New treatments for pulsatile tinnitus, a natural cure for tinnitus - PDF Review

Henry et al (2005) reported that noise was an associated factor for 22% of cases, followed by head and neck injury (17%), infections and neck illness (10%), and drugs or other medical conditions (13%).
Thus it can see that there are numerous factors that are weakly correlated with tinnitus, and that hearing impairment is the most strongly associated.
Most tinnitus comes from damage to the inner ear, specifically the cochlea (the snail like thing on the right of figure 1, labeled '9').
Patients with Meniere's disease often describe a low pitched tinnitus resembling a hiss or a roar. Tinnitus can also arise from damage to the nerve between the ear and brain (8th nerve, labeled 6, auditory nerve). Tinnitus arises more rarely from injury to the brainstem (Lanska et al, 1987), and extremely rarely, to the brain itself (e.g. Tinnitus can be associated with Basilar Artery Migraine (BAM), and also tinnitus can be more bothersome when one is having a migraine (Volcy et al, 2005), like sound and light and smells. In our opinion, people are very quick to blame drugs for their tinnitus, but it is rare that this is borne out.
Often people bring in very long lists of medications that have been reported, once or twice, to be associated with tinnitus. As tinnitus is essentially subjective, malingering of tinnitus as well as psychological causes of tinnitus is certainly possible. In malingering, a person claims to have tinnitus (or more tinnitus), in an attempt to gain some benefit (such as more money in a legal case). Schecklmann et al (2014) suggested that tinnitus is associated with alterations in motor cortex excitability, by pooling several studies, and reported that there are differences in intracortical inhibition, intra-cortical facilitation, and cortical silent period. ABR (ABR) testing may show some subtle abnormalities in otherwise normal persons with tinnitus (Kehrle et al, 2008). We occasionally recommend neuropsychological testing using a simple screening questionnaire -- depression, anxiety, and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) are common in persons with tinnitus. Microvascular compression of the 8th nerve is not a significant cause of tinnitus (Gultekin et al.
Other entities that can sometimes be seen on radiological testing and that can cause pulsatile tinnitus, include AVM's, aneurysms, carotid artery dissection, fibromuscular dysplasia, venous hums from the jugular vein (found in half the normal population), vascular tumors such as glomus, ossifying hemangiomas of the facial nerve, osseous dysplasias such as otosclerosis and Paget's, elevated intracranial pressure.
Disrupted sleep is the most significant complaint, and affects between 25-50% of tinnitus patients. The algorithm that we use in our practice to diagnose and treat tinnitus is here (a PDF graphic).
The bottom line is that it is unusual (although not impossible) for people to get substantial relief from medication, devices, or surgery. There is a small literature concerning use of intravenous and local anesthesia for tinnitus. Liu et al (2011) reported use of botox for tinnitus due to tensor tympani myoclonus, by inserting gelfoam with botox through a perforation in the tympanic membrane. Pramipexole was recently reported effective for tinnitus in a study of 40 patients with age related hearing loss in Hungary.
Most of the discussion of devices for tinnitus are discussed, as is proper, under the placebo page. Cochlear implants, which are used for severe bilateral unaidable hearing loss, usually improve tinnitus (Amoodi et al, 2011). These are devices based on the idea that tinnitus is usually worst when things are very quiet. Occasionally persons with Meniere's disease have relief or reduction of tinnitus from transtympanic gentamicin. Microvascular compression syndrome, in theory, may cause tinnitus, but we have had very little success when the few patients we have seen with this syndrome have undergone surgery.
Tinnitus usually improves in profoundly deaf individuals who undergo cochlear implantion (Olze, 2015).

