Tinnitus Patches
- Admin
- Jul 28, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Dec 7, 2023
Today is an easy lesson on critical thinking. The aim is not merely to debunk out of spite, but to document my thought process as I was immediately skeptical of this curious product I came across. I think going off the back of some of my recent posts on things we can all do to know what’s real or fake, this is a nice low-hanging fruit to pick for practice.
I saw this ‘Tinnitus patch’ pictured below, and I was highly skeptical straight away, and confident there was something wrong about this. Why immediately? To some, my confidence would be seemingly unfounded at this stage, and rightly so if you don’t have a sharpened set of critical thinking skills and scientific literacy to some degree. Actually, I would change the word confidence to skepticism.
So why immediately? That comes down to me being quite hard to fool via my natural curiosity and years of practice at this sort of thing. But I’ll try to explain, in depth, the host of reasons I felt this way (and what I did to actually reveal the pseudoscience, which happened almost as quickly).
Initial Skepticism and Prior Plausibility
The first thing that occurred to me was that this is a patch, you attach it to your skin. What kind of plausible mechanism can there possibly be between the outer skin and what I knew Tinnitus to be, an inner ear problem – or a signal being processed by the brain as sound? This strikes me as extremely unlikely.
Furthermore, I’ve never heard of this treatment when I’ve heard about Tinnitus – but I’d have thought I’d have seen at least somebody in my lifetime use them. It’s a fairly common condition, especially in older people like my dad. If it works and you don’t need a prescription, why don’t I see it in the big pharmacy chains?
To add to this, it appears a little strange that I’m first seeing or hearing about this as sold by an extremely cheap internet wholesaler of general tat and knock-off products. Not really what you want to ‘hear’ for a reliable judgement of whether this is legit – and not really a trustworthy place for indeed anything medically or health related.
This is enough to show up on my radar as a probable scam, marketing ploy, or pseudoscience in some capacity.
Pay Attention to Packaging
Next I looked at the packaging. There’s a lot you can learn from this too, if you know what to look for.
First to note, it makes a point to say:
“Effective & Safe”
This is often not so much ‘medical reassurance’ as ‘subtle marketing’. For example, you don’t see Paracetamol, or other established effective medicine using this line. In fact, as much as medical devices that work are proven effective and safe, they usually just warn of the possible adverse and side effects – because of course a well-regulated and proven product is assumed effective by that point.
Next:
“Hearing Weaken”
This is obviously bad English. That’s not necessarily a direct concern, but in this context it makes me warier of it. It’s not really specific about what it’s saying it does. Does it not only help Tinnitus, but help with poor hearing now as well? If that’s an additional claim, then it’s seeming less plausible by the second – these patches would have made billions and be everywhere by now if that was the case. Again, no plausible mechanism between a skin patch and hearing.
Oh! There’s more:
“Ear Pain”
Our old friend pain – the thing almost every single non-specific ‘treatment’ claims to help with. Even non-specific by the usual standards, what kind of pain? Caused by infection? Physical damage? Hearing damage?
It seems from the front of the packet we have 3 claims already, each with less plausibility than the last; helps with Tinnitus, helps with hearing loss (not the same as Tinnitus) and helps with ‘pain’.
This next part made me laugh out loud though. When you turn the packet over, you have this image:
Let’s just ignore the foot for a second. Why would a patch which allegedly helps with an inner ear problem (which by the way, can have several causes and therefore can’t all be treated the same) be put on the outside of the ear, and in fact not even on the ear? You have to ask these questions. More obviously and hilariously, you can put this on your FOOT. I’m just going to leave that hanging, because nobody should need me to explain why this makes zero logical sense. Also, I’d love to know why of the two alleged options, the foot is depicted before the ear area? Anyway…
Next, we move on to the ingredients:
If you can make out the picture, you will find 3 red flags:
It is a cocktail of herbs, not regulated by institutions or law. You could be getting potentially hazardous or varying amounts of these (note no % of each ingredient or even the main one), product to product.
The first ingredient ‘Xanthii Fructus’ is revealed, by a quick Google, to be ‘a traditional Chinese medicine’ (not based in evidence) and ‘widely used for more than 1800 years’ – which is nothing more than an appeal to tradition, when used to justify it. Worse still, it is acknowledged that “Toxicological studies have shown that Xanthii Fructus poisoning can cause substantial damage to organs, such as the liver, kidney, and gastrointestinal tract, especially to liver.” – which when combined with the first red flag, is a real concern.
