10 Tinnitus management and treatment
If you have tinnitus and have ever been told "to live with it", please know there are options for persons sufferring from tinnitus to explore. Tinnitus can be very mild. Tinnitus can be intermittant. However for many Americans tinnitus can affect their daily life.
According to the Amercian Tinnitus Assocation, 50 million Americans experience tinnitus to some degree. Of these, about 12 million have tinnitus which is severe enough to seek medical attention. Of those, about two million patients are so seriously debilitated by their tinnitus, that their day to day functioning is affected.
Although there is currently no cure for tinitus, there are many options for people who experience tinnitus.
For persons with hearing loss and tinnitus, wearing hearing aids has been shown to be effective in reducing the awareness of the tinnitus. The tinnitus does not go away, but instead by introducing amplification to sound the tinnitus patient now is more aware of sound in their environment and no longer hears or focuses on the tinnitus.
Another option for persons without hearing loss, is a tinnitus masker. These devices produce sounds such as white noise to cover up teh tinntis so the patient does not hear the tinnitus while wearing the masker device.
There is also a treatment referred to as Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT). TRT is a therapy that involves retraining the brain to no longer focus on the tinnitus, thus reducing the serverity of the sound(s). A recent study on TRT found 80% of tinnitus patients found relief from TRT.
The newest type of tinnitus treatment is a treatment called Neuromonics Tinnitus Treatment. Neuromonics Tinnitus Treatments consists of wearing a device that is not a hearing aid or a masker but instead produces music embedded with a acoustic stimulus.
If you experience tinnitus and it is affecting the quality of your life, it is recommended to seek the advice of an Audiologist who specializes in tinntus treatment options.
