Natural Cure For Ringing Ears
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'Secondly, we are investigating which neurotransmitter chemicals the nerve cells in the auditory pathway use to send signals to each other. It has been suggested that over-release of an excitatory neurotransmitter, glutamate, could be one cause of tinnitus.' The researchers are finding that it is this neurotransmitter that is used by the auditory nerve to transmit information to the brain, 'This is important because drugs being developed in other laboratories to safely block nerve signals mediated by glutamate in other parts of the brain may turn out to be useful in treating tinnitus or hyperacusis [over-sensitivity to sound],' Dr Hackney explains.
The third area of research at Keele concerns recovery from hearing loss, Certain strong antibiotics have been known for some time to cause damage to hair cells and thus bring about deafness. Mechanical disturbances to the cochlea could well lead to tinnitus. Deafness brought about by the antibiotics has usually been regarded as permanent, but it has recently been shown that guinea pigs deafened in this way can show partial or complete recovery of their hearing. The regrowth of damaged hair cells could one day return a disordered human ear to normality and banish some forms of tinnitus.
The belief that one day medicines will provide some, or most, tinnitus cures lies behind important research being done at Birmingham University. A homeopathic medicine called "Tinnitus' is being investigated as part of a variety of work on the pharmaceutical treatment of head noises. Its ingredients are those which some people associate with the cause or aggravation of tinnitus. In the first controlled trials of the medicine, volunteers had to avoid coffee, tea and anything which contained caffeine. Some reduction in tinnitus was recorded among a number of people.
Patients recovering consciousness after operations unconnected with tinnitus have sometimes found that their head sounds have disappeared, but return again after a short while. This has prompted experiments, and researchers have been encouraged to find that the anaesthetic lignocaine, when given in small doses by injection into a vein, will temporarily abolish or reduce tinnitus. It is not yet a viable ongoing treatment, but the search is on for a parallel drug which can both be taken by mouth and is capable of giving more than transient relief. It is not known exactly how lignocaine can bring silence, however temporarily. Conversely, and in rare cases, a general anaesthetic is believed to have caused or worsened tinnitus.
The recent advances in the study of neuro-anatomy could be highly important. Greater understanding of the nature and function of nerves will be followed by more drugs, some of which will one day probably enable highly selective correction of inner ear nerves and perception of sounds by the brain. The first step could be the voluntary deafening of a patient with the simultaneous abolition of the tinnitus, and from that it is not fanciful to envisage a narrowing of the target to check the tinnitus only.
Researchers throughout the world increasingly exchange their latest theories and findings, and every four years an international seminar is held for scientific investigators and practitioners.
The sheer variety of the work being conducted from country to country is reassuring, but perhaps also serves to show how little agreement there is on which form of research holds most promise. It also strengthens the belief that tinnitus, as a symptom of a number of underlying disorders, requires not one but several cures.
A German doctor runs a deliberately luxurious residential clinic where comfort is seen as a vital factor. While patients are enjoying food and surroundings to match the most expensive of hotels, they undergo psychotherapy and other treatments. Some of the most distressed patients respond well and quickly, finding themselves better equipped to handle their tinnitus and reporting some reduction of it. The multi-disciplinary approach in luxurious surroundings is extremely costly, but is being taken seriously as a line of treatment with possibilities. Also in Germany, sufferers who find it difficult to sleep have been fitted with hearing-aids connected with wires through which natural sounds and music are fed.
At the Welsh Institute of Hearing Research in Cardiff, a number of suicides, which may have been caused by tinnitus reaching an intolerable level, have been studied. It has been found that depression plays a vital role in the decision of anyone to contemplate suicide. Taking one's own life remains extremely uncommon among sufferers who do not already have significant psychiatric disturbance.
American researchers have reported partial success in the use of the tranquilliser alprazolam (trade name Xanax), with a number of patients finding some benefit. In the opinion of some tinnitus specialists in the UK the feeling of relief could probably be achieved by almost any tranquillisers. They also warn that such drugs can be easily addictive.
In Sweden, work continues on establishing links betweea jaw disorders and tinnitus, but without conclusive results.
French scientists are looking at the control the brain exerts on the function of the inner ear via the nerve pathways. Deeper knowledge in this field is expected to lead to greater understanding of tinnitus generation.
In Israel, some evidence has emerged of a deficiency of vitamin B12 in military personnel with bad noise-induced tinnitus. The same team of researchers have found that self-hypnosis can help some sufferers.
Epidemiological studies are made in various countries. In Singapore it has been found that 23 per cent of people with noise-induced deafness also have tinnitus. The same people tended to have rather worse hearing than those without tinnitus, confirming observations made earlier in Canada and the UK.
The danger of exposure to loud noise was studied among a number of army personnel in Finland. Half of them had less than normal hearing for their age and a third of the total had tinnitus, most of them continuously. Although the use of hearing protectors had increased in recent years, the researchers reported a large number of younger men were still suffering disabling tinnitus and deafness.
Tinnitus in animals is being investigated in the University of Maryland, USA. Rats have been given different doses of aspirin-like salicylate drugs and their responses and behaviour studied alongside other rats. Professor Pawel Jastreboff says that 'a cure remains elusive and the mechanisms of origins speculative. The crucial obstacle in tinnitus research has been the lack of an animal model'. To find out more, you can check out Natural Cure For Ringing Ears.
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