Avoid exposure to loud noises and sounds, avoid environments that are very quiet (as this makes tinnitus more noticeable). Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT) is a method of treating tinnitus helpful for some (Wang et al, 2003). We sometimes refer patients for TRT, but the time required and general lack of health insurance support for long term psychotherapy are significant barriers. Dawes P, Fortnum H, Moore DR, Emsley R, Norman P, Cruickshanks K, Davis A, Edmondson-Jones M, McCormack A, Lutman M, Munro K.
Hoare DJ, Kowalkowski VL, Kang S, Hall DA.Systematic review and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials examining tinnitus management. Mahboubi H, Ziai K, Brunworth J, Djalilian HR.Accuracy of tinnitus pitch matching using a web-based protocol.
Piccirillo JF, Garcia KS, Nicklaus J, Pierce K, Burton H, Vlassenko AG, Mintun M, Duddy D, Kallogjeri D, Spitznagel EL Jr.Low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to the temporoparietal junction for tinnitus Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. Wineland AM, Burton H, Piccirillo J.Functional Connectivity Networks in Nonbothersome Tinnitus. For example, Tandon (1987) reported that 1% of those taking imiprimine complained of tinnitus.
This unfortunate behavior makes it very hard to care for these patients -- as it puts one into an impossible situation where the patient is in great distress but is also unwilling to attempt any treatment.
We doubt that this means that motor cortex excitability causes tinnitus, but rather we suspect that these findings reflect features of brain organization that may predispose certain persons to develop tinnitus over someone else.
Because papilloedema is so rare, and tinnitus is so common, it is very unusual to find this dangerous condition.
A brain MRI is used for the same general purpose and covers far more territory, but is roughly 3 times more expensive. This is not surprising considering how disturbing tinnitus may be to ones life (Holmes and Padgham, 2009). This is because of the very high correlation between anxiety and depression with tinnitus-related annoyance and severity (Pinto et al, 2014). At that date there were 4 double-blind placebo controlled trials of antidepressants for tinnitus. A recent trial in older people showed that atorvastatin had no effect on the rate of hearing deterioration but there was a trend toward improvement in tinnitus scores over several years. This is a drug designed for heart disease, that is marketed in Europe for vertigo and tinnitus. If you have tinnitus associated with a hearing loss, a hearing aid is a reasonable thing to try. For venous tinnitus, possibilities include jugular vein ligation, occlusion of the sigmoid sinus, or closure of a dural fistula. The effects of unilateral cochlear implantation on the tinnitus handicap inventory and the influence on quality of life. Medium-term results of combined treatment with transcranial magnetic stimulation and antidepressant drug for chronic tinnitus. Comparison of auditory brainstem response results in normal-hearing patients with and without tinnitus. Maintenance repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can inhibit the return of tinnitus.
According to Park and Moon (2004), hearing impairment roughly doubles the odds of having tinnitus, and triples the odds of having annoying tinnitus.
Somatic tinnitus means that the tinnitus is coming from something other than the inner ear. In a double-blind trial of paroxetine for tinnitus, 3% discontinued due to a perceived worsening of tinnitus (Robinson, 2007). Specialists who care for patients with ear disease, usually know very well which drugs are problems (such as those noted above), and which ones are nearly always safe.


Of course, tumors are a very rare cause of tinnitus, as tinnitus is at least 100 times more common than tumors of the inner ear area.
On the other hand, Hoekstrat et al (2011) suggested that in general these drugs do not work for tinnitus. This study suggested that Botox might improve tinnitus to a small extent (7 improved with active, 2 improved with placebo).
Be sure that you try the hearing aid before buying one, as tinnitus is not always helped by an aid. Given that smartphone apps do the same thing as tinnitus maskers, and that most newer hearing aids are blu-tooth capable, we see little reason to pay for a masker-hearing aid when one already owns a cell phone. Surgery seems worth considering only in extreme situations - -the tinnitus is extremely loud, very distressing, and there is a methodology to decide whether or not the tinnitus can be improved with surgery. On the other hand, very few individuals with tinnitus are deaf enough to qualify for cochlear implants.
Practically, as there is only a tiny proportion of the population with objective tinnitus, this method of categorizing tinnitus is rarely of any help. In other words, the changes in the brain associated with tinnitus seem to be associated with emotional reaction (e.g. In a large study of tinnitus, avoidance of occupational noise was one of two factors most important in preventing tinnitus (Sindhusake et al. Tinnitus from a clear cut inner ear disorder frequently changes loudness or pitch when one simply touches the area around the ear. There are case reports concerning tinnitus as a withdrawal symptom from Venlafaxine and sertraline (Robinson, 2007). Nevertheless, this quality of tinnitus probably justifies a trial of oxcarbamazine (a less toxic version of carbamazepine). TMS seems to be somewhat helpful for depression and migraine, and one would think that a modality that worked for these, would also work to some extent for tinnitus. If tinnitus is reduced by intratympanic lidocaine injection, it seems reasonable to us that surgical treatment may also be effective (for unilateral tinnitus). It seems to us that it should be possible to separate out tinnitus into inner ear vs everything else using some of the large array of audiologic testing available today. The exact prevalence of TMJ associated tinnitus is not established, but presumably it is rather high too. In our clinical practice, we have occasionally encountered patients reporting worsening of tinnitus with an antidepressant, generally in the SSRI family. When this doesn't happen, the treatments that work the best for tinnitus are those that alter ones emotional state -- antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, and ones that allow you to get a full night's sleep.
Robinson reported that tinnitus in depressed patients appears more responsive to antidepressants than in non-depressed patients. Because it is easily available in the US, and has a rather benign side effect profile, we think that it is a good candidate for medication trials. We have encountered patients who have excellent responses to cervical epidural steroids, and in persons who have both severe tinnitus and significant cervical nerve root compression, we think this is worth trying as treatment. Having TMJ increases the odds that you have tinnitus too, by about a factor of 1.6 (Park and Moon, 2014). Mechanisms for impovement were suggested to be direct effects of increased serotonin on auditory pathways, or indirect effects of tinnitus on depression or anxiety.

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