You learn to adapt to living with tinnitus. In order to tune out the constant ringing, you always leave the TV on. You avoid going out for happy hour with friends because the loud music at the bar makes your tinnitus worse for days. You’re always going in to try new techniques and treatments. Eventually, your tinnitus just becomes something you integrate into your daily life.
Mainly, that’s because there isn’t a cure for tinnitus. But that might be changing. We might be getting close to a reliable and permanent cure for tinnitus according to research published in PLOS biology. For now, hearing aids can really help.
The Specific Causes of Tinnitus Are Unclear
Somebody who has tinnitus will hear a buzzing or ringing (or other sounds) that don’t have an outside source. A condition that impacts millions of individuals, tinnitus is very common.
It’s also a symptom, broadly speaking, and not itself a cause. Tinnitus is essentially caused by something else. It can be hard to narrow down the cause of tinnitus and that’s one of the reasons why a cure is so evasive. Tinnitus symptoms can manifest due to numerous reasons.
Even the connection between tinnitus and hearing loss is not well understood. There’s a link, sure, but not all people who have tinnitus also have hearing loss (and vice versa).
A New Culprit: Inflammation
Dr. Shaowen Bao, an associate professor at the Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, conducted a study published in PLOS Biology. Dr. Bao carried out experiments on mice that had tinnitus triggered by noise-induced hearing loss. And the results of these experiments pointed to a culprit of tinnitus: inflammation.
Tests and scans carried out on these mice revealed that the parts of the brain responsible for listening and hearing persistently had considerable inflammation. As inflammation is the body’s reaction to damage, this finding does indicate that noise-related hearing loss might be creating some damage we don’t fully comprehend as yet.
But new forms of treatment are also made possible by this discovery of inflammation. Because we know (broadly speaking) how to manage inflammation. The symptoms of tinnitus cleared up when the mice were given drugs that inhibited inflammation. Or, at least, those symptoms were no longer observable.
So is There a Magic Pill That Cures Tinnitus?
If you take a long enough look, you can most likely view this research and see how, one day, there could easily be a pill for tinnitus. Imagine that, instead of investing in these numerous coping mechanisms, you can just pop a pill in the morning and keep your tinnitus at bay.
That’s definitely the goal, but there are a number of huge hurdles in the way:
- We need to be sure any new approach is safe; it might take some time to determine specific side effects, complications, or issues linked to these specific inflammation-blocking medications.
- The exact cause of tinnitus will be distinct from one individual to another; it’s hard to know (at this stage) whether all or even most tinnitus is linked to inflammation of some type.
- First, these experiments were conducted on mice. And there’s a lot to do before this particular approach is considered safe and approved for humans.
So it might be a while before there’s a pill for tinnitus. But it’s not at all impossible. That’s considerable hope for your tinnitus down the road. And, obviously, this strategy in managing tinnitus isn’t the only one currently being explored. Every new development, every new bit of knowledge, brings that cure for tinnitus just a little bit closer.
Is There Anything You Can Do?
If you have a relentless ringing or buzzing in your ears today, the potential of a far-off pill might give you hope – but not necessarily alleviation. Although we don’t have a cure for tinnitus, there are some contemporary treatments that can produce real results.
Some strategies include noise-cancellation devices or cognitive therapies created to help you ignore the sounds related to your tinnitus. Hearing aids often provide relief for many individuals. You don’t have to go it alone despite the fact that a cure is likely several years away. Obtaining a treatment that works can help you spend more time doing what you love, and less time thinking about that buzzing or ringing in your ears.
References
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000307
https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/brain-inflammation-identified-potential-target-treat-tinnitus