Even though there is no permanent cure for tinnitus, early diagnosis, and treatment may help to regain the quality of your life.
So you have to consult a physician or a health care professional to find the right treatment method because diagnosing each case of tinnitus is unique. This article gives an insight into the diagnosis and treatment for tinnitus.
Diagnosing tinnitus
The physician will check and examine your ears, head, and neck while diagnosing tinnitus. The tests included in diagnosing tinnitus are:
Hearing tests: Hearings exams or tests are conducted to identify the causes of tinnitus. For this, you will be seated in a soundproof room by wearing headphones. The headphones will be played with specific sounds in one ear at a time. You have to identify when the sound started. This also helps to find the health condition of your middle ear, inner ear, and auditory pathway.
Visual Analogue scale: This is a test conducted to diagnose tinnitus. In this test, the patient is asked to rate the loudness in their internal ear on a scale of 0-10. This helps the physician to understand the severity of tinnitus.
Tinnitus matching: A tinnitus matching test is conducted to diagnose tinnitus. While conducting a tinnitus matching test, sounds with different pitches are played to the patients and are asked to select the close one in the set that resembles the sound they experience in the ear. This helps the physician to detect the frequency level of tinnitus in the patient.
Loudness match test: The loudness match test is similar to that of the tinnitus matching test. While conducting a loudness match test, the patient is asked to match the intensity of the sound that they hear in their ear. This helps the physician to detect the range of tinnitus. Check out the detailed Quietum Plus reviews to know more.
Treatment for tinnitus
Before treating, your physician will diagnose the underlying condition and found the severity of the issue. Here are some of the treatment techniques that could reduce the noise.
Removing earwax: over-accumulation of ear wax may reduce the ability to hear and the auditory system may overcompensate for the loss and fabricate noises that do not exist. Your physician will safely remove the build-up and this will immediately alleviate tinnitus.
White noise machines: White noise therapy provide tinnitus relief and masks the sounds caused by tinnitus. It is a type of random, unstructured noise that has equal intensity at all frequencies. This type of sound is used in sound-generating machines, smartphone apps, tinnitus-masking hearing aids, and other products that are effective providers of tinnitus relief.
Positive sound therapy: Positive sound therapy presents structured sound to the brain that will help restore the functional integrity of the auditory system. This can be done by simply placing the masking stimulus with structured acoustic signals like symphonic music, and they reduce hyperexcitability.
Medications: Drugs and medications reduce the severity of tinnitus. Antidepressants like amitriptyline and nortriptyline are generally used to reduce the symptoms of tinnitus. But they have side effects such as dry mouth, blurred vision, constipation, and heart problems.
Diagnosing and treating tinnitus, it does not go away completely and permanently. Following some lifestyle and home remedies along with treatment may provide relief from its severity.