Tinnitus Maskers: Do You Need Them?
A hundred million people or so may be suffering from incessant ringing in the ears. In medical literature, it is called tinnitus, described as perception of noise that only exists internally. In other words, the noise heard by a tinnitus sufferer does not exist in the environment. So, wherever he goes, he will hear the noise. It’s not a disease on its own but is said to be a symptom of one. However, many cases of tinnitus seem to occur alone. It can be disconcerting, but it can be managed appropriately. Using tinnitus maskers is one strategy that aids sufferers to cope with it.
Masking works by providing a different sound stimulus for the sufferers. The masking noise is a broad spectrum noise that is usually called white noise or broadband noise. It’s quite similar to the noise you get when you turn your radio on and tune it into a blank frequency. The sound emitted by a tinnitus masker is soothing. When adjusted to the right volume, it can drown the ringing noise you hear in your ears. Masking is one of the usually used methods to manage tinnitus.
When should you wear a masker?
Many cases of tinnitus can be managed effectively without doing anything. Tinnitus is perhaps one of the most benign medical conditions. It only becomes a health problem if it interferes with sleep or causes psychological problems like anxiety and depression. On its own, it’s hardly a problem. Mild tinnitus, which claims a large percentage of tinnitus cases, can be managed even without medical attention. If you have mild tinnitus, you only hear it when the environment or surrounding is too quiet. People with mild ringing ears can go about their daily lives and forget or be unaware they have tinnitus.
Moderate tinnitus may need constant masking. People with moderate tinnitus may hear their ears ringing even in normal conditions, say inside an office or in the living room. With appropriate management, moderate tinnitus does not have to present a serious problem.
Do you need to go to your doctor?
Of course! A lot of people make a mistake of going directly to treatment, skipping the diagnosis. Some cases of tinnitus are caused by treatable disorders. If a doctor finds an infection or allergy to be the cause of your ringing ears, you will be treated appropriately depending on the specific cause.
Masking becomes an option for people who need relief from relentless ringing. When the phantom noise cannot be ignored by unaided habituation, broadband noise therapy ought to help. However, you cannot buy maskers on your own. You need to go to your audiologist to find out if a masker is the appropriate device for you. An audiologist will check your hearing and see if you have sustained hearing loss—because many cases of tinnitus occur with hearing loss.
If you have hearing loss, a hearing aid shall work to amplify your hearing and make tinnitus imperceptible. Hearing aids work like maskers, too, because they increase you awareness of the external noise. That way, the perception of internal noise is diminished to some extent.
When hearing loss is not detected, maskers will be recommended. A tinnitus masking device is not something that can be bought at a drugstore and worn right away. It needs to be adjusted to be fitting to you. First, the perceived intensity and pitch of your tinnitus are determined. Then a masking device will be customized to match the intensity and pitch of your tinnitus. You could get the wrong masker if you just buy from a seller. This is one reason why some patients complain maskers do not seem to work.
What are the advantages of tinnitus maskers?
Maskers work in simple ways. By providing a more pleasant noise for you to tune into, the amount of internal phantom noise heard is decreased to a significant amount. This provides relief for a lot of people who cannot concentrate at work or cannot sleep because of awful ringing inside their ears.
This noise therapy can be modified to include forms of counseling. Tinnitus retraining therapy may include use of white noise, the same kind of therapeutic noise used in masking. The goal is not to cover tinnitus noise but to help the patient cope with it through teaching them how to shift their focus from tinnitus to another sound. Throughout the course of this therapy, the patient is assisted by professional counselors or psychologists.
Masking, on the other hand, works only by keeping tinnitus from your perception. You will not hear tinnitus for as long as the masker is activated. Tinnitus becomes apparent again once the masker is turned off. However, there are reports of people experiencing short term residual inhibition, a period after removal of the masker when the patient does not hear tinnitus at all. Residual inhibition is uncommon though.
Do tinnitus maskers have disadvantages?
