Sound Therapy for Tinnitus: Types and Effectiveness
A phantom sound that only you can hear, tinnitus is an aggravating and sometimes even debilitating condition that millions struggle with. You may be one of the estimated 50 million-plus people who suffer from tinnitus. The mysterious condition causes a sound in the head with no external source.
The sound may seem to come from one ear or both, from inside the head, or from a distance. It may be constant or intermittent, steady or pulsating. At times, everyone experiences the perception of a phantom sound. If it only lasts for a few seconds or minutes, it's nothing to worry about. However, if it pulsates in sync with your heart rate, it's definitely something to get checked out by a physician.
There are many possible causes of tinnitus. Long-term exposure to loud noises is often blamed. But other sources include middle ear problems like an infection, a tumor or cyst pinching nerves in the ear, or something as simple as earwax buildup. Even old-fashioned aging can lead to tinnitus, which is common in people older than age 55.
"Neurons (nerve cells) in areas of the brain that process sound make up for this loss of input by increasing their sensitivity," says Daniel Polley, director of the Lauer Tinnitus Research Center at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts Eye and Ear. "The sensitivity knobs are turned up so high that neurons begin to respond to the activity of other nearby neurons. This creates the perception of a sound that does not exist in the physical environment.
There is no cure for tinnitus, but it can become less noticeable over time. Still, there are ways to ease symptoms and help tune out the noise and minimize its impact. One often-suggested strategy is sound therapy.
The ‘invisibility’ is what makes chronic or persistent tinnitus really frustrating for those grappling with it. Luckily, there are numerous treatments options available! Tinnitus sound therapy, as the name suggest, is a form of therapy that works on changing the way you feel and react to tinnitus. As an example, imagine those who try contacts the first time, the sensation and feeling of the contacts in your eyes is constantly sending signals to your brain.
This treatment comes in four different types, each of which works in a different way and for different reasons. If you’re considering starting sound therapy, it helps to consult with a trained audiologist first. Essentially, the answer to the above question is difficult to give and depends on each person’s unique needs and symptoms.
Types of Sound Therapy for Tinnitus
Research suggests sound therapy can effectively suppress tinnitus in some people. Here are some of the methods used:
Masking Therapy
Masking therapy is a sound therapy that aims to mask tinnitus using artificial or natural sounds. Masking. This exposes a person to background noise, like white noise, nature sounds, or ambient sounds, to mask tinnitus noise or distract attention away from it. Many tinnitus sufferers already use a rough-and-ready masking therapy without really thinking about it! When somebody with tinnitus is in a quiet room, their tinnitus can come to the fore as a constant source of discomfort.
Masking raises the ambient level of noise to a level that reduces the apparent loudness of tinnitus with a sound that’s designed to be soothing and pleasant. Listening to sound machines or music through headphones or other devices can offer temporary breaks from the perception of tinnitus. Household items like electric fans, radios, and TVs also can help.
Many people with tinnitus also have some degree of hearing loss. Hearing aids can be used to mask tinnitus by turning up the volume on outside noises. When it comes to choosing a sound it’s simply another case where whatever works, works. At the more serious end, maskers can be tuned to produce sound at the precise frequency and loudness of your tinnitus, and can even be built into hearing aids to produce a constant or on-demand masking effect.
Distraction Sound Therapy
Distraction sound therapy for tinnitus operates in much the same way as masking, by providing an outside sound that reduces the experience of ringing or chirping in your ears. Rather than just raising the level of noise to a masking level, distraction provides you with something to draw your attention away from tinnitus, allowing you to relax or fall asleep peacefully.
Again, distracting sound generators come in many forms. One of the most appealing aspects of masking and distraction tinnitus sound therapy are their low cost and complexity relative to other methods.
Habituation Sound Therapy
The aim of habituation sound therapy is to accelerate this process by training you to tune it out, using a mixture of treatments, and sometimes employing medical-grade equipment. Also known as tinnitus retraining therapy, this process trains your brain to become more accustomed to tinnitus. The current thinking on habituation sound therapy works on similar principles, by using sound treatment in combination with some directive counseling.
Habituation therapy provides sound-based assistance to ignore tinnitus while using basic mental exercises to help sufferers to experience their symptoms more neutrally. Here, you listen to noise similar to your tinnitus sound for long periods. Eventually your brain ignores the tone, along with the tinnitus sound. It's similar to how you eventually don't think about how glasses feel on your nose. Recent studies have yielded promising long-term results, though more research is needed.
Neuromodulation-Based Sound Therapy
Similar to habituation, and working along similar principles, is neuromodulation-based sound therapy. In fact, as with masking and distraction, both sound treatments often draw on each other. Neuromodulation therapy uses the principle of neuroplasticity - the capacity of the human brain to change with the environment by forging new connections and deactivating older, less useful ones. Particularly interesting are the specially-designed types of sound therapy used.
‘Notched’ music treatment can take a patient’s favorite pieces of music and digitally process them to remove frequencies at and around the pitch of the patient’s tinnitus.
Other Factors Affecting Tinnitus
It's important to consider other factors that may influence tinnitus symptoms:
- Musculoskeletal factors: Jaw clenching, tooth grinding, prior injury, or muscle tension in the neck can sometimes make tinnitus more noticeable.
- Underlying health conditions
- Negative thinking
- Medication: Tinnitus can be a side effect of many medications, especially when taken at higher doses, like aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and certain antidepressants.
Seeking Professional Help
There are a variety of ways to begin receiving sound therapy for your tinnitus. Here’s the tricky part - first off, tinnitus is complicated. Tinnitus reporting is subjective and difficult to measure. The principal recommended pathway, as ever, is to pay a visit to a registered audiologist or speak to your physician.