Tinnitus Retraining Therapy

Tinnitus retraining therapy

       Tinnitus is a debilitating illness for many of the people who suffer from it. They cannot focus, read, write or pay attention to their surroundings because of the constant and annoying sound in their head. Traditional medicine, as well as some forms of alternative medicine, can only treat the manifestations of tinnitus, to some degree. The cure for tinnitus is coming, but still some years away.

       However, according to some specialists out there, tinnitus patients should not despair. A different solution has been developed, tested and approved. While it does not imply the use of any drugs, which could cure the damages done to the ear or the blood vessels surrounding it, it does have a high success rate. There is one mandatory condition, though: you have to believe in it. Why? Because it is a sort of self-healing.

       Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) has been designed by people who suffer from this noisy disease for other patients like them. It is a part of a larger area of therapy, called habituation, which helps people with incurable, though not deadly, afflictions live with them.

       Tinnitus retraining therapy is based on counseling the patient in almost all areas of their lives. From the way they approach daily situations (cooking, cleaning, shopping and doing the laundry) to the more profound aspects of their personality (insecurities, emotional damages or choosing a life mate).

How does tinnitus retraining therapy work

       Tinnitus retraining therapy specialists (both psychiatrists and psychologists) explain attentively and in great detail to their patients how a masterful blend of tinnitus retraining and sound enrichment could put a stop to their, both unconscious and conscious, negative reaction to the tinnitus noises. This desired reduction of the acknowledgment of tinnitus could lead, in the more fervent practitioners, to a lessening of the stress which they live in and, eventually, to a complete and utter ignorance of the disturbing sounds.

       Basically, you have to make yourself deaf to your inner noises. A feat not easily taught, learned and, more importantly, applied. While it is true that some people can achieve this goal with little guidance and no exterior help, they are the delightful exceptions from the rule. In reality, some mechanical aids are provided: noise generators are often used in tinnitus retraining therapy for providing a background noise level.

       One of the main concepts postulated by this kind of therapy is that the idea of "no cure in sight" for tinnitus is wrong. The adepts of TRT claim that the noise level reduction or even disappearance for longer or shorter periods of time is a perfectly acceptable cure. Also, its amazing success rate, more than 80%, makes tinnitus retraining therapy a contender to be feared in the tinnitus cure race.

       However, there are downsides to this marvelous success story: it requires a great level of commitment from the sufferer as well as his or her medic, some very consistent notions of anatomy, physiology and pathology (you have to understand how the hearing process works in order to be able to influence it) and a lot of spare time.

       But, if all of the above have not deterred you from attending TRT, here is what should happen: on a psychological level, your medic will teach you how to raise "walls" inside your head, separating permanently the normal sounds of daily life from the noises induced by tinnitus. These walls can be made of beautiful memories, like your child's first words or your partner saying they love you.

       On a physical level, the challenge is rather momentous: you have to convince your damaged neuropathways that the direction they've always headed in is wrong and they have to alter it. It resembles the changing of the course of a river. It might sound impossible, but it is not really. Both the river and your neuropathways are pliable and compliant. They will do it your way, if you wish it hard enough.

       All of these processes, from the first time you step inside a tinnitus retraining therapy practice to the moment you can no longer hear conscientiously the noises stuck in your head, take about 18 months.