Tinnitus Treatment

If particular cause is found then it should be treated. Hypertension must be lower and anemia is corrected. Meniere's disease which is characterized by tinnitus, hearing loss and vertigo can respond to vasodilators and diuretics, but if the tinnitus is not improved with the time then doctor suggest different treatments. Range of the treatment is from home care and commonsense measures to the highly surgical treatments.

The simple treatment on tinnitus is to play simple background in the home. This music blocks the tinnitus and help to sleep.

Tinnitus maskers are also useful for some of the people. This device is fit as like the hearing aids and is tuned for playing the same frequency sound as like patient's tinnitus. This produces the damping effect on unwanted noise. If hearing loss come with the tinnitus then hearing amplifier is useful for raising the incoming sound sufficient for blocking the tinnitus.

Low dose of the tranquilizers may minimize the tinnitus, possibly by effect on acoustic nerve or the cochlea or by alleviating the anxiety which also go with the tinnitus.

For relief of the symptoms, oral antidepressants such as e.g. nortriptyline taken orally at the bedtime may also effective.

For the stress induced tinnitus, psychological counseling, biofeedback, or the hypnosis useful for the tinnitus. These are helpful for reducing emotional tension which produces unnecessary muscle spasm in tiny tensor tympani or the stapedius muscles inside the ear.

After the evaluation, doctor can find the cause of the tinnitus and treat that tinnitus. In many of the cases, there is no any particular treatment. The main part of the treatment is patient can understand the tinnitus or patient have to live with it.

For treating the tinnitus, scientific study suggests that niacin is useful for reducing the tinnitus but it can cause the skin flushing problem. Always keep in mind tinnitus is symptom not a disease.

Preventing and Minimizing Tinnitus:

Useful techniques used for reducing and preventing tinnitus are given below:

  • Reduce exposure to extremely loud noise
  • Decrease salt intake
  • Avoid total silence
  • Monitor one's blood pressure
  • Avoid stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine
  • Reduce fatigue
  • Exercise
  • Educate yourself
  • Manage stress

For most forms of the tinnitus, there is no any known cure but many management options are available which varies in degree of relief from tinnitus.

Medications:

Single medicine is not useful for all the tinnitus patients. The anti-anxiety and antidepressants are useful for some tinnitus patients, but still research is required in this area.

Acoustic Therapy:

Six main methods are used in acoustic therapies which are given below:

  • Tinnitus masker also called as sound generator - This is ear level electronic device which produces the white noise.
  • A tinnitus instrument - a combination of sound generator and hearing aid.
  • Hearing aids - This is useful for amplifying the speech and environmental noise and so stimulate ear and brain areas that otherwise cannot receive adequate stimulation due to loss of hearing.
  • A Portable or tabletop sound generator - these generators can be purchased at electronic suppliers like Sharper Image.
  • Home masking - in which radios, television and electric fans are used.
  • Music therapy

Music Therapy:

Many patients find classical music which is soothing to limbic system and stimulating to auditory complex.

Amplification:

For minimizing the tinnitus, hearing aids and combination of maskers and hearing aids is effective. But it is not clear that hearing aids amplifies background noise that may be mask out the tinnitus or altering the tinnitus production, but most of the hearing aids can minimizes the tinnitus. This reduction takes place because of contrast between silence and tinnitus or new stimulation provides to the brain.

Neuromonics Acoustic Desensitization Protocol:

Neuromonics Acoustic Desensitization Protocol uses the counseling and body warm processor which is connected to high fidelity earphones which filters the pleasant music and it filters that according to patient's hearing loss.

Stress Management:

There is very strong relation between stress and the tinnitus. After controlling the stress, tinnitus gets minimized. Guided imagery, relaxation, and self-hypnosis are some of the examples self methods which are useful for fighting the stress.

Other Treatment Options:

Other methods useful for reducing or minimizing stress are given below:

  • Support Groups - Local support groups gives emotional support the patients and discuss the techniques of treatment.
  • Dental Treatment - Temporomandibular (TMD) or jaw joint disorders can worsen the tinnitus. Exercises and the splints help to relieve from the stress.
  • Nutritional Counseling - Balanced diet is very useful for tinnitus patients.
  • Alternate Approaches - There is no any particular data which shows consistent benefit from the approaches such as acupuncture, hypnosis, chiropractic care, naturopathy, and herbal preparations, but some patients get relief from that.