This is laughable, to put ‘etc.’ on the end! Of a ‘medically used’ ingredients list! This traditional herb, that traditional herb, blah blah and the rest…
Pseudoscience Through and Through
Still on the packaging, here’s where it gets blatantly obviously pseudoscience (not that it isn’t already). Referring back to the reason for the foot placement, it says:
The ‘Yongquan’ point is lifted straight out of Acupuncture meridian points – a system never once proven to exist, regulated by its own scientifically illiterate, biased practitioners, and so controversial even amongst its own proponents, that they can’t all agree where these magical points should exist. Acupuncture is indisputably, well-established pseudoscience, originating from Traditional Chinese Medicine and now a staple of Alternative Medicine.
It is of course no surprise to catch the disclaimer at the bottom of the packet which effectively admits to its uselessness:
“…does not replace drugs and medical devices for treatment.”
Yeah, no shit.
What’s the Science on Tinnitus?
If you didn’t read the link earlier, this is a good summary from Johns Hopkins Medicine, of the definition, possible causes, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment options for Tinnitus. You will notice that skin patches don’t feature at all, for treatment of any of the symptoms or causes. Big Pharma really missed a trick there, eh? Maybe not.
Different Iterations of the Same Nonsense
In my source and fact checking Google journey, I quickly found this support forum thread in Tinnitus Talk, a nonprofit support group for tinnitus patients.
Here, Mats Reimer, MD, discussed a different product (also a skin patch) called Antinitus, which although used a completely different nonsense mechanism but still via skin patch, was absolutely as bizarre as the Acupuncture version. This one is ‘Synchronized Water’ – one of many forms of water-based pseudoscience.
Here were three obvious red flags, which again, I talked about in my last post.
The first: Language. Pseudo-babble. Word Salad. One savvy poster points out:
“This product looks like pseudoscience.
A transparent adhesive patch is placed behind one ear. The pattern in the "matrix" is supposed to "convert ordinary, chaotic light into fractal light that affects water molecules ... into a coherent organised state with natural fractal order". This so called "organizing" of the body's water is somehow supposed to help against tinnitus.”
This whole description is lavishly buttered with utter nonsense. Repurposed technical jargon into incoherent, marketing buzzword salad. Any trainee scientist could tell you it means nothing.
The second: clear financial incentive, as pointed out again:
“For some unspecified reason the "matrix" in the patch apparently wears out since a new patch must be put on every day for several weeks.”
You will never not need this product, you have to change it daily and spend constantly. Furthermore:
“In its advertising the company claim to have official approval, but all they have is the lowest level of permission for medical devices, a certificate of registration where they have made a simple declaration that the product is not harmful. But it is harmful. To the patients' wallet.”
The third: there actually is no good clinical evidence:
“It is true that there has been two small clinical trials, but no publication in any peer reviewed journal so far. In my opinion it was shameful that they got ethical permission to do the trials since it is such an obvious waste of time for the participating tinnitus patients.”
Conclusions
This product is conclusively yet another of the 1000s of pseudoscience junk products out there, preying on the unsuspecting and often desperate public for their hard earned cash.
It would seem that calling this patch ‘effective and safe’ is far too premature an assertion given the lack of any large scale or well-controlled studies (Alternative medicine journals are rife with poor, substandard junk science studies).
Your best chances of diagnosis are from a medical professional. Is the problem even Tinnitus? If so, what is the likely root cause? Following that, what can you do that is practical for you, and is proven to have an actual effect?
Tinnitus is a multi-faceted thing to diagnose. As much as people never want to ‘hear’ it (pun intended), going to a doctor and self-advocating for your hearing is the best and only step worth trying – both in terms of money and time. This is because months down the line, after all those online easy treatments fail, you can add that time and money onto our under-funded, albeit more reliable, health service.
The internet will rarely, if ever, provide you with an easy and cheap fix to a medical problem. This, along with all other pseudoscience treatments, is not worth the pennies it was sold for. It is not worth trying, or worth your time and hope. Alternative Medicine is never the answer!
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