Maskers are quite harmless devices. They bring about immediate tinnitus relief. But it seems the effectiveness of masking is so limited as it brings relief only when worn. This makes patients dependent on maskers. Research also suggests that masking may hamper the natural process of habituation.
Can a Tinnitus Masker Work?
Masking is one of the tinnitus ringing in ears treatments relied upon by patients to manage their tinnitus. If you are expecting it would cure your tinnitus, you are mistaken. A tinnitus masker works by helping you “forget” you have tinnitus by covering the internal noises with white noise.
A tinnitus masking device works for most types of tinnitus. However, people suffering from severe cases of tinnitus may see no benefit from masking. The good thing is that only a small percentage of tinnitus statistics is put under the “severe” class. Most sufferers suffer only from mild to moderate tinnitus.
You can determine if masking could work for you by standing beside an open faucet. If you cannot hear the ringing inside your ear while the water gushes out, there’s a good chance that masking can work for you.
Before you opt for this tinnitus remedy, see if some noise generators at home can give benefits. Televisions and music players can provide benefit when played at moderate volumes. Sometimes, there is no need to resort to buying tinnitus treatment products.
Tips on Finding the Right Treatment for Ringing in the Ears
Tinnitus or ringing in the ears is a condition that brings about an incessant noise in one or both ears. The loudness of this noise may vary from person to person and it may also sound like a ringing, clicking, buzzing, chirping, hissing, whooshing or roaring. What makes it a bit disturbing is the fact that tinnitus does not really have an exact cure. Though, this does not really mean that you cannot relieve it. You just have to try different kinds of remedies to find the treatment for ringing in the ears that really works for you.
Here are some of the tinnitus cures that you might want to consider:
1. Vitamin Therapy – it has been found out that those who have tinnitus do not have sufficient amount of the vital nutrients that can actually keep your ears healthy. This natural treatment for tinnitus makes use of Zinc, Magnesium and Vitamin B to help those who have tinnitus.
2. Sound Treatment – this kind of treatment uses devices which are called noise maskers. These devices emit a pink or white noise. The whole idea of the treatment is to not necessarily remove the tinnitus noise but to help your brain adapt to it by letting it focus on the more desirable white or pink noise rather than on the annoying noise of tinnitus.
3. Homeopathic Therapy – homeopathy is actually an old kind of treatment which makes use of the idea of treating like with like. This treatment may take a longer time and for you to reap its benefits, you have to wait patiently for it to take effect.
4. Medications – there are drugs that are recommended for those who have tinnitus. Your doctor will probably prescribe anti depressant pills and Lidocaine to help you cope with your condition.
What you must always remember that although these remedies may actually work for you, you must make sure to know and understand the right tinnitus information. Apart from that, you should be able to identify and cure the real cause of your tinnitus. Bear in mind that tinnitus is not really a disease but only a sign of underlying health problem.
Get Rid of the Noise in Your Ears with a Tinnitus Sound Treatment
Tinnitus may not be a very serious condition but it can be very annoying and disabling. That is the reason why finding the right cure for tinnitus is what each and every tinnitus sufferer is dreaming of. Although tinnitus does not have an exact cure, there are various ways to relieve it. They do not really have to come from conventional medicine because there several kinds of alternative remedies that can help you get rid of tinnitus. One of the tinnitus ringing in ears treatments that many of those who have tinnitus are using is the tinnitus sound treatment.
The basic idea of sound therapy is to help your brain adjust and cope with the noise that tinnitus brings. This kind of treatment is also called auditory habituation. Tinnitus brings different kinds of noises which include ringing, clicking, buzzing, chirping, hissing, roaring, thumping or whooshing. This kind of therapy uses noise maskers which emit white or pink noise. The idea is to make your brain focus on the more desirable sound rather that the irritating noise of tinnitus. This kind of treatment is also one of the cheapest remedies for ringing the ears because you can make use of simple audio devices.
