Approximately, 40 million people in the United States experience chronic tinnitus and 10 million of these people consider their tinnitus to be a significant problem. Of these, some 12 million patients have tinnitus severe enough to seek medical attention, and 2 million are unable to function on a day-to-day basis. There is not only one tinnitus treatment for those who suffer from it but many.

Most reputable doctors and long-term tinnitus patients know that there is no proven mainstream treatment for tinnitus. If you have got tinnitus, discuss all your options with your otologist, ENT specialist, neurologist or natural health practitioner to find which tinnitus treatment is best for you. Before you chose to follow a holistic approach, do go and see a specialist to determine the cause of your tinnitus symptoms.

Tinnitus treatments – an informed choice

How you respond to treatment depends on how you experience your tinnitus. The biggest problem is that tinnitus sufferers get obsessed with the ringing in the ear, and cannot relax any more which worsens the condition.

Here, are a variety of tinnitus treatments that have been successful to improve tinnitus symptoms, and even heal tinnitus completely.

In the Neuromonics tinnitus treatment program, participants were provided with a high-fidelity personal sound player with earphones and an acoustic stimulus that had been spectrally modified according to their individual audiometric profile. After treatment specialist determine if this is the right way to go, and a Neuromonics device is made especially for that patient. To have such a device custom-made, is very costly (appr. US$5,000). Not to be confused with ‘relaxation CDs’ or ‘white noise generators’, these CDs play specially formulated pulses which continually and gently replenish your ‘residual inhibition’, not masking but discharging your tinnitus. And they really do work .

In clinical trials, tinnitus masking and tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) were both shown to be effective. Research shows that the efficacy of hearing aids and maskers for tinnitus treatment is dramatically improved through the addition of a structured education and counseling program. TRT uses a combination of low-level, broad-band noise and intensive one-to-one counseling to achieve “habituation,” such that the patient is no longer aware of the tinnitus, or such that the tinnitus is no longer perceived as annoying or bothersome. Some studies have shown that TRT can be successful in up to 80% of cases.

Tinnitus treatments and maskers

Tinnitus masking treatments are essentially not a tinnitus treatment as such. They are white noise CD’s that one can use to relax or to help you fall asleep. Maskers that make white noise, which in turn masks the ringing, have also been used successfully. Tinnitus maskers may also be worn like a hearing aid to produce a neutral white sound that has relieved 60 percent of patients with severe tinnitus.

Antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs are frequently and, often successfully, used to treat tinnitus. Although drugs cannot cure tinnitus, some such as tricyclic antidepressants, alprazolam, and acamprosate may reduce the severity of the symptoms. Because stress and other mental factors such as depression can exacerbate symptoms, efforts to recognize and treat these factors may help.

Other medicines, such as local anaesthetics, those that interfere with nerve conduction, and anticonvulsants (drugs used to prevent seizures and convulsions) have been tried to treat the symptoms of tinnitus. However, trials have been disappointing.

If abnormal potassium activity is found to be one of the causes of tinnitus, then this could lead to the manufacture of a new generation of tinnitolytic (‘tinnitus dissolving’) drugs that inhibit specific potassium channels. Inhibiting these channels would block abnormal cellular excitability within the auditory system.

ENTs have been recommending lipoflavonoids for treating tinnitus since the 1960s and 7 out of 10 patients show an improvement with tinnitus symptoms after taking it as directed.

A large amount of people with tinnitus look for alternative tinnitus treatment methods, and various sufferers have reported having good results with homeopathic treatment, herbal, and high potency vitamin supplements. Natural treatments not only tell you how to relieve the symptoms of tinnitus immediately, but how to get rid of it. A holistic approach that takes into account body, spirit and mind primarily addresses the root cause of tinnitus. Acupuncture as part of a comprehensive approach to health helps the tinnitus sufferer to relax, and re-balance.