What are ways to manage Tinnitus if there’s no cure for it? Marc Fagelson, an audiologist who has studied tinnitus and worked with veterans said "The idea is not so much to make the sound go away, although that’d be great, but to help that person coexist with this thing they don’t like by improving their understanding and their ability to rationally think about it,”
Here are several treatment options:
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Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) a talk therapy method centered on identifying and shifting unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns, this has the strongest research support for easing tinnitus-related issues.
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Tinnitus activities treatment (TAT) targets 4 areas often affected by tinnitus: thoughts and emotions, hearing and communication, sleep, and concentration. Treatment is tailored to the individual and may combine counseling, communication and listening strategies, attention shifting exercises, and sound therapy.
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Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) works to build habituation by gradually reducing how much attention you pay to the sound and how strongly you react to it. This is done by using a mix of education, counseling, and sound therapy. (Constantly monitoring or trying to suppress the tinnitus tends to backfire, keeping your focus locked on the noise instead of letting it fade into the background.)
- Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) another psychotherapy approach, but one focused on accepting thoughts rather than fighting them, and changing your relationship to those thoughts. This can also help, even though it may feel counterintuitive at first for those hoping for a cure.
What is the ultimate goal? Acceptance and Habituation
Without a proven way to silence chronic tinnitus, the most realistic long-term goal is habituation, Habituation means not paying attention to your tinnitus most of the time. And when you do pay attention to it, you don’t react to it.