Tinnitus isn’t new. But perhaps it’s new to you, like a noisy used car you can’t return. Usually, though not always, tinnitus reveals itself as a ceaseless ringing or buzzing in the ears. The sound can be, at times, really loud. However tinnitus is experienced by you, this point is probably true: if tinnitus is troubling you, you might be searching for some new ways to manage your symptoms.
In that, you’re lucky because while tinnitus doesn’t yet have a universal cure, there are a few new therapies that can help you deal with symptoms. Certain of those therapies even involve your tongue.
The Most Recent Way to Manage Tinnitus
Perhaps the newest tinnitus treatment to hit our radar appears to offer quite a bit of promise, even if it sounds a little unusual at first. This device, designed at the Trinity College School of Medicine in Dublin, stimulates both the tongue and ear. Bi-modal neurostimulation is the technical term for this approach.
Based on the first tests of this device, the results were fairly impressive. Most individuals received treatments for twelve weeks or so. Those same people noted a significant reduction in their tinnitus symptoms, and the results continued for up to twelve months. But this kind of therapy is still in testing and not generally available yet.
How Can I Get Relief From my Tinnitus Now?
Of course, it takes years for devices to go from research and development to patient accessibility. So perhaps you’re curious about what can be done now to help deal with your tinnitus.
Luckily, there are some newer tinnitus management devices on the market today. And the most prevalent way to manage your tinnitus is a modern hearing aid.
It works like this:
External sounds are boosted by hearing aids. One reason why tinnitus becomes more noticeable as you lose your hearing is that the stays loud while everything else becomes quieter. A hearing aid can boost the volume on the rest of the audio spectrum. That doesn’t change the volume of your tinnitus, but it could make the ringing less obvious.
Your hearing aid can mask the noise. A masking device could be the answer if your hearing loss is mild. A hearing aid has a comparable appearance to a masking device. And masking technology can be integrated into modern hearing aids. This technology will produce sounds designed to mask your tinnitus symptoms. In some cases this will be a tone, in other cases, it may be some white noise. Whatever will best hide the humming in your ears.
This is, naturally, just the beginning. We can show you devices that work best for tinnitus. Contact us.