Tinnitus Treatment: Bye Bye Ear Noises
Through tinnitus treatment, the tinnitus often disappears or at least becomes less. We tell you how to get rid of the tinnitus!
What is tinnitus anyway?
Tinnitus is an ear noise, which can be buzzing, knocking or beeping, for example, and is very annoying for affected patients. Tinnitus can be acute or chronic: The acute variant often disappears completely when the causes of the tinnitus have been treated. In the case of chronic tinnitus, the therapy aims to reduce the disturbing ear noises or to change the patient’s perception. Important: In the case of tinnitus, as with sudden deafness, the ENT specialist should be consulted immediately – otherwise, depending on the cause, an acute problem may turn into a chronic one.
Causes of tinnitus
Tinnitus can occur for many different reasons. These include, above all:
- Stress / emotional strain
- Hearing loss
- Noise
- Inflammation of the middle or inner ear
- Ear injuries
- Earwax
- Foreign body in the ear
- Diseases of the cardiovascular system, the central nervous system or the metabolism
- Disorders of hormone balance
- Certain drugs
- Arteriosclerosis
- Ear pressure
Rare causes of tinnitus
In rare cases, tinnitus can also be attributed to dental or jaw problems or to functional disorders of the cervical spine.
Tinnitus treatment: How to get rid of the beeping
There are various possibilities of tinnitus treatment, which are mainly based on whether the tinnitus is acute or chronic. Tinnitus is considered chronic if it lasts longer than three months at a stretch. Often, however, the symptoms are only temporary and, depending on the trigger, they usually disappear within 20 minutes. The following therapy options are available for tinnitus:
Acute tinnitus: This helps
To prevent acute tinnitus from becoming chronic, prompt treatment with medication is often essential. In addition, the following methods help with chronic tinnitus:
- Remove noise sources (if noise was the cause)
- “Tinnitus-Counseling”, i.e. the patient is informed about the disease and receives a coping training to fade out the beeping in the ear as far as possible
- Learning relaxation techniques like yoga or autogenic training (if stress was the cause)
Chronic Tinnitus: How to get it under control
The following options for chronic tinnitus treatment are available:
- Medication
- Tinnitus Counseling
- Acoustic stimulation
- Brain Stimulation
- Behavioural therapy, e.g. cognitive behavioural therapy
- Special hearing aids
What is the tinnitus retraining therapy?
The Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (“TRT”) is a special therapy method with which affected persons should learn to suppress the tinnitus from their own perception. TRT is often part of the therapy for tinnitus and is used, for example, in addition to behavioural therapy. Here the doctor and the therapist discuss the treatment.
Further tips for tinnitus
Every patient with chronic tinnitus can also contribute to living well with his or her ear noises. The following tips can help:
- Avoid complete silence: Sounds strange at first, but if you suffer from tinnitus, you should never be in a completely quiet environment – because then the tinnitus is really noticeable and can hardly be ignored. At home, soft music in the background or the splashing of a natural fountain can help.
- Relaxing: The best way to live with tinnitus is to accept its presence and not to classify it as threatening – because then it is more likely to anchor itself in the consciousness.