Just bear in mind that although sound treatment may be helpful, the best way to stop ears ringing is to cure what causes it. Remember that some of the diseases that can create the ringing noise in your ears may be life threatening. Tinnitus is only a symptom and is not exactly a disease. Once you start hearing the noise that it brings, consult your doctor. By knowing what that disease is, you should be able to find the right treatment for it and avoid other complications that that disease may bring.
Some Solutions to Ringing in the Ears
Constant ringing in the ears is an extremely uncomfortable and awful feeling that most people would endure when they reach their elder years. The fact that our body undergoes a process of aging entails our bodily organs to also weaken over time. One of the hardest hit areas is our ears which affects our sense of hearing. Our habits and other external factors also play a role in the occurrence of hearing loss. And while those notorious sounds don’t cause any physical injury to the sufferer, it is utterly distracting and annoying that it too can destroy the life of an individual. Can you imagine not being able to enjoy a good night sleep because of these noises? Can you endure the pain and hardship of always having to listen to these noises wherever you go and whatever you do? Are you sick and tired of this predicament and would want to eliminate this ailment completely?
All these noises in our ears are usually the direct effects of Tinnitus. Depending on the how the sufferer developed the ailment, these noises may either be a product only of the mind due to complications or may be actual noises coming from nerve endings in our inner ear. Tinnitus is often considered a symptom for something worst that may come ahead. Just like fever or headache, it may gradually result in various diseases such as hypertension and thyroid disease among others. Because of many possibilities that this ailment may bring, it is very important to determine the cause in the earliest time possible in order to devise a fast and highly effective cure. Over time, many medical practitioners have developed various methods to eliminate or at least dramatically reduce the loud noises of this medical condition.
Here are some of the solutions:
White Noise Therapy
Are you having trouble sleeping due to the different noises inside your ears? White noise therapy is the simplest and cheapest solution to your problem. What it does is it masks the usually annoying sound of Tinnitus and will make it appear just like a natural sound. In order to do this, you can either buy an inexpensive table top fan which produces natural sound or play music from your MP3 player while you sleep. You will eventually feel more relaxed as the noise is being masked by the background sounds of your devices. However, it should be noted that this is only a short-term solution and is not a complete cure for the ailment.
Hypnosis
Hypnosis or hypnotherapy is basically about putting a person’s mind into an imaginative mental state wherein the person is wide awake but is less aware of its surroundings. Its benefits include capturing the patient’s attention and making him/her unaware of the different sounds that are caused by the ailment. And while many people have already attested to it being an effective solution, many professionals especially those in the medical field still doubt its effectiveness. Add also the fact that it is quite hard to find an experienced hypnotherapist who can help cure this specific ailment. If you do find one, expect to shelve off a huge chunk of money for their services.
Homeopathic Remedies
One of the best cures of ringing in the ears is through the use of the concept of homeopathy. By boosting the immune system and making the body more capable of battling the disease, Tinnitus will eventually be eliminated in a more natural way. It may also give you enough protection to fight off diseases and viruses that could possibly attack you in the future. Compared to modern medicine, homeopathic remedies are also cheaper and are less likely to bring in side effects. With the growing popularity and availability of these medicinal alternatives, eliminating those loud noises in the ears is made much easier.
Surgery
Ringing ears can also be cured through surgery especially if the main cause is ear inflammation or nerve damage. Doctors will perform a surgical operation in order to remove dead tissues or repair damaged ones. And while surgery is being used worldwide to cure other diseases, it is still considered an expensive option. Not all people are capable enough in shouldering the costs of a single surgical procedure. Add also the fact that surgery requires you to seek consultation from many different doctors resulting in more expenses.
It is no doubt that ringing in the ears is such a menace to our daily lives. Thankfully, we have quite a number of options to choose from in order to eliminate this medical condition. To ultimately succeed in your quest to have a healthier set of ears, always seek the guidance of a certified medical professional. By consulting your problem to an experienced individual, you make sure that what you are doing is appropriate to your condition and that you don’t suffer any consequences in the long run. Always remember that the most successful ear noise treatments are both natural and cheap so you don’t have to spend millions just for a cure.
