Tinnitus

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Tinnitus is the term for the sensation of hearing a sound in the absence of any external sound. The types of sounds you may hear include a ringing sound, whooshing or humming or buzzing in the ear. These can be continuous or they can come and go. The tinnitus might seem like it’s in one ear or both, in the middle of the head or even be difficult to pinpoint. Some people may think the noise is coming from outside and hunt for it until they discover it’s actually inside them!  

Tinnitus is very common and is reported in all age groups, even young children. Around 30% of people will experience tinnitus at some point in their lives but the number of people who live with persistent tinnitus is approximately 13% (over 1 in 8). Tinnitus is more common in people who have hearing loss or other ear problems, but it can also be found in people with normal hearing.  The experience of tinnitus is different for different people. Most people find that they are able to continue their normal day-to-day activities. However, a small percentage of people with tinnitus report it as severely affecting them.

We still do not know the exact answer to what causes tinnitus, we know that it is not a disease or an illness. It is generally agreed that tinnitus results from some type of change, either mental or physical and not necessarily related to hearing.

Loss of hearing is often an unnoticeable and gradual process, and many people are surprised when they are told that they have a hearing loss. If you have hearing loss, using hearing aids can be helpful for tinnitus because they are restoring what you can’t otherwise hear.

Tinnitus is usually more noticeable in a quiet environment as we concentrate on the sound more and not distracted by other environmental noises. With tinnitus, when there is other sound, it doesn’t seem that loud, but when you turn all the other sound off, the tinnitus seems much more noticeable.  A lot of people have found that using background noises helps them such as devices like the Nature Care relaxation therapy ball or an in the ear white noise generator. People are really good at figuring out ways of making things better for themselves and you might already be aware that you generally don’t notice the tinnitus as much when there is background noise. By using sound at other times, you’re just using other ways of doing what you already know to be helpful.

This is a very structured approach to managing tinnitus. Basically, TRT assumes that the tinnitus has been prioritised as an important signal.  TRT uses sounds at a particular level to try to reduce the priority of the tinnitus so that you no longer hear it. It is based on the idea that we can get used to sounds, e.g. the sound of the fridge or air conditioner, so we can also get used to this sound of tinnitus. The process of getting used to the tinnitus sound is called habituation. TRT uses sound generators and counselling to attempt to retrain how the brain processes sound so that you habituate to the tinnitus. Most people working in the tinnitus field will use elements of TRT but the strict method is not frequently used because there is limited evidence for its effectiveness..