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| Generally, most patients
will not need any medical treatment for their tinnitus.
For patients who are greatly bothered by tinnitus, they
may use some masking techniques such as listening to a
fan or radio which would mask some of their tinnitus. In
addition, other sound source generators can be obtained
and be adjusted to sound-like environmental sounds and
this is also effective in masking tinnitus. This
generally is more advantageous if one is attempting to
go to sleep. A tinnitus masker is utilized in some
patients. It is a small electronic instrument built into
a hearing aid case. It generates a noise which prevents
the wearer from hearing his own head noise. It is based
on the principle that most individuals with tinnitus can
better tolerate outside noise than they can their own
inner head noise. |
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| Biofeedback training is
effective in reducing the tinnitus in some patients. It
consists of exercises in which the patient learns to
control the various parts of the body and relax the
muscles. When a patient is able to accomplish this type
of relaxation, tinnitus generally subsides. Most
patients have expressed that the biofeedback offers them
better coping skills. |
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| Other measures to
control tinnitus include making every attempt to avoid
anxiety, as this will increase your tinnitus. You should
make every attempt to obtain adequate rest and avoid
overfatigue because generally patients who are tired
seem to notice their tinnitus more. The use of nerve
stimulants is to be avoided. Therefore, excessive
amounts of coffee and smoking should be avoided.
Tinnitus will not cause you to go deaf and
statistically, 50 percent of patients may express that
their tinnitus with time decreases or is hardly
perceptible. |
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| There are other
medications which have been utilized to suppress
tinnitus. Some patients benefit with these drugs and
others do not. Each patient has an individual response
to medication, and what may work for one patient may not
work for another. Some of these medications have been
proven, however, to decrease the intensity of the
tinnitus and make it much less noticeable to the
patient. There is, however, no drug anywhere which will
remove tinnitus completely and forever. There are some
drugs which will also cause tinnitus. If you have
tinnitus and are on medication, you should discuss the
symptom of tinnitus with your physician. In many
instances, once the drug is discontinued the tinnitus
will no longer be present. |
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| Visit the American
Tinnitus Association website for more information, ideas
and strategies at
www.ata.org |
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