Is acupuncture an effective remedy for tinnitus? To answer this question, Jackson and colleagues – of the Northern College of Acupuncture – performed a study.
For purposes of this trial, six patients suffering from tinnitus participated. These patients were administered several acupuncture treatments in the course of two weeks. The patients were obligated to keep daily logs regarding their tinnitus symptoms.
The patients’ daily logs noted the following information:
- How loud is the tinnitus?
- Is the pitch high or low?
- How many hours each day are you affected by the tinnitus?
- How well did you sleep at night?
As a result of this study, the patients had different responses regarding reduction in loudness and pitch of the tinnitus. However, their responses regarding improved ability to sleep at night were more consistent. In addition, they consistently reported a reduction in the number of waking hours that they were affected by the tinnitus.
The authors of this study concluded that acupuncture may be an appropriate remedy for people suffering from tinnitus. Furthermore, they also found that acupuncture helps people with tinnitus sleep better at night and suffer less during the day.
This was published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine, March 2006.
Many people crave tinnitus relief. Some people find that the cause of their tinnitus is a lack of sleep, only to find that the tinnitus itself keeps them up at night. Hence, this becomes a vicious cycle. The tinnitus keeps these sufferers up at night, and prevents them from getting enough sleep. This stimulates the tinnitus to become more intense and even more annoying.
What is one method that may possibly help these victims obtain tinnitus relief?
In a study done at Washington University (Prevention; July, 2006), Tinnitus sufferers were administered 3 mg of melatonin per day for one month. (Melatonin is natural amino acid, commonly used as a remedy to help people sleep.) The patients were interviewed by the researchers the month after they ceased the intake of the prescribed melatonin.
The members of the study experienced a reduction of their symptoms by nearly one-third or 30%. Not only did their sleep improve in the first month of the study, but the participants continued to sleep better in the months following the study, when they were no longer taking the melatonin.
It would seem from this study that increasing the amount of sleep a person gets will help alleviate the symptoms of tinnitus. However, there are still many questions that remain unanswered, such as whether melatonin would be the most effective remedy.
