Tinnitus, Conventional medical treatments for tinnitus, drug therapy, Holisticonline.com

Conventional Medical Treatments for Tinnitus

The conventional treatment of tinnitus focuses on correcting the underlying causes. For example:

	If the cause of your tinnitus is excessive earwax, your physician will clean out your ears with a cotton-tipped probe or a suction device.
	If you have an ear infection, you may be given a prescription ear drop containing hydrocortisone to help relieve the itching and an antibiotic to fight the infection.
	If otoscierosis or a tumor is diagnosed, surgery may be necessary.
	If temporomandibular joint syndrome is the cause of your tinnitus, your doctor will probably refer you to a specialist for appropriate treatment.

For people with chronic tinnitus, drug treatments may offer some success. Lidocaine (Xylocaine, xylocaine viscous, zilactin-L), has been shown to relieve tinnitus for some people, but it must be given intravenously and its effect does not last long. If you experience unusual anxiety, excitement, nervousness, irregular or slow heartbeat when taking this medication, discontinue its use immediately and seek emergency treatment. It could be life-threatening. Other side reactions are redness, irritation, rash, itchy skin and hives. IN this case also you are advised to discontinue the use of the medication and to contact your doctor right away.

If your tinnitus is accompanied by some hearing loss, a hearing aid may be helpful. Many people have also benefited from tinnitus maskers, devices resembling hearing aids that play a sound more pleasant than the internal noise produced by the tinnitus.

A newer device is a tinnitus instrument, which is a combination of hearing aid and masker. Auditory habituation is a therapeutic technique, that uses a device that generates a certain type of white noise that is quieter than the tinnitus sound; the brain learns to ignore the tinnitus noise. You must be tested and fitted for any of these devices so that their sounds will cover the particular frequency of noise you hear.

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