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Tinnitus Retraining Therapy

TRT (tinnitus retraining therapy) combines retraining (perception modification) and sound enrichment (masking) in an attempt to achieve two goals:

  1. To stop a sufferer's negative reaction to the ringing in their ears.
  2. To lower and hopefully end the sufferer's perception of the noise.
It is within TRT that the current school of thought that there's no cure for tinnitus is questioned. Advocates say that when a tinnitus sufferer is retrained successfully, it means that the person's awareness of the sounds in their ears is back to the level it was before the noise became a problem. 

This is again going back to the idea that everyone has tinnitus; the problem of the condition only crops up when a person (1) perceives the noise; and (2) the perception of that noise negatively impacts that person's life. 

Unfortunately, these ideas in no way help those many tinnitus sufferers who have tried TRT (and many other therapies) and have not found relief. 

However, it does indicate that some people can gain relief -- usually by practicing the behaviors over long periods of time (TRT's never been touted as a "quick fix"). Because it's all based on thought perception and habituation, re-introducing TRT to someone who has tried the method and failed in the past might not be helpful. 

If a tinnitus sufferer has achieved some sort of acclimation (simply by having lived with the condition longer than the first time s/he tried TRT), perhaps the masking and perception therapy might be more successful.

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