First Clinical Practice Guidelines for Treatment of Tinnitus

The American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery Foundation, the medical association for physicians who specialized in disorders of the ears, nose, and throat, recently released the first ever clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of tinnitus.

Full text is available here:

http://oto.sagepub.com/content/151/2_suppl/S1.full.pdf html

 

I stopped reading when i saw this in the intro....

Quote : e) recommend a hearing aid evaluation for patients who have persistent, bothersome tinnitus associated with documented hearing loss

And...

Quote : Recommended AGAINST the use of Ginkgo biloba, melatonin, zinc, or other dietary supplements for treating patients with persistent, bothersome tinnitus. End Quote!


Oh yaa...we dont want them to have a chance of getting better by natural healing.
Cuz how are we gonna be able to sell all those hearingaids then??
We want to keep patients in the dark and PLEASE dont tell them about LLLT!
And if somebody mention LLLT, its your duty to POO POO it and make them believe its snakeoil.
We have to think about our shareholders at all cost!!!



PUKE!

 

I received an email from ATA with the announcement that the first guidelines for treating patients with chronic T have been put in place. Is it just me or does it really say nothing? Or is the medical community finally taking T seriously? Here's the link.

http://oto.sagepub.com/content/151/2_suppl/S1.full.pdf html

I wasn't sure where to put this in the forum so please feel free to move it.

Sorry @jchinnis , I didn't realize you already posted this information.

 

BTA and ATA are useless...Wouldn't donate to them, as they do nothing!

I mean, I rang the BTA up for advice saying I was suicidal and all I got back was "Don't worry it'll subside". Seriously, people are donating for them to just say that?

 

Ya Danny. we want something to help lower this crap ! or take it away! we don't need a bunch of bs talk to try and help us..... we know when the sound is there ,how loud it is and when its lower or not there... HELP US !!!!!!!!

 

Well that went down well

 

Honestly, BTA and ATA do not want to help us, they just want our money...It's as simple as that. They are useless and if it wasn't for the greedy pharmaceutical companies wanting a slice of the pie, we wouldn't see a cure ever! Just management things...

 

dude, why are we complaining about the bta or ata when the publication has nothing at all to do with either

 

@Nick J. There is no evidence suggesting that any one of the those natural supplements you mention would have any effect on Tinnitus. And there are some that show they are ineffective. Coming up with plan of action for doctors to treat tinnitus patients has to based on what scientific facts have been established through tinnitus research. As for hearing aids, if you have hearing loss in the speech ranges that audiologists traditionally test for, so the many people and on this board it seems like the majority of us don't having hearing loss in the those rages and thus would not be recommended heating aids anyway. I don't see how recommending hearing aids is some sort of scam or deception.


As for the comments about the ATA and BTA, @Danny Boy sorry to hear about the response you got but i think its important to realize that they don't have these giant budgets that some other similar committees may have. Im not saying this about you personally Danny, but imo we Tinnitus suffers are more responsible for many of the common complaints we see made against the ATA or BTA. So for example 2010 the Jack Vernon Walk to silence only raised about $35,000 i believe. I hope it has increased since then but thats not a whole lot of money going in to them in the first place. Im sure they get government grants and other things but my point being, with the millions of people who suffer from T, you wouldn't know it from the whopping $35,000 from the walk. And of course there is the possibility that even if we had much more money for research we still would not find a cure, Although imo were getting close.

To get back on topic I think every time we take a step towards something we did not have and it some sort of useful purpose, which in this case hopefully will lead to more empathy from doctors when dealing with people who develop T for the first time, this type of thing may slowly lead to more awareness.

 

This is progress... it suggests that the problem is starting to be taken seriously and that maybe it no longer falls into the 'orphan disease' catagory that it did at one time

ENT's are tasked with dealing with tinnitus patients, but this is a challenge as they are actually surgeons and as such their nature is to cut, stitch and then shout 'next', not manage the provision of long-term therapy based on drugs, counselling or forms of neurological stimulation. As we already know, most forms of tinnitus cannot be treated by surgery and I think this is the main cause of the disinterest that many of us have experienced when presenting our condition to them

I'm glad some members of the ENT specialism have seemingly recognised this and taken the condition seriously enough to put the effort into writing this guide. I hope it signifies the start of a re-orientation within their specialism with regards to the seriousness with which the condition viewed

 

It has nothing to do with the BTA, ATA or any other organisation. It is recommended clinical practice guidelines which can either be ignored, modified or accepted in full by individual clinicians.

The emphasis if I am correct is on sound therapy and counselling. But even TRT comes in for some slight criticism and Neuromonics is criticised for lack of peer and non - peer reviewed studies.

 

Hearing aids are the ONLY thing that helps my tinnitus. If I don't wear them, the ringing becomes worse.

Things like ginko biloba didnt do squat.

 

I am getting an open hearing aid to see if it helps, also ent told me about a new procedure where they stretch the eschution tube (excuse my spelling )

 

I understand the need for clinical guidelines to be written conservatively to ensure that their recommendations are firmly based in sound science, but it's an unfortunate reality that the elapsed time from research to clinical practice is typically 20 years or more, no matter the medical discipline one is discussing. I'm a published author in the medical field and I've encountered quite a few physicians lamenting the typical 20-30 year lag from research to practice.

Plus, when you factor in the economic factors that minimize research into less profitable treatments (read: not patentable means ignored or misrepresented by the "experts"), the tendency for "peer review" to actually mean the loudest, not the most accurate, medical opinion rises to the top, and the blatant subterfuge perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry, it's highly unlikely that clinical practice guidelines will be that path to success for very many of us.

 

I'm sympathetic to that view, @jarvic. I have some experience in the evaluation of medical research and am published as well. But I came away with a different view after reading the guidelines. I think the panel was pretty well-