My Tinnitus Improvement

I developed what could be labeled as moderate tinnitus about 18 months ago. Although it is hard to measure objectively, my overall sense is that I am considerably better now than when it first came on and I continue to improve. That didn’t happen by accident.

Since I know so many people who suffer from it and most don’t improve much over time without some kind of intervention, I thought I would share the sources of my improvement. I genuinely hope this article helps people who are suffering with tinnitus now, and/or that you can share this information with anyone you know who is suffering.

What Didn’t Help

When I first had tinnitus symptoms, I went through several steps that didn’t help. The number of “solutions” that have little or no merit are plentiful, and except for one, none are FDA approved. In addition, you are more likely to find “solutions” through a Google search rather than through peer reviewed articles. Granted, there are likely some treatment plans that may have merit, but none that I tried helped me.

My first instinct was to schedule an evaluation appointment with an ENT. Unfortunately, the ENT I saw at the time as well another ENT at a later time were not at all helpful except to eliminate the possibility of me having a more serious problem than tinnitus. Unfortunately, the two ENTs were not only unsympathetic, but rude.

Then I read you might be able to reduce the symptoms by reducing stress levels. The recommendations centered around meditation and relaxation as a form of therapy. However, I have never liked meditating under the best of circumstances and with tinnitus, I found it even more unpleasant. So that avenue was unhelpful for me. To be fair, I still haven’t given up on other forms of relaxation or mediation but so far, I haven’t been doing it.

Other avenues I tried included a long series of visits to an acupuncturist. After months of going several times per week, there was no measurable improvement. Furthermore, I also had two mesenchymal stem cell injections near the ear over a six-month period. I still didn’t notice any change.

What Did Help?―Treble Health

Treble Health is a paid service, and I have found their support and recommendations to be worth every penny. It is a company comprised of audiologists who have special training and experience in treating patients with tinnitus. Essentially, you pay for virtual consultations with a specialized practitioner.

They offer a free consultation, which to my surprise was not a hard-sell meeting. It was informative and clearly spelled out what they could offer and how much it would cost.

Subsequently, I have worked with a number of consultants within the company. Everyone has been helpful, but I particularly recommend Suzanne May. Breanne Schwartz was also very good. The other audiologist I worked with was good, but she left the company.

This isn’t a quick fix. They told me that if I followed their recommendations, I would enjoy improvement in stages. They also said that they hoped that in 18 months I would be almost symptom-free. Eighteen months later, I would describe my symptoms as much better, but not anywhere near symptom-free. At first, the tinnitus significantly reduced my quality of life. It still does, but not nearly as much.

Their goal is not to “cure” you of tinnitus—that isn’t possible— but to provide you with coping and masking solutions so you don’t notice it as often.

The objective is to turn it into background noise that you ignore. For example, if you walked into a room with air conditioning, you might notice the noise the air conditioner makes. After a little while, you might not notice it at all. Then, if someone called your attention to the sound, it would become annoying again. That is about as close to “cured” as you are likely to get.

I was hoping to be better than I am now after 18 months, but I continue to progress. I am at the point now where, during the day, I may have several consecutive hours where I don’t notice it. That is much better than when it first came on.

Lessons I Have Learned

I will list some of the things I learned from my consultations:

1. I found the most important thing is to get two special hearing aids that “mask” the tinnitus. The Treble group recommends putting your hearing aids in as soon as you get up and keep wearing them until you go to bed. I do that.

The hearing aids actually do more than just mask the sounds. They promote your brain to retrain aural connections through neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity (brain plasticity) refers to the brain's ability to modify itself to adapt to different experiences, and fine-tune its connections based on what functions are used most often. If you were to put one of my hearing aids in your ear, you would hear a “fractal” dinging in a non-regular pattern.

Other people prefer different masking sounds. I have been wearing hearing aids for years and by coincidence, the brand of hearing aid I use has the option to make a variety of masking sounds that I have playing all day long. This is by far the most important recommendation. If you were to do one thing, I would do this.

You could probably do this on your own with the help of your current audiologist. (Most people with tinnitus have hearing loss and many have a regular audiologist. I like my audiologist, but she doesn’t know much about tinnitus so I can’t recommend her.)

I recommend working with Treble or doing your own research. If you don’t wear hearings aids but have tinnitus, then I recommend you get the special type of hearing aids I mentioned.