I had a long call today with someone who was recently injured from TMS and is suffering massively from tinnitus. They were very concerned that the damage had come from not wearing hearing protection from just one session. I told them my skepticism and that I thought the damage was being done internally to the brain and it was not from the noise of the treatment.
This person told me that was very interesting because his neurologist had pointed out that the treatment site is very close to the auditory cortex of the brain, which you can see in the images. It is also very interesting that not a single person has reported to me or have i seen any evidence of damage to the cochlea or mechanism of the inner ear that may indicate physiological injury from sound waves. For those interested in understanding the cause of the tinnitus we are experiencing, I am inclined to believe that there is physiological damage to the auditory cortex via electroporation from the rapidly alternating polarities of the electromagnetic pulses generated by TMS, and that this is more likely than damage to the physical processing sound processing system of the ear from the sound waves generated by TMS.
This is not to say that damage from the noise of the TMS machine is not possible. This is to say that I do not think that is what the vast majority of us are suffering from when we have tinnitus and certainly not those of us who wore hearing protection or just had a short number of treatments.
