Tinnitus is believed to be caused by inner ear cell damage. Cilia in your inner ear move in relation to the pressure of sound waves. This triggers these cells to release an electrical signal through a nerve from your ear (auditory nerve) to your brain. Your brain interprets these signals as sound. If the hairs inside your inner ear are bent or broken, they can "leak" random electrical impulses to your brain, causing tinnitus.
Lidocaine, a medication used for the treatment of certain types of abnormal heart rhythms, has been shown to relieve tinnitus for some people, but it must be given intravenously or into the middle ear to be effective. However, the benefits of lidocaine are almost always outweighed by the risks of the drug and it is therefore not recommended and not used for tinnitus.
Research shows a frequent correlation between tinnitus and hearing loss. Because tinnitus is perceived differently by each sufferer, an exact diagnosis is essential. A doctor may conduct ENT, dental, orthodontic, and orthopedic examinations in order to establish whether a case can be medically treated or not. The pitch and volume of tinnitus can be determined by special diagnostic test, and a hearing test can reveal whether hearing loss is also involved. Treatment with hearing aids is often the first step to relief from tinnitus. Hearing aids compensate for hearing loss, which enables concentration on external sounds instead of internal noises.
Medication. Some medications are known to be ototoxic while others list tinnitus as a side effect without causing permanent damage to the ear structures. New medications come out so often that it is difficult to maintain an up to date listing; another option, if you are experiencing tinnitus and are curious if it could be your medication, is to talk to your pharmacist or look up your specific prescriptions online through a website such as www.drugs.com. You should never stop a medication without consulting with your physician, even if you think it may be contributing to your tinnitus.
Hearing loss: Probably the most common cause for tinnitus is hearing loss. As we age, or because of trauma to the ear (through noise, drugs, or chemicals), the portion of the ear that allows us to hear, the cochlea, becomes damaged. Current theories suggest that because the cochlea is no longer sending the normal signals to the brain, the brain becomes confused and essentially develops its own noise to make up for the lack of normal sound signals. This then is interpreted as a sound, tinnitus. This tinnitus can be made worse by anything that makes our hearing worse, such as ear infections or excess wax in the ear.
Tinnitus (pronounced tin-NY-tus or TIN-u-tus) is not a disease. It is a symptom that something is wrong in the auditory system, which includes the ear, the auditory nerve that connects the inner ear to the brain, and the parts of the brain that process sound. Something as simple as a piece of earwax blocking the ear canal can cause tinnitus. But it can also be the result of a number of health conditions, such as:
No matter what the cause, the condition interrupts the transmission of sound from the ear to the brain. Some of the neural circuits no longer receive signals. Strangely, this does not cause hearing loss. Instead, when neural circuits don’t receive stimulation, they react by chattering together, alone at first and then synchronous with each other. Once the nerve cells become hyperactive and occur at the same time, they simulate a tone the brain “hears” as tinnitus. Analogous to a piano, the broken “keys” create a permanent tone without a pianist playing the keys.
Tinnitus is the perception of sound when no actual external noise or sound is present. It is often referred to as “ringing” in the ears. I have even heard some people call it “head noises.” While ringing sounds are very common, many people will describe the sound they hear as buzzing, hissing, whistling, swooshing, and clicking. In some rare cases, tinnitus patients report hearing music. I hear about 2,000 crickets all going at once!
However, the multidisciplinary approach based on CBT is not a “cure for tinnitus”, as implied in some papers, but rather a system for managing its symptoms and effects on people’s lives. The differences in outcomes between the treatment and usual care groups were quite small, with the multidisciplinary approach giving a small improvement in quality of life compared with usual care, and moderate improvements in tinnitus severity and impairment. Also, less than 70% of participants completed the trial to 12 months, and this could have affected the reliability of the study’s overall results. Furthermore, as the patients in the study were only followed for 12 months, it is uncertain whether this approach can help in the longer term.
The results were calculated using a measure called “effect size”, which is a way of quantifying the size of the difference between the two groups. For the difference in quality of life scores between groups, the effect size was calculated to be 0.24. This can be interpreted as a “small” effect. In other words, treatment including CBT gave a small improvement in quality of life compared with usual care.
While there is currently no cure for tinnitus, treatment options like Tinnitus Control at least provide patients with the ability to successfully manage the ringing they hear by suppressing the cause of it. This is achieved through their proprietary blend of the following active ingredients: arnica, chininum sulphuricum, ferrum metallicum, kali phosphoricum, natrum sulphuricum, pulsatilla, silicea, thiosinaminum, garlic and gingko biloba.
Tinnitus is a common condition characterized by the perception or sensation of sound even though there is no identifiable external source for the sound. Tinnitus is often referred to as a “ringing in the ears.” However, the sounds associated with tinnitus have also been described as hissing, chirping, crickets, whooshing, or roaring sounds, amongst others, that can affect one or both ears. Tinnitus is generally broken down into two types: subjective and objective. Subjective tinnitus is very common and is defined as a sound that is audible only to the person with tinnitus. Subjective tinnitus is a purely electrochemical phenomenon and cannot be heard by an outside observer no matter how hard they try. Objective tinnitus, which is far less common, is defined as a sound that arises from an “objective” source, such as mechanical defect or a specific sound source, and can be heard by an outside observer under favorable conditions. The sounds from objective tinnitus occur somewhere within the body and reach the ears by conduction through various body tissues. Objective tinnitus is usually caused by disorders affecting the blood vessels (vascular system) or muscles (muscular system).
Other potential sources of the sounds normally associated with tinnitus should be ruled out. For instance, two recognized sources of high-pitched sounds might be electromagnetic fields common in modern wiring and various sound signal transmissions. A common and often misdiagnosed condition that mimics tinnitus is radio frequency (RF) hearing, in which subjects have been tested and found to hear high-pitched transmission frequencies that sound similar to tinnitus.[71][72]
Think about your breathing. Notice that it has a natural rhythm. Try to breathe in a steady, even rhythm. It helps to breathe in through your nose, hold your breath for a moment and then breathe out through your mouth. Wait a moment before breathing in again. Every time you breathe out, try to release a little bit of your tension. Do this for a few minutes, until you feel ready to move on to the next step.
Most of the causes of tinnitus alter neurological activity within the auditory cortex, the portion of the brain responsible for hearing. The transmission of sound is interrupted, so some of the neural circuits fail to receive signals. Instead of causing hearing loss, as you might expect due to the lack of stimulation, the neural circuits begin chattering. First, they chatter alone. Then, they become hyperactive and synchronous. When we experience this deviation, our brains attempt to compensate for the change by interpreting the neurological activity as sound. This can resemble ringing, buzzing, hissing, whistling, or roaring, amongst a variety of other noises.
Exposure to loud noise: Loud noise exposure is a very common cause of tinnitus today, and it often damages hearing as well. Unfortunately, many people are unconcerned about the harmful effects of excessively loud noise from firearms, high intensity music, or other sources. Twenty-six million American adults have suffered noise-induced hearing loss, according to the NIDCD.
About six percent of the general population has what they consider to be "severe" tinnitus. That is a gigantic number of people ! Tinnitus is more common with advancing age. In a large study of more than 2000 adults aged 50 and above, 30.3% reported having experienced tinnitus, with 48% reporting symptoms in both ears. Tinnitus had been present for at least 6 years in 50% of cases, and most (55%) reported a gradual onset. Tinnitus was described as mildly to extremely annoying by 67%.(Sindhusake et al. 2003)
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Between 2007 and 2011, the researchers recruited 492 Dutch adults who had been diagnosed with tinnitus. The patients had to fulfil several criteria, including having no underlying disease that was causing their tinnitus, no other health issues that precluded their participation, and to have received no treatment for their tinnitus in the five previous years. Some 66% of adults originally screened for the study participated after screening.
Due to the large variability in tinnitus, a one-size-fits-all approach (as offered by maskers) will have limited benefits. Indeed, there is evidence that being able to customize a sound therapy (e.g., using the tinnitus pitch or hearing loss profile), will provide greater benefits7,8 for tinnitus sufferers. Given the evidence supporting this line of thinking and the limitations of existing tinnitus management options, we were driven to develop and rigorously test an enjoyable, personalized sound therapy that has potential to provide lasting relief to tinnitus sufferers.
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Sound Options Tinnitus Treatments Inc. addresses the need for an effective tinnitus treatment by offering a clinically validated, individually customized sound therapy. The sound therapy is based on leading neuroscience and tinnitus research that has been built into our software to produce a treatment that can be conveniently delivered via any music playing device. Sound Options is also heavily invested in community engagement. This includes educating and reaching out to seniors, veteran's groups, and police and firefighter associations, as these segments of our population are most affected by tinnitus. Sound Options is relentless about innovation and we are constantly seeking novel ways to help tinnitus sufferers. Our treatment has been designed with the tinnitus sufferer in mind: it is pleasantly effective, affordable, and individually customized.
Tinnitus is commonly accompanied by hearing loss, and roughly 90% of persons with chronic tinnitus have some form of hearing loss (Davis and Rafaie, 2000; Lockwood et al, 2002). On the other hand, only about 30-40% of persons with hearing loss develop tinnitus. According to Park and Moon (2004), hearing impairment roughly doubles the odds of having tinnitus, and triples the odds of having annoying tinnitus.
To keep the brain activated and aware, Kilgard’s therapy involves stimulating the vagus nerve, which is actually a pair of nerves that runs inside the neck and into the brain. “All the stuff you brains learns about your body — it all comes in through the vagus nerve,” he says. “We trick the brain into thinking it’s learning something important by stimulating this nerve in the neck.”
Most cases of tinnitus are unfortunately thought to be difficult to treat, and sometimes severe tinnitus cannot be treated at all when permanent and irreversible damage to the ears or nerves has occurred. That being said, many patients find natural tinnitus treatment methods and coping strategies to be very helpful in allowing them to adjust to the changes that tinnitus brings. Here are six of those tinnitus treatment options:
This content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Josh Axe and is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All readers/viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Axe nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program.
Until recently, most tinnitus patients had little reason to believe doctors would ever be able to completely cure or reverse the affliction. Drug therapies had consistently failed, and so had more invasive procedures — including some surgeries to remove the auditory nerve that transmits sound from the ear to the brain, according to past research. (1,2)
Often people bring in very long lists of medications that have been reported, once or twice, to be associated with tinnitus. This unfortunate behavior makes it very hard to care for these patients -- as it puts one into an impossible situation where the patient is in great distress but is also unwilling to attempt any treatment. Specialists who care for patients with ear disease, usually know very well which drugs are problems (such as those noted above), and which ones are nearly always safe.
Luckily, many can live with their tinnitus as it may only occur occasionally and/or is relatively quiet, but for some the tinnitus is so bothersome, severe and intense that it negatively influences their daily life to a very large extend. For those people, it is very natural to look for a cure that can make the tinnitus go away - or at least reduce it.
Serenade by SoundCure is based on S-tones. The MP3 player-like device was developed through research from the University of California, Irvine, where it was proven that the temporal-patterned sounds produced by SoundCure can suppress a patient’s tinnitus. Instead of drowning out tinnitus with another sound played at a louder volume, it actively reduces the condition. The therapy is custom-designed by a patient’s audiologist following testing.
Sound-masking devices provide a pleasant or benign external noise that partially drowns out the internal sound of tinnitus. The traditional sound-masking device is a tabletop sound machine, but there are also small electronic devices that fit in the ear. These devices can play white noise, pink noise, nature noises, music, or other ambient sounds. Most people prefer a level of external sound that is just slightly louder than their tinnitus, but others prefer a masking sound that completely drowns out the ringing.
But one of the awesome powers of the human brain is its adaptability. “It can learn and reorganize itself every time you practice something new,” Kilgard says. His research, including a study published in February 2014 in the journal Neuromodulation, has shown this adaptability may be key to helping the brain “turn down” the hyperactivity that can lead to tinnitus, he says. (4)
On the internet, on TV and radio commercials and in papers and magazines you can easily find many who offers a method that can cure, or at least reduce, tinnitus. This could for example be in the form of “medication” (pills and injections), herbal treatments, different types of therapy and hypnosis. But other “cures” also exist. The list of “cures” is long, and is getting longer.
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT) combines a wearable device that is individually programmed to mask the specific tonal frequency of that person’s tinnitus, with psychological therapy that teaches a patient to ignore the sounds his tinnitus is creating. I consider it the best of all of the above noise suppression techniques, as it is individually tailored for each person and involves support from a trained psychological therapist. It is also the most expensive and time consuming, but in my medical opinion, the most beneficial of all the noise suppression techniques listed above.
Technology and portable music devices also contribute to noise pollution, especially in younger people. Keep the volume of your phone, MP3 players or iPod on the lower end when listening to headphones, and don’t play very loud noises for long durations of time. To aid in tinnitus treatment, look out for changes in your ability to hear if you’re frequently exposed to loud noises, limit use of headphones or consider wearing earplugs.
No two patients and no two tinnitus cases are alike. As such, the “best” treatment option is often contingent on an array of factors unique to each patient. Moreover, successful management of tinnitus may require overlapping layers of treatment. ATA recommends that patients work with their healthcare provider(s) to identify and implement the treatment strategy that is best suited to their particular needs.
Vascular issues. Some people have blood vessels near their ears that are capable of causing tinnitus. I have found that if the blood pressure is elevated, this increased pressure can cause that dreaded ringing in your ears or even a whooshing sound. Because pregnant women often have elevated blood pressure, they are easily susceptible to tinnitus. Tinnitus caused by pregnancy should go away with an over the counter tinnitus treatment and once the baby is born. An overactive thyroid has also been shown to causes vascular issues that bring on tinnitus.
With respect to incidence (the table above is about prevalence), Martinez et al (2015) reported that there were 5.4 new cases of tinnitus per 10,000 person-years in England. We don't find this statistic much use as tinnitus is highly prevalent in otherwise normal persons. It seems to us that their study is more about how many persons with tinnitus were detected by the health care system -- and that it is more a study of England's health care system than of tinnitus.
Don’t ignore ear pain. Pain or discomfort in your ear can be a sign of conditions associated with tinnitus, including ear infections and earwax buildup. These conditions, and the discomfort they cause, can also interfere with sleep. Whether your ear pain is sharp or dull, constant or intermittent, accompanied by itching or not, take these symptoms to your doctor.
Counseling helps you learn how to live with your tinnitus. Most counseling programs have an educational component to help you understand what goes on in the brain to cause tinnitus. Some counseling programs also will help you change the way you think about and react to your tinnitus. You might learn some things to do on your own to make the noise less noticeable, to help you relax during the day, or to fall asleep at night.
Tinnitus sufferers have tried many alternative therapies but often to no avail. Some have heard of success stories involving the use of certain vitamins, minerals, herbal preparations, or even a change in diet, but often did not experience personal success in treating tinnitus using such options. Unfortunately, no studies to date have been able to associate such treatments to any real benefits. While much of the existing research have been dedicated to helping us understand tinnitus and its etiological underpinnings, there are currently very few treatments that are clinically validated. Of the few that conducted clinical studies to evaluate the effectiveness, most did not use rigorous clinical methods such as controlling for placebo effects or double-blinding to ensure the integrity of the data and to eliminate any sources of bias. Tinnitus sufferers who access such treatments often do not experience relief from their tinnitus. As a result, tinnitus sufferers often experience confusion, frustration, a loss of hope, and skepticism after having invested time and money on available treatment options.
Biofeedback and stress management. Tinnitus is stressful, and stress can worsen tinnitus. Biofeedback is a relaxation technique that helps control stress by changing bodily responses. Electrodes attached to the skin feed information about physiological processes such as pulse, skin temperature, and muscle tension into a computer, which displays the output on a monitor. Patients learn how to alter these processes and reduce the body's stress response by changing their thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques may also help.
