Tinnitus Miracle is Bullshit

There are few people I despise more than those who take advantage of others who are at a drastically low point in their lives. Whether it's people struggling with debts they cannot pay, the unemployed or people suffering from chronic - or even fatal - illnesses, there will always be that special breed of scum who will try to take advantage of them for personal gain. I've written about many people like that in this blog and now I turn my attention to Thomas Coleman.

Coleman claims to have developed a system that helps people with tinnitus cure themselves, using natural and holistic methods. He calls this system Tinnitus Miracle.

For the sake of Full Disclosure, I'm letting you know that I have tinnitus and I've had it since I was very young. It's usually not very bad, though I've had times where it got very loud. Until I learned what tinnitus is, I thought it was normal. When I was a child, I had numerous ear infections, so maybe that's a reason I have tinnitus today. I don't know for sure, because (like Thomas Coleman) I'm not a doctor.

Anyway, enough about me.

So, who is Thomas Coleman? Well, in the video where he introduces himself and his system, he claims to be a certified nutrition specialist, health consultant, medical researcher, speaker and author. He is not an Otologist. Otology is the branch of medicine which studies normal and pathological anatomy and physiology of the ear as well as diseases of the ear and their diagnosis and treatment. Tinnitus is one of the conditions studied by otologists.

Let's examine these claims, shall we?
Certified Nutrition Specialist: this requires only a bachelor's degree in healthcare, nutrition science or food service. Most states require them to be licensed, others just require them to be registered. Coleman does not provide the name of the college or university where he received his degree. He also provides no evidence that he is, in fact, a Certified Nutrition Specialist;

Health Consultant: this doesn't really mean anything. Who does he consult? I get health and diet advice whenever I go to the vegan grocery store and that advice comes from people with little, if any, background in medicine. Sure, Coleman's got his degree, so that gives him a bit more credibility than the vegan kids at the market;

Medical Researcher: Okay, this is a joke, right? What type of research has he done and where has he done it? With a bachelor's degree, his only place in a medical research project would be limited to cleaning-up the lab after the real scientists have gone home for the day. Coleman may consider himself to be a "researcher" after having done the research in developing Tinnitus Miracle, but an authentic medical researcher would be both amused and insulted that Coleman would give himself that kind of label, considering his lack of a degree in a field of study relevant to performing serious medical research;

Speaker: I could find no listing for Thomas Coleman being available to book for speaking engagements. The only speaking we know about is in the video he posted;

Author: the only thing I can find that he wrote is his "Tinnitus Miracle" e-book. There is no listing for him writing anything else. If he's an author because of that, then so am I because I write this blog.

So, Coleman provides no evidence to back-up his claims of being a CNS and the rest of his claims are laughable, at best.

Anyway, Coleman claims to have been a long-time sufferer of tinnitus, trying all sorts of things until he finally discovered his system and called it "Tinnitus Miracle". He then claims to have had other people try it and they were all cured, too.. He also claims that over 14 years, he's helped over 217,000 people in 163 countries eliminate their tinnitus. Furthermore, he states that Tinnitus Miracle is effective for all types of tinnitus, regardless of the person's age or background. So, Tinnitus Miracle is like a "one size fits all" program.

Sounds awesome. Especially since otologists have been doing research (i.e. real research) for years and haven't yet found a cure. Researchers have found ways to help people cope with their condition, but no outright cure has come down the pipe.

You would think that if Coleman's claims were true, word would have gotten out and we would have heard of this guy long before he bought a website and posted his video. The American Tinnitus Association could have shutdown years ago and millions of people with this condition could have been relieved of it. But, the ATA is still around, research is till going-on and millions of people (between 10 to 15% of adults) still have tinnitus.

Coleman's video also offers much to criticize him about.

He states that he went to his doctor and was eventually diagnosed with tinnitus, but was told that there was no treatment and would just have to live with it. This is strange, because William Shatner was able to receive help from the American Tinnitus Association, as you can see in this video

Either Coleman had a very uninformed doctor (it happens) or he made the story up. 

Next, Coleman said that he went to a psychiatrist who prescribed numerous drugs. Since tinnitus is a physical condition and not a psychiatric one, prescribing drugs for it seems odd. No medications are currently prescribed to treat tinnitus. If a psychiatrist did prescribe medications, it may have been to help cope with the stress caused by his tinnitus (medications were for anxiety and depression), not for the tinnitus itself. He says that another doctor told him he needed surgery, but surgery isn't used to treat it.

So, Coleman went out and bought a lot of books, went to the library to read everything he could on the topic and interviewed a lot of people. He delved into homeopathy and naturopathic methods and says that he tried every treatment known to science, all to no avail.

So, he concentrated on holistically treating his condition, realizing that the only way to "cure" tinnitus was to remove the underlying cause of it. He eventually stumbled on his Tinnitus Miracle system and his tinnitus was gone! He then got 27 other people to try it and their condition cleared-up in less than 4 weeks.

Coleman repeatedly mentions drugs prescribed to people with tinnitus and how the pharmaceutical is a big villain which is ripping people off and that if a cure was found for tinnitus, the pharmaceutical industry would lose money and customers.. Let me repeat myself:  No medications are currently prescribed to treat tinnitus! 

Coleman is just using the pharmaceutical industry as a bogeyman in the hopes that people will somehow feel that they are "taking control of their own health" by buying his book and putting money into his pocket, instead of Big Pharma's. Coleman sounds like the scammers who sold colloidal silver, noni juice and numerous other "natural" health products for which big promises were made but never delivered.

Coleman also makes the absolutely ludicrous claim that tinnitus is more like an alarm going-off, rather than an actual problem. He claims that there is an underlying malfunction in your body and it is expressed by the buzzing/clicking sounds in your ear. Sort of like if there is a fire in a building, an alarm goes-off to warn people. The alarm isn't the problem, the fire is the problem.

To back-up this bullshit claim of knowing what really causes tinnitus, when medical researchers with real degrees in medical science who have spent years of their lives getting an education and working in their respective fields haven't, he offers absolutely no God damned proof of any kind! None. Zero. Nada. Fuck all.

He goes on to claim that Tinnitus Miracle is a "clinically researched system that is backed by over 35,000 hours of nutritional expertise".

No shit? Okay, If it was clinically researched, then Coleman should have submitted his findings to be published in the scientific literature, like the Lancet. His research would have been subjected to peer review by people who specialize in that field of study (e..g. otology or otorhinolaryngology) and then others would have had the opportunity to attempt to replicate his findings with studies of their own. Then, if they could replicate his findings independently, Coleman would be hailed around the world as "The Man Who Found the Cure For Tinnitus" and his name would have been mentioned alongside those of others who found cures for various diseases or medical conditions. Not bad for a guy with bachelor's degree.

If he did submit his findings to be peer reviewed, I'd be very interested in reading it for myself. But, he apparently didn't. He offers no verifiable proof of any kind that he has helped anyone, let alone how he came to his stated conclusions. So, we're supposed to just take his word for it.

Fuck that and fuck him!

If you don't know how scientific peer review works, it is best explained in this video

There are numerous videos on YouTube touting Coleman's Tinnitus Miracle and I have found many websites mentioning it. This resembles the approach taken by multi-level marketers who flood the Internet with webpages telling people that a particular product is not a scam, thereby drowning-out any naysayers and getting more victims hooked into the scam.

So, I went into the web forums for people living with tinnitus to see what they had to say about Thomas Coleman and his Tinnitus Miracle:

From actiononhearingloss.org.uk

Oh just one last thing , I so agree with you movie miscreant ,thomas coleman should be in jail.His methods of selling by deceiption / false promises and fraudulant web site techniques that are frequently altered , repositioned to lead in web searches , false information & impersonation of valid medical websites is just immoral if not illegal.Just to make money off desperate people in that fashion is a man dancing with the devil.

From Tinnitus Talk

I have had the delightful T in my left ear since I guess the mid-80's. I experienced a horrific inner ear infection which threw me off balance and into a series of significant tests and out of work for about a week. I slowly recovered but the T remained and I have been dealing with it since.
In the last few weeks it has become more pronounced and I looked on the web for some advice on how to deal with it and landed on the Tinnitus Miracle sight. That looked like a scam so I searched for reviews and this site came up with people discussing it as the obvious scam it is.
Wow- I have been reading on here for hours. I am so amazed at the number of folks here and especially those with very significant symptoms that are overtaking their enjoyment of this great gift of life.
I have already learned new terminology and the latest information about this blasted high pitch tone. I plan to keep digging in to learn more. Thank God for my air purifier that runs at an auditory level that masks this ring every night. I am blessed to sleep fairly well because of it.
Thank you community, for making this a great place.

and an entire thread where Coleman and his book are discussed:

It's a scam at worst, or misleading at best. Contains nothing you can't find here on Tinnitus Talk. Don't bother buying it.

This has been discussed before, so I merged the threads.

I found this comment to be particularly alarming

Believe it or not, about three years ago I posted a video on YouTube about my experience with tinnitus and when I reached about 10k views (it now has over 25k) I received a private message from Thomas Coleman (or someone using his Tinnitus Miracle account) asking if I'd be willing to make a video clip telling everyone that my tinnitus was cured by using his product. In return he would pay me $100 from paypal. I told him to screw off. 

