It is believed that the ancient Greeks first used a tinnitus masker going back as far as 2000 years ago. They discovered that tinnitus could be masked by a stable external sound source and that when the sound source is removed, there is often no detection of the head noises for a period of time.
However, the ‘father’ of modern tinnitus masking is Dr Jack Vernon, whose pioneering work on the psychological management of tinnitus was published in the 1970s. Vernon attempted to convey to the tinnitus community that tinnitus maskers should not be seen in terms of ‘covering’ the head noises (as with sound enrichment), but as ‘relief.
It is an unfortunate fact that in many quarters the notion still lingers that a tinnitus masker is simply used in the state whereby an externally generated sound covers and thereby drowns out the tinnitus and afterwards the head noises are absent for a time. As stated, actually making tinnitus inaudible by using another sound (sound enrichment) prevents habituation from taking place.
Tinnitus Masker Sounds
How A Tinnitus Masker Works
Indeed, it’s impossible to achieve habituation to any signal in the absence of perceiving it. For example, a negative reaction to spiders, birds or frogs will not be conquered by avoiding these things for the rest of your life.
Vernon and subsequent tinnitus professionals actually define tinnitus masking – also known as ‘sound therapy’ – as the use of a stable sound source as a form of tinnitus relief, emphasizing that there is an ideal volume for a tinnitus masker.
This is different for each person, depending on the volume of your tinnitus. The volume of your personal tinnitus masker sound should be set so that it starts to blend with your tinnitus sounds, allowing you to hear both the external noise and the tinnitus sounds. When tinnitus is largely masked but still heard in this way, habituation is achieved much faster than when it is drowned out altogether. Using a stable sound source can even prevent you from being woken in the night by your head noises, greatly reducing the stress and anxiety this would normally cause.
How To Use A Tinnitus Masker Successfully
For tinnitus masking to be successful, patients must be educated regarding the nature of sound, tinnitus and the ways in which external sound can be used to achieve relief. These things are covered in TRT (tinnitus retraining therapy). It is also essential that tinnitus masking is carried out for a minimum of eight hours a day. It usually takes between 12 and 18 months to achieve habituation. What happens is that the broadband hissing sound interferes with the pattern-recognition process within the auditory system.
This makes it more difficult for the auditory system to differentiate between the tinnitus signal and the background signal produced by the therapeutic sound generator or tinnitus masker. In time, the auditory pathways become accustomed to the new level of background activity, which has the effect of reducing the perception of tinnitus.
If you have already tried sound enrichment and/or a tinnitus masker without success, it can be helpful to reassess the situation. It’s easy to overlook the amount of relief you achieve as merely adding a generated sound to your life is no big deal.
Try using the same technique again and don’t make a judgment about it too quickly. If it really isn’t helping, it may be worth assessing whether or not using a wider spectrum of sounds for your tinnitus masker would be more beneficial. Your sound generator may be able to mix one or two sounds, or you may want to use two types of ‘white noise’ from two different portable music players.
tinnitus masker
Never be afraid to try something else if your first option doesn’t work. Just because there isn’t an absolute cure for most types of tinnitus, you don’t need to suffer. Your tinnitus specialist should be able to advise you on several different techniques instead of showing you just one favored approach that is pushed to all patients alike. If your specialist fails to show you more than one technique and you don’t find adequate relief using that, it’s your right to ask if there are other techniques you might try.
Unfortunately, as yet there have been no reliable studies on the efficacy of tinnitus masking techniques.
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