Tinnitus Help - Stop the Ringing in Your Ears

A reader at the USA Today Health column asked if there's a hearing aid that can filter out the miserable ringing/buzzing in his ears due to heavy tinnitus.  The answer given was thorough: first make sure you see a doctor to check for treatable problems (which range from allergies to ear wax ).  If you have hearing loss, then the sounds in your head might well be a side effect of that condition. It seems that our brains compensate for the loss of sound inputs by creating sounds of their own .  The use of a sound-amplifying hearing aid can not only help you hear better, but it might also reduce your brain's need to make its own noise.  The balance of the column talks about distraction techniques and alternative therapies and notes that although tinnitus varies from case to case, it usually does fade with time and/or becomes "less bothersome." For example, some get relief by incorporating ambient sounds such as wind chimes into their daily routine. These sounds are

Are there  home remedies for tinnitus that are worth a try?  In his book "The Green Pharmacy," Dr. James A. Duke, suggests  ginkgo biloba at a "50:1 ratio" helps reduce tinnitus.  However, this may only be true if your tinnitus is caused by restricted blood and oxygen flow. "Studies show that Ginkgo biloba, which is a monoamine-oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) can effectively improve patients with tinnitus caused by ischemia due to having myricetin and quercetin flavonoids and ginkgolide and bilobalide terpenoids," according to a review paper in The International Tinnitus Journal . "Ginkgo biloba has antiplatelet and vascular modulator effects. In other words, it improves blood flow and appropriately regulates vascular tone." In the "Roots of Healing" by herbalist Deb Soule, there's a recommendation for something called a black cohosh tincture while in "The Herbal Handbook" (by the British herbalist David Hoffmann) goldenseal

Did you know that  Barbra Streisand has tinnitus?  Apparently she's had it since childhood. She's not the only celebrity with the condition; in fact, many famous people do. While not all famous people with tinnitus are musicians, they do turn up in greater proportion than celebrities who are not musicians, and include Phil Collins, Sting and Eric Clapton .  But non-musicians like actors and talk show hosts are among the sufferers too. They include William Shatner, Cher, David Letterman and Steve Martin to name just a few.  Garrison Keillor (the American writer and former radio personality) wrote about his tinnitus, saying: Some people consider cicadas pests but I found them comforting. I suffer from tinnitus, the ringing in the ears, and the cicadas chitter in the same frequency range as my inner ear and mask the ringing very nicely . I stood in the park where they were whirring around and I felt relief. Medicine has no remedy for tinnitus. I've tried acupuncture and that

People with tinnitus often find that physical exercise helps their condition -- both physically and mentally.  For instance, when your heart rate speeds up during a work-out, the blood flow to your inner ears increases too. Some tinnitus suffers find this decreases the noise in their heads.  Exercise can be a safety-valve as well, used to relieve depression, frustration and rage often associated with tinnitus.  And it's not just cardio exercise that helps: The meditative and self-disciplinary aspects of yoga can alleviate stress and help you focus past the noise. Reflexology (like  massage ) is another practice that if it doesn't actually help, can't hurt to try.  With tinnitus, a normal social life can sometimes become hard to manage.  If you join a gym or exercise club, it provides you with a place to go where it's easy not to be "social". In other words, the focus is not on chatting but rather on exercising. You still get to be with a group of like-mind

The short answer here is yes, your job can give you tinnitus. Exposure to noise at work is a significant occupational hazard.  A study done in the UK shows that during a typical year, almost five per cent of food manufacture workers suffer from ill health caused by or made worse by work. That's more than twice the number that suffer from a reportable injury at work. One of the main causes? Hearing loss. In order to maintain your hearing, protection is necessary when working with noise levels measuring over 80 decibels. Some typical noise levels associated with common tasks in the food industry include:  - Wrapping, cutting wrap, bagging, etc: 85-95dB - Milling operations: 85-100dB - Blast chillers/freezers: 85-107dB - Packaging machinery: 85-95dB Occupational noise-induced hearing loss including tinnitus is a totally preventable condition ; however, once the damage has been done there is no way of reversing the effects.  If your company does not attempt to control noise at the so

For many suffering from tinnitus, this won't come as any surprise, but research published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing shows that " not enough is being done to support patients " even though "as many as one in seven people will experience tinnitus, or ringing in their ears, at some time of their life."  We also know that young people suffer temporary hearing loss after attending concerts or nightclubs, but it's also " t he most common injury arising from the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq ." Even so, and "despite the fact that it is a very distressing condition and can affect people's lifestyle and quality of life, around 94% of patients are simply told that nothing can be done to alleviate the condition ."  Professor Susan Holmes of the Canterbury Christ Church University at Kent, in the UK, goes on to say: Tinnitus is a widespread condition that affects millions of people across the world and there is considerable debate

A  BBC article  from way back in 2008 confirmed that research for a tinnitus cure is ongoing throughout the world. One British audiologist believes a noise-suppressive drug with no side effects will be found within 20 years.  A neurologist in Germany, who believes tinnitus sufferers have overactive hearing cells , is trying to normalize them by creating a magnetic field over the patient's head. The magnetic stimulation reduces neural activity and diminishes unwanted sound. Does it work?  "Only one patient so far has been completely cured but many have found the volume of their tinnitus reduced ." In Belgium, 30 patients have had electrodes implanted into their brains to permanently normalize overactive neurons, with some successful results.  For example, one woman, who had a permanent 80Db ringing in her head and felt suicidal, was the first tinnitus sufferer to have the operation. The outcome?  "The first night I fell asleep. I woke up and didn't hear a thing

When the noise travels with you , inside your head, you have tinnitus.  If, on the other hand, you can literally run away from the noise , then you may be actually hearing something that's in your environment (older model wind turbines can create a hum, for instance).  Some people have very sensitive hearing and really suffer from hearing noise that nobody else hears. Check out this article about a British woman plagued by a 'hum' that no one else heard. The article details her story and goes on to report that it's "estimated that between 20 and 30per cent of the population suffer from some sort of noise sensitivity and at least 10,000 people hear The Hum."  What's problematic about hearing a noise that doesn't come from inside your head is that only "about a third of cases the specific cause of the noise can be identified." Don't forget to read the comments at the end of the article -- they're interesting and might well be helpful.

Over a decade ago, doctors at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit were saying they can pinpoint the area of the brain that is activated by tinnitus .  By using a special scanner to examine the brain, they hope it will allow more targeted therapies to be developed -- which might include implanting microchips to interfere with tinnitus signals sent out by the brain itself.  Imaging systems currently used to study tinnitus are simply not as sophisticated as the one being used in this study, and can only provide general information.  The research doctor compared the accuracy of the imaging as being "... like having the lights on in only the city of Detroit, compared to having the lights on in the entire state of Michigan." Although not a sure-fire cure, a UK doctor (where 2.3 million people suffer from moderate or severe tinnitus) says " this work could potentially solve a further piece of the tinnitus puzzle ."  Read the full article BBC News . Try Quietum Plus

TRT ( tinnitus retraining therapy ) combines retraining (perception modification) and sound enrichment (masking) in an attempt to achieve two goals: To stop a sufferer's negative reaction to the ringing in their ears. 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 i