Here is my email to Dr. Santina about the prosthetic inner ear.
Dear Dr. Santina,
My name is David Stillwagon and I have had Meniere’s disease for the past six years. Over the past 2 years I have been writing about my life with Meniere’s disease on a blog. I have a loyal following of readers. Quite a few of them saw the article in Popular Science about your prosthetic inner ear. Everyone is quite excited about it, hoping that someday it will help relieve the more than unpleasant side effects of meniere’s, namely the vertigo.
I think the question that most meniere’s sufferers have is this something that will benefit meniere’s patients or just those with vestibular balance problems. Any information that you can give would be greatly appreciated.
David Stillwagon
Here is Dr. Santina’s response…
Hi David,
Thanks very much for your email and for helping to keep others with Meniere’s informed.
I envision the prosthesis as having potential to be a good safety net for people who lose most/all of their labyrinth function either due to Meniere’s or due to destructive treatments performed in an effort to treat Meniere’s (e.g., gentamicin and possibly after labyrinthectomy). If we can obtain excellent results, we might someday see the prosthesis as part of the Meniere’s treatment approach, mainly via allowing earlier and/or more aggressive use of intratympanic gentamicin in one ear when the other has already lost most or all of its vestibular sensation.
There are also efforts toward using a stimulator without head motion sensors as a pacemaker to overdrive an ear during a Meniere’s attack. Jay Rubinstein and Jim Phillips are leading that effort. The early outcomes of that approach will become clear over the next year or so, as they plan to start implantations very soon.
Charley C. Della Santina, PhD MD
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Sunday, October 3, 2010
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9 comments:
David:
excellent post. That sounds very encouraging, it would be cool to have a treatment option for unilateral MM (Rubinstein) and one for bilateral MM.
It sounds encouraging, progress is being made.
Thanks David
Larry
Hi David:
very interesting and encouraging for sure. In 10 years, hopefully we will not fear the beast of MM as we do now. The thing about this technology is that it will only grow, improve, become more efficient. Once this stuff starts, it gets the ball rolling down hill. I have a Cochlear Implant and now
they are coming out with wireless, fully implantable CI's that go directly in your ears in essence nobody will know you have one in the future.
Simply amazing. Technology will give us a solution rather than medicine I am convinced of that.
Mary
David:
where do we go from here? Do you think dr Santina and dr Rubinstein hold the key to this puzzle. I find it interesting and encouraging that they have turned away from medicine and pills and instead focused their efforts toward implants and prosthesis. David the technology they are using, neurostimulation is fast becoming the future of medicine.
Talk to you soon- Tim
David:
if you are interested in contacting or following Dr. Jay Rubinstein and his progress here is his email: www.rubinj@u.washington.edu
David are you more encouraged or less after hearing from
Santina. I find it interesting that one is working on something for unilateral MM patients and one is working on something for bi-lateral patients.
Sincerely,
Stephanie
David:
if dr Rubinstein's product works, I wonder how long before it would be available to the masses? nerve stimulation holds the promise to so many diseases where medicine has failed.
Kimberly
Hello David:
a horrific disease, but it seems progress is being made. Are you encouraged David?? Maybe there is hope after all. It seems more attention is being focused on vestibular disorders. It will be interesting to see where all this leads. I am hoping the Rubinstein pacemaker will have good results and that will lead to even devices.
Steve
David:
This makes me feel more confident if I ever Go bi-lateral.
David: did you know about dr. Rubinstein's pacemaker when you were undergoing gent shots? I am thinking about them, now with this device in human trials very soon, I do not know what to think or do.
Any thoughts, did your gent work? I know it severely effected your balance, but has it stopped your vertigo attacks.
Thanks everyone for the comments!
I also suffer from Menier's & loss of hearing in left ear, the tinnitus is awful. I have found no medication that helps.
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