u/TaypHill

Hey everyone, hope you all are doing well.

This question is going to be divided into two parts

firstly i want to know if you guys have any insight on acupuncture’s capacity to heal sensoneural hearing loss. I am currently doing corticoid treatment, but thinking of doing acupuncture as well. It generally works well with many problems i have now and then, and a have a therapist i trust.

The only problem is that i would have to give um a trip i already made a reservation for and paid a big part of it.

Does anyone know if much as with corticoid, time is of the essence?

The second question is to present a hypothesis i have as to how it started.

one week before the hearing loss started i went to do acupuncture because of some emotional/psychological issues (excessive stimulation had caused a qualitative shift to how i feel about life, feeling much more attachment to the mind’s narratives and a worsening of insecurities).

this was on a thursday. saturday night i felt the mind beggining to go back to how it felt before.

The monday morning i took (prescribed) ritalin for a maths class, and in the afternoon i felt as if it had “messed” up somehow the process and that the mind was once again attached and insecure.

So tuesday i went to acupuncture again, to try to put things back in order again.

wednesday i came to a meditation retreat, and the on thursday the symptoms of hearing loss started.
tinnitus increased on the left side, ear feeling muffled, and the left ear seems to not be picking up high pitched sounds as well.

an examination i did yesterday found an actual drop in the left ear’s capacity to pick up high frequencies, but the physical examination found nothing wrong with the ear, strongly suggesting that the loss is sensoneural.

which makes me wonder, could it be an excess of varied stimulation that messed up something? i’ve heard that people should be careful when switching acupuncturists, but never heard about interactions with traditional western medicine in that sense.

What do you think?

Hi everyone,

I’ve received an offer from Queen Mary (Psychology Conversion MSc), and am currently waiting on one from UCL (Psychological Sciences MSc, which is what they call their conversion course) and I’m trying to make a serious decision on whether it’s worth the wait.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards just going with Queen Mary for instead of waiting, i’ve already paid the deposit, but i feel like finding a place to stay will be the point of no return.

UCL is significantly more expensive, especially with the paid the deposit for Queen Mary, and my impression as an international student is that the cost of living around Queen Mary may also be somewhat lower than around UCL.

What I’m trying to understand is: what would I actually be gaining by paying the extra (and risking have a worse place to stay while attending QMUL if i don’t get the offer) to go to UCL?

I know UCL has a much stronger overall reputation in psychology, but I’d really like to hear from people who know either or both universities in practice, rather than just by rankings.

I’d love to hear especially about:
- quality of teaching
- how strong the lecturers actually are
- course structure and academic depth
- research environment and opportunities
- how much weight the degree carries afterwards
employability
- student experience
- general atmosphere
- the kind of peers you are surrounded by
- location, housing, and day-to-day life
- anything else that ended up mattering more than expected

For context, I’d like to keep open the possibility of working as a clinician one day, but right now my main interest is much more research, especially in social psychology and cultural psychology.

I also don’t know whether I’ll necessarily stay in the UK after graduation, but if a good opportunity came up in an area that interests me, I would probably take it.

So I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who studied at either UCL or Queen Mary, people who did a psychology conversion course, or people who have a good sense of how both are viewed in the UK.

Thanks a lot!