Those posts were copied and pasted directly from those fora without my editing them.

If Thomas Coleman believes in Tinnitus Miracle so much, you'd think he'd be more open about it. However, he doesn't show his face in the video and we are left to assume that it's even his real voice. It could be an actor playing him or it's even possible that Thomas Coleman doesn't really exist and it's somebody scamming under a false name.

The website itself also raises red flags for me:

TinnitusMiracle.com is registered anonymously via WhoIsGuard, so you don't really know who's behind it all.

Also hosted on the 72.52.245.31 IP Address are other websites that offer "cures" of various conditions and which look eerily similar to tinnitusmiracle.com:

• acidrefluxatoz.com claims to be able to cure your acid reflux in under two months
• acnenomore.com "clinically researched system that is backed by 30,000+ hours of nutritional expertise for eliminating acne for good". Sound familiar?
• bacterialvaginosisnomore.com "Over 143,000 women and men in 157 countries worldwide have already used Linda Allen's Yeast Infection No More (TM) system to get rid of their Candida yeast infections permanently!" Deja vu!
• yeastinfectionnomore.com dead link
• holisticacnetreatments.com cure your acne holistically. Video on site sounds exactly like Thomas Coleman
• relationshipatoz.com helps women find and keep the right man
• earth4electricity.com generate your own electricity and live off the grid
• yeast-infection-no-more.com same as bacterialvaginosisnomore.com
• easy-love-spells.com How to cast love spells. Doesn't seem to be selling anything
• protectionspells.org All About Protection Spells
• moneyspellsthatwork.net Spells for Money
• solar-power-advice.com generate your own electricity and live off the grid. links to earth4electricity.com

The above-listed web addresses all share the same IP address as TinnitusMiracle. While the ones for magic spells seem harmless enough, the others appear to offer "cures" for various ailments, the veracity of which I am doubtful.

The voices on TinnitusMiracle and HolisticAcneTreatments sound almost exactly the same, so I'm guessing that it's the same guy using different names.

Everything about Thomas Coleman (or whatever the fuck is his real name) and his "Tinnitus Miracle" seems wrong. In my opinion, it's just a scam looking to fleece people out of their money. What makes it particularly egregious to me is that, while some people do grow accustomed to it, others really do suffer. People who are suffering sometimes become desperate and desperate people will occasionally fall victim to unscrupulous scumbags, like "Thomas Coleman".

Steer clear of these scams that claim to cure tinnitus. The only thing they are really offering is to separate you from your money by using false hope and empty promises.

Is Thomas Coleman Even A Real Person?

Thanks to the good people at Tinnitus Talk, I've learned who really is behind "Tinnitus Miracle" and it's not Thomas Coleman.

Since "Tinnitus Miracle" is a copyrighted work, it is registered with the US Copyright Office and you can view its listing at this link.

The copyright-holder for "Tinnitus Miracle" isn't Thomas Coleman, but an Israeli citizen named Hayim Oshky, who also owns the copyright for "Acne No More", which is mentioned in the links above. Not surprisingly, "Acne No More" has been denounced as a scam, too.

Compare that listing to this picture of the front cover of the book. The manpictured on the cover is supposed to be Thomas Coleman, but it could just as easily be an actor hired for the part or it could also be simply a stock photo.

 You'll notice that at the bottom of the book cover, it says that the book is copyrighted by Thomas Coleman. The US Copyright Office says differently.

Mr Oshky was also kind enough to post a review of  "Tinnitus Miracle", which seems a little self-serving, since he's the actual author.

Hayim Oshky's company, "Higher Ways Publishing", is also the copyright-holder for various other books offering bullshit miracle cures and quack treatments for various things.

What You Can Do For Yourself

If you're living with tinnitus and you have questions you'd like to have answered, please visit the American Tinnitus Association website,

If you'd like to chat with other people living with tinnitus, sign-up with Tinnitus Talk. 

Postscript

I am under no illusions whatsoever that this blog or even the very informative discussions regarding this scam will affect sales of "Tinnitus Miracle" in any way. These scumbags are posting on behalf of it all over Twitter and this little blog won't stop more than a few people from wasting their money on it.

While my condition isn't very bad, others are not so fortunate. For some people, like William Shatner before he received help from the ATA, living with tinnitus can be debilitating. People may feel like they are being driven insane by the constant ringing in their ears. People like that get desperate and desperate people do desperate things, like spending money on scams like "Tinnitus Miracle".

The best advice I can give to anyone living with tinnitus is to sign-up at Tinnitus Talk. Members there have tinnitus and most have been living with it for a long time. They know how you feel and what you're going through.

Duane Browning