One popular treatment for tinnitus is tinnitus masking. It was created based on the notion that when tinnitus sufferers listen to relaxing sounds, their noises in their heads would become less noticeable. This method was developed by Dr. Jack Vernon in the mid 1970s.
Tinnitus masking basically helps people pay less attention to the irritating noises in their heads through tinnitus maskers. Tinnitus maskers are devices that play recorded sounds on a CD or MP3 player hooked up to a pillow or a headset. Tinnitus masking generally utilizes the soothing sounds of the ocean, waterfall or other “white noises”.
Recently, a more comprehensive approach to tinnitus masking has been developed, known as tinnitus retraining therapy. This approach involves therapy in addition to the tinnitus maskers.
The tinnitus retraining therapy involves directive counseling to engage the patient in discussion about the tinnitus. By educating the patients about their tinnitus, the patients become less anxious and fearful. The theory is a person who receives therapy targeted at his tinnitus will ultimately be less bothered by it.
The second component of tinnitus retraining therapy is sound therapy. During the sound therapy, the patient listens to a soft sound for eight hours a day, for the duration of a year-and-a-half. The sounds come from a noise generator. (It is similar to a tinnitus masker, but the sounds are softer.) After a while, the patients become used to both sounds, and no longer pay attention to either. When this happens, they are considered “habituated.” At this point, the use of the noise generator is discontinued.
The Tufts Unversity Health & Nutrition Letter (May, 2003) interviews Susan L. Gold, MA, CCC-SLP/A, an audiologist from the University of Maryland Tinnitus and Hyperacusis Center. Even she admits that with regard to tinnitus retraining therapy, it takes a long time, and it doesn’t work for everyone.
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Tinnitus maskers are devices used to add natural or artificial sound into the environment of an individual suffering with tinnitus. They are used in suppressing or masking the perceived ringing of the patient.
Tinnitus maskers increase the amount and volume of sound in the environment and allow the brain to re-perceive the ringing in the sufferers head with a calming, less intrusive sound. It’s comparable to an individual trying to read or study or even have a phone conversation in a room with another person speaking directly at them, or as in a noisy study hall or airport, club or restaurant. The brain is able to filter out the unnecessary noise when, interestingly, there is more of it.
Tinnitus maskers are most often used when trying to sleep, as the quiet of the environment makes the symptoms all the more noticeable. Commonly a tinnitus masker is a CD/MP3 recordings or a noise generator which produce either natural noises like the ocean or rain, synthetic sounds such as white noise, or in more advanced models a combination of natural and synthetic noises calibrated to suppress specific frequencies of the experienced symptoms.
This method can be used very effectively with sound pillows, as they contain small embedded speakers, which help masking the tinnitus of the individual without causing disturbance to their partner. However, some individuals who have extremely intense tinnitus symptoms require a tinnitus masker which works around the clock. For these cases a wearable hearing-aid type device is available, which will either amplify ambient sound, generate synthetic sound or combine the two.
Tinnitus maskers can be an excellent “first-aid” treatment for tinnitus symptoms, as any alleviation of the buzzing and ringing can be a comfort. It allows the individual to become less tense, and as stress is a huge factor in the emergence and severity of the symptoms, the relaxation too should help to lessen the intensity of the perceived noise. When these maskers are used in tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT), especially in a clinical setting, they can be as much as 95% effective in completely masking the symptoms.
However, as phenomenally helpful as these items are, they also may hinder the healing progress. Although it alleviates the symptoms during the time it’s used, the individual still continues to suffer from the tinnitus symptoms, as none of the many root causes of tinnitus are addressed or treated with this method. Some researchers also say that completely masking the symptoms may be counterproductive and may result in the brain beginning to focus the perception on the tinnitus symptoms despite the background noise.
Tinnitus maskers are best used in conjunction with any tinnitus treatment therapy. Whether you opt for the use of supplements like TinnitusDX or medications like tricyclics or lignocaine, cognitive-behavioural therapy or TRT, the maskers can assist with overwhelming symptoms as the therapy starts to work or in the case of an unexpected episode. They can be a tremendous helping hand in the success on tinnitus treatment and therapy by bringing a quick and comforting relief to a patient with little hope.
