 Hz. Would I need to find a 100 to get 10? Eventually I decided that it was going to be very difficult, possibly dangerous, and of course it will cost me money (that was my least concern). So I took a chance and hoped that my assumptions were correct because if they weren't, I was just spinning my wheels. However eventually I would have to prove that my assumption was correct. In fact that is exactly what happened, the assumption was proved.

Maybe you don't understand what I mean when I refer to "one case study" and that may be a wrong term since the case study included only one individual as a test subject. I'm not talking about some theory that I dreamed up but all the procedures have been proven to work and the theory is based on the results of each of those procedures. In other words, I saw what happened when an individual's loudness discomfort level was raised to normal and locked in and all the peculiarities that occurred.

If you would have read the complete thread, you would know why. But to elaborate, if I was in my 20s, 30s, or even 40s that is what I'd do but it would take a lot of venture capital to hire medical professionals to run trial, build equipment (may not be required until after the trials but may make the trials more dangerous if the medical professionals are not real careful), and then get the whole operation going including centers to treat people. I just don't have the energy and possibly the time to do that at my age.

I've also considered getting my sons involved but when I talked to them, I could see it was way over their heads. One is an architect and the other is a senior producer at a design studio so they are smart but they absolutely had no idea what I was talking about. I've also considered patenting the procedures and anything else patentable and then get someone who can market the concept to universities and/or companies with a non disclosure agreement but when I talked to one person, I could tell that he didn't understand the concept and no matter how much I would go over it with him, he wouldn't be able to get his foot in the door since the concept is so insane and unbelieveable and if a person doesn't understand it, he wouldn't be able to market it. Sometimes a person can market something when it is mainstream but this is anything but mainstream and since it isn't mainstream, without understanding it, he just wouldn't be able to market it.

Since everything is based one individual, I don't know if everyone reacts exactly the same and therefore there has to be trials to determine possible variations. For instance, I made a statement that 750 Hz is the control frequency but that may be depend on the characteristics of the ears and someone with a different characteristic may have a different control frequency. What I am certain of is that there is a control frequency and that is putting myself out on a limb since that concept is totally insane.

Re: What To Do?
 

It's time for your coke dealer to cut you off.

Re: What To Do?
 

To elaborate a little more, when someone with hyperacusis goes to a TRT therapist, the patient is told that over the next 18 months what they are going to try to do with "pink noise" is raise the loudness discomfort level and this should indicate that a new neurological connection is being formed in the brain.

On hearing disorder web sites, people were very pleased when their loudness discomfort level was higher than the previous visit. Although I didn't believe the crap about forming a new neurological connection, I thought that must be a clue to curing hyperacusis and even assumed that if I could figure out a way to raise it to normal (nobody had ever figured out how to do that before) and when I figured out how to raise it to normal and lock it in, I was a little surprised that hyperacusis was still there.

Re: What To Do?
 

That's the kind of crap I got from the self proclaimed experts and all I was doing was asking a question.

Re: What To Do?
 

One issue with cold calling a uni could well be a blanket university policy to ignore outside research info/ideas.

Simply because they don't want to get involved in a IP dispute, nor do they want to use any info as a form of research and not be able to sell the IP later on because of tainted IP ownership because it did not come from them originally.

I know that to be the case at at least one university and at a few research/design companies.

It all goes straight in the bin, unopened, unread.

If you want someone to do the research on this, then ideally you need to own the patent so that it's covered and turn over the IP ownership to the institute if that is what you want to do, or it'll more than likely be ignored.

Re: What To Do?
 

I'm sure that everyone would like to be handed something on a silver platter, I mean a gold platter, no I really mean a sold gold armored Brinks truck. If they are not interested, it's their loss. However how to you explain stem cell research since everybody is discussing it and there is no guarantee that the university will get or even discover any patents?

Maybe I understand.:lightbulb: "Stem Cell" is the code word for getting easy grants and they really don't even have to understand what they are asking for just like "cloud computing" is currently the code word for easy money from venture capitalist.

However on the other hand, they are going to have to understand everything completely and fully believe in it because the concept is so far fetched, it makes just about everything else seem logical.

I can hand them the document but they want real proof and/or protection. I can give them real proof but I'm not going to give them protection.

