Much Needed Tinnitus Relief.

An article by Adrian Featherstone:

Living a normal life with the sounds of tinnitus constantly ringing in your ears would seem an impossibility to most tinnitus sufferers. Unlike the way it is for those without tinnitus, there is no escaping noise by perhaps going and sitting in a quiet room or wearing noise reduction headphones. For the tinnitus sufferer that quiet room only compounds the problem. For us having no external sound only equates to more internal sound. The quieter it is outside, the noisier it becomes inside. With nothing else to tune in to, our concentration settles on those unwelcome sounds of tinnitus. The more we stress about them the louder they become.

Interestingly tinnitus relief for many sufferers can be found not by providing peace and quiet, but by introducing an additional balancing sound. If having a sound vacuum outside of the sounds of tinnitus exacerbates the problem, can it be that filling that vacuum with an external sound reduces or masks those sounds?

The answer to that is a qualified yes. Qualified because one of the difficulties with tinnitus treatment is that what works for me may do nothing for you and what works for you may do nothing for me. That scenario is true across the board with tinnitus treatments.

Tinnitus maskers have been in use since the 1970s although it was known centuries ago that provision of a stable external sound source could provide some temporary tinnitus relief.

Tinnitus masking can be delivered in various forms. Popular methods include the use of recorded friendly sounds such as birdsong, the sound of the sea or of rainfall. These sounds have a positive calming effect on the tinnitus sufferer but at the same time balance out the negative and destructive impact of the ringing in the ears associated with tinnitus. Tapes or cds like these can be played with good effect through the night for those suffering insomnia or depression as a result of tinnitus.

Other methods of tinnitus relief through masking that work well for many is through the application of a device known as a tinnitus white noise machine. This little tinnitus masker sits in the ear much like an earplug. It emits a steady volume controlled hissing noise which matches the intensity of the ringing in the ear. The brain recognises this as a friendly noise which can be controlled. Over a period of time attention becomes focused on this at the expense of the sounds of tinnitus. Given enough time the ringing in the ears fades into the background once the tinnitus white noise machine is removed.

Given that tinnitus often accompanies a degree of hearing loss, the use of a hearing aid can in itself reduce the impact of tinnitus. This is even more beneficial where a tinnitus white noise machine is incorporated within the hearing aid. The effect of an increased level of hearing coupled with the soothing and balancing contribution of a tinnitus masker can have excellent results.

In the pursuit of tinnitus relief there has to be an amount of trial and error. Tinnitus maskers may or may not work for you. The overall success rate of this form of tinnitus treatment however has been sufficiently high for it to be an avenue well worth exploring early on in your search for your own tinnitus liberation. 

More articles by Adrian Featherstone:  

• Ringing in the Ear. The onset of a sound like a ringing in the ear can be caused by a sudden exposure to a loud sound, continuous exposure to noise or potentially to an underlying health issue.
• What Causes Ringing in the Ears.  What causes the ringing in the ears that we universally call tinnitus?
• Tinnitus Cures That Might Work For You. With the realisation that the noises you are hearing in your ears or in your head are not going to go away comes the journey to either eliminate them or to learn to live with them.
• Alternative Tinnitus Treatment.  Most people who have found that they are living with the ringing in the ears which characterises the sounds of tinnitus will have been told by their medical practitioner that there is no known tinnitus cure.
• Subjective and Objective Tinnitus.  The sounds of tinnitus that will be so well known to those living with this condition are variously described as ringing in the ears, hissing,whistling or buzzing.
• Symptoms of Tinnitus.  Millions of people around the globe experience the symptoms of tinnitus. The ringing in the ears which characterises this complaint is especially common in the towns and cities of the industrialised western world.
• Symptoms For Tinnitus.  Ringing in the ear is one of the primary symptoms of tinnitus. Tinnitus being a condition which commonly affects about a fifth of the population aged 55 or over.
• What Causes Tinnitus.  There will be few people who have gone to a discotheque or to a live band concert who will not have experienced the sounds of tinnitus.
• Finding Your Own Tinnitus Relief.  Only those of us who have lived with the sounds of tinnitus singing away in our consciousness and who have suffered the constant ringing in the ears that goes with it truly understand the trauma tinnitus creates.
• The Early Days of Your Tinnitus. Whether they realise it or not most people have heard the sounds of tinnitus. After exposure to any very loud noise we all have a ringing in the ear to some degree. 
• Tinnitus Hypnosis.The use of Tinnitus Hypnosis and Tinnitus Hypnotherapy in the battle to clear tinnitus symptoms has long been recognised...
• The Effects of Tinnitus. Tinnitus is widely described as a condition
  in which a person hears noises where no corresponding external noise exists.
• Beginning the Search for a Tinnitus Cure. If you were able to ask a large group of sufferers who were looking for a tinnitus cure to describe the arrival of a tinnitus sound in their lives, a great many of them would tell you a remarkably similar story.
• Do Any Tinnitus Remedies Actually work?  Anybody who has had the misfortune to find themselves living with tinnitus will be only too well aware of the frustration that this debilitating condition can cause the sufferer.
• In Puruit Of A Tinnitus Cure. Realising that the noise in your ears just isn’t going away can initiate a sense of panic and stress into even the most stoic of us. The diagnosis of tinnitus that so often follows this realisation only serves  to compound the problem still further.  
• Tinnitus Masking. Those of us that suffer with the intrusion of tinnitus sound in our ears will know that the condition is at its worst when there is no other external noise to dilute that sound. It is at these times that tinnitus masking can be extremely effective.  
• Turn Down Those Tinnitus Sounds. The volume of your Tinnitus Sounds will almost certainly relate closely to your state of mind. When we are feeling down and out of sorts, when we feel depressed and moody we become very inward looking. Of course for the tinnitus sufferer, waiting for them inside their head there are always those tinnitus sounds. 
• Tinnitus Sound and Stress. Stress has long been recognised as being a major player in both the cause and subsequent intensity of tinnitus sound.