Tinnitus

Did you hear that? It's a persistent noise ringing loudly in your head. So much that it is disruptive and may even prevent you from getting a good night's rest. Living in major cities, partying like a rock star, pumping up the volume on MP3 players and working in environments with extremely high levels of noise contributes to one's risk for developing tinnitus.

Tinnitus is a hearing problem in which you constantly hear a loud type of noise. The sound differs for each person and may be static, ringing, hissing or some other type of noise. Adam Edwards co-owns a wheel repair shop in Dallas and suffers from tinnitus. The 34 year-old noticed he started experiencing the pervasiveness of noise after target shooting with a pistol four years ago. His exposure to loud noises throughout his life included hunting, playing the drums and attending earsplitting concerts.

There is no cure for tinnitus and previous therapy includes wearing a hearing aid all day for about 18 to 24 months. The compliance level is usually low for this device because most people refuse to wear it for that long. Recently, different therapies for tinnitus offer alternatives to shutting down the loud party going on in your ears. Edwards has tried and gotten relief from one therapy manufactured by Neuromonics, Inc in Bethlehem, PA. The device developed by an Australian audiologist looks like a MP3 player and gives off a type of white noise embedded within relaxing music. The noise spans the auditory system and at a cost of five grand the device is tailored specifically for each patient's particular degree of tinnitus. The device works by masking the noise of tinnitus.

People who have used the MP3 to treat tinnitus have reported that the disruptive and persistent noise they've lived with is a thing of the past. Edwards reports that the device has provided him with relief from tinnitus. But, he says if he thinks about his tinnitus then he hears the noise again. So, it appears that maybe the device has somehow retrained the brain to focus on a different type of sound. The sound in tinnitus is not completely gone but just replaced with something more subdued.

In Brazil, there is a therapy to help treat people with head and neck injuries that are experiencing tinnitus. The treatment involves cranial-sacral trigger point therapy which relaxes muscles that constrict in the auditory pathway.

Another therapy involves implanting electrodes with the help of a functional MRI to guide the surgery. Belgian neurosurgeons performed a series of these procedures last year and reported that it has completely suppressed tinnitus. A Harvard assistant professor of otology and laryngology, Jennifer R. Melcher commented on the procedure stating, "It's a radical option and not proven yet."

There is a noninvasive method that uses a magnetic approach. The magnetic therapy for treating tinnitus involves holding a magnet over the skull and using a functional MRI to guide the magnetic pulses over the regions of the brain associated with handling hearing and sound. Pulses are emitted every second for a course of 20 minutes. However, this method has been helpful for some and not for others.

Drugs that are normally reserved for the treatment of depression, alcoholism, Alzheimer's and epilepsy have been studied. These studies have reported the success of these drugs in treating tinnitus by changing the levels of brain chemicals like dopamine, serotonin and GABA.

While older therapies, such as the hearing aid used to treat tinnitus, have people turning their noses up and dealing with the noise newer therapies are showing more promise. Tinnitus has many causes and more therapies are becoming available. Studies researching the long-term effects of these therapies will lead to more information. The hope is that people suffering from tinnitus can get rid of the loud noise in their head so they can hear the things that really matter.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/health/research/01tinn.html?em&ex=1207800000&en=c88fd82680893b2a&ei=5087%0A