Because so many of my musician friends
suffer from tinnitus, or ringing in the ears,
I was really excited to read this article on Medindia.com dated February 15, 2007. It seems that the administration of low
pitched tones gives relief, albeit temporary, from the incessant, annoying
high-pitched ringing that just about drives people crazy. This is great news - pass it on:
Low
Pitch Therapy for ‘Ringing in the Ears’
UC
Irvine researchers have found a treatment for tinnitus, the hearing damage loud
music can cause.
Fan-Gang Zeng and colleagues have
identified an effective way to treat the symptoms of tinnitus, a form of
hearing damage typically marked by high-pitched ringing that torments more than
60 million Americans. The researchers found that a low-pitched sound applied by
a simple MP3 player suppressed and provided temporary relief from the
high-pitch ringing tone associated with the disorder.
Tinnitus is caused by injury, infection
or the repeated bombast of loud sound, and can appear in one or both ears. It’s
no coincidence that many rock musicians, and their fans, suffer from it.
Although known for its high-pitched ringing, tinnitus is an internal noise that
varies in its pitch and frequency. Some treatments exist, but none are
consistently effective.
Zeng presented his study Feb. 13 at the
Middle Winter Research Conference for Otolaryngology in Denver.
“Tinnitus is one of the most common
hearing disorders in the world, but very little is understood about why it
occurs or how to treat it,” said Zeng, a professor of otolaryngology,
biomedical engineering, cognitive sciences, and anatomy and neurobiology. “We
are very pleased and surprised by the success of this therapy, and hopefully
with further testing it will provide needed relief to the millions who suffer
from tinnitus.”
At first, Zeng thought of treating the
tinnitus with a high-pitched sound, a method called masking that is sometimes
used in tinnitus therapy attempts. But he ruled out that option because of the
severity of the patient's tinnitus, so an opposite approach was explored, which
provided unexpectedly effective results.
After making many adjustments, the
researchers created a low-pitched, pulsing sound -- described as a “calming,
pleasant tone” of 40 to 100 hertz of frequency --which, when applied to the
patient through a regular MP3 player, suppressed the high-pitched ringing after
about 90 seconds and provided what the patient described as a high-level of
continued relief.
Zeng's patient programs the low-pitched
sound through his cochlear implant, and Zeng is currently studying how to apply
this treatment for people who do not use any hearing-aid devices. Since a
cochlear implant replaces the damaged mechanism in the ear that stimulates the
auditory nerve, Zeng believes that a properly pitched acoustic sound will have
the same effect on tinnitus for someone who does not use a hearing device.
Dr. Hamid Djalilian, a UCI physician who
treats hearing disorders, points out that a custom sound can be created for the
patients, who then can download it into their personal MP3 player and use it
when they need relief.
“The treatment, though, does not
represent a cure,” Zeng said. “This low-pitch therapeutic approach is only
effective while being applied to the ear, after which the ringing can return.
But it underscores the need to customize stimulation for tinnitus suppression
and suggests that balanced stimulation, rather than masking, is the brain
mechanism underlying this surprising finding.”
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| Relief from tinnitus |
