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Posted by: Marla on 2010-11-21, 10:29:46
There is no "cure " for tinnitus. The reason is that tinnitus is caused by hearing loss and the hearing loss that causes it is generally permanent (either from aging, noise, etc.). The brain can learn to ignore the tinnitus though, but that takes some work on your part to reduce your stress (like meditation) and sound therapy to help the brain not hear the ringing. Currently the best treatment for tinnitus is sound based therapies. The only web-based one, that is research based and personalized, is at beyondtinnitus.com. This company's system is based on research of two ear nose and throat doctors done at the University of California Irvine. Basically, they figure out your tinnitus pitch and loudness, etc. and give you a sound file that you can download for therapy that is specific to your tinnitus. The therapy sound can be mixed with your own music using their system and you can listen to your own music while the sound therapy file is working in the background. The alternative is therapy in the clinic with tinnitus retraining therapy or Neuromonics, but those will cost you ~$5000. Herbal remedies have not been shown to be effective in good clinical studies. Sound therapies have are effective 80-90% of time, whereas herbal remedies have only been found to be as effective as sugar pills. Ginkgo has been studied in large clinical trials and it wasn't found to be effective at all. My dad had bothersome tinnitus and he took Ginkgo and it didn't help. He tried the sound therapy and he can't hear the ringing. If he really thinks about it and listens for it, he hears it, but otherwise it's not noticeable and doesn't keep him up at night. Source: beyondtinnitus.com |