I talked about raising the loudness discomfort level to normal many times since it is the easiest to understand, it's very plausible that someone could figure out how to do it, it is very easy to accomplish (in fact I could go to a hearing disorder forum and tell them what to do and anyone with a half of a brain could do it as long as they don't have acoustic shock disorder), it only requires headphones, and since any of these procedures are not a one day procedure, any of these procedures can be terminated easily if not carried to completion and the test subject will not be any worse off then before the procedure was attempted.

In other words, they would have an easy way of looking at how the ear works with all the strange things that happen with very easy tests over several days and then could pat themselves on the back as being geniuses, write in medical journals about their observations, and if works for one test subject and they are willing to spend a little effort on more test subjects, they would have indisputable evidence that the loudness discomfort level can be raised to normal without actually locking it, have the proof that something very scientifically important has happened, and now they don't even have to understand the full concept to get the money rolling in.

So it is not a "shot in the dark" where they could be financially hurt since they could do the above for less than what it would cost for a full scholarship for a year.

So if they are not interested, I'd probably put that information on a hearing disorder forum and tell them not to bring it to conclusion but just record what they observe. When 100 individual people have done the research that the medial community should have done, there will be a lot of eggs on the medical profession faces.

Re: What To Do?
 

My husband will read them but to be perfectly honest, the vast majority may be well-meaning but are ridiculous scientifically.

Re: What To Do?
 

Michael, I'll be honest, I'm a little bit worried about you.

Re: What To Do?
 

That is the same attitude I get from self proclaimed experts when I ask a very simple question. In fact they are so smart that when I describe symptoms of hyperacusis, one said I don't think that is hyperacusis but is another disorder "where a person thinks he/she hears loud sounds they have a fear of loud lounds". The medical community appears to have a "dumping grounds" when they don't understand something and that is an another illness that is "psychological".

I'm a very strong skeptic so I can understand the skepticism that many may have but I'm not expecting them to take anything at face value but just want them to keep an open mind to try to determine if I'm a snake oil salesman or if maybe just possibly there might be some truth in what I am saying.

Re: What To Do?
 

I will admit that I have a big head and believe that all problems can be solved as long as the clues are followed and analyzed no mater how small and insignificant the clues may appear to be.

This is an engineering mentality and not necessarily a medical research mentality. Medical researchers tend to discard what are perceived as small and insignificant clues.

For example, if only a very small percentage of hyperacusis test subjects report having acoustic shock disorder, then acoustic shock disorder must be another disorder. That is not necessarily true.

As another example, hyperacusis is defined by someone hearing loud sounds so the very first question is "do you hear loud sounds and what types of sounds bother you". The test subject may say yes and closing of a door may appear very loud or other objects may appear very loud. The medical researcher will likely not analyze the characteristics of those sounds in relation to other sounds and determine how they differ but an engineer may do that. The medical researcher is now stumped but the engineer may now have another clue and may ask test subjects to describe the sounds that they hear and the answer will likely be "very loud" but if the engineer is lucky, one or two will eventually describe the sound differently. A test subject may say the sound is very loud but it doesn't sound like it sounded before the disorder. The engineer may then ask, "what do you mean"? The test subject may then say "well, it's not a thump like I normally heard". The engineer will then likely ask, "can you describe the sound a little more"? The test subject may then say "it has sort of a ring to it".

Even though only one or two out of 100 test subjects gave the engineer detailed information, it is not necessarily unimportant and in fact may be extremely important. Since the engineer may have already analyzed the sounds that bother test subjects he may already be expecting those answers but even if he didn't, the answers will likely tell him a lot.

A test subject may be able to walk past a pile driver which is a very loud momentary sound but the sound may not bother the test subject but if someone puts a cup down on a table which is a fairly soft momentary sound, the test subject's brain may be severely jolted. Everything I described are very small but very important clues.

Re: What To Do?
 

There may well be some truth in what you're saying, however you shouldn't let it take over your thinking.

Look after yourself first and foremost.

Re: What To Do?
 

Concerning small clues. Before the individual's loudness discomfort level (LDL) was raised, it was tested and a very small clue was seen. At the time, it didn't seem to be important but it was recorded. At 750 Hz, the person's LDL was 66 DB for the left ear and 72 DB for the right ear.

Later that difference became very important to understanding how the ear was likely working.