Tinnitus has been present for a long time. But perhaps it’s new to you, like a noisy used car you can’t return. Usually, though not always, tinnitus reveals itself as an incessant ringing or buzzing in the ears. Often, the sound is quite overwhelming. Symptoms fluctuate considerably, but here’s the point: you are most likely looking for new ways of handling your tinnitus if it’s something that’s troubling you.
Fortunately, new therapies and treatment options are being formulated that aren’t cures for tinnitus but can help you deal with it. Your tongue is even involved in some of those treatments.
Most Recent Approaches to Tinnitus
One of the most recent treatment options for tinnitus sounds somewhat weird at first but does seem to show some promise. Both the ear and the tongue are stimulated with this device developed at the Trinity School of Medicine in Dublin. Technically, it’s called bi-modal neuromodulation.
According to the first tests of this device, the results were rather impressive. 12 weeks was about how long most people were treated. Over those 12 months, those same people noted a dramatic reduction in tinnitus symptoms. But this type of therapy is still in testing and not extensively available yet.
What Can I do Now to Find Tinnitus Relief?
Unfortunately, it will most likely be quite some time before novel solutions like this are generally available. So perhaps you’re wondering what can be done now to help manage your tinnitus.
Fortunately, there are some newer tinnitus therapy devices on the market now. And one of the best new ways to manage tinnitus is something you’ve likely already heard of: your hearing aid.
Here’s how it works:
Your hearing aid can give you something else to listen to. When you start to lose your hearing, external diminish and that can make the internal sounds of tinnitus get louder. A hearing aid can boost the volume on the rest of the audio spectrum. By boosting the volume of outside sounds, your tinnitus sounds will often disappear into the background.
Your hearing aid can mask the noise. If your hearing loss is fairly minor, then a masking device may be the best way to deal with your symptoms. A masking device essentially looks like a hearing aid. And some hearing aids can be augmented with masking technology. Your tinnitus symptoms can be obscured by sounds emitted by this kind of technology. At times this will be a tone, in other situations, it may be some white noise. Whatever will best hide the humming in your ears.
Obviously, this is just a starting point. We can show you devices that work best for tinnitus. Give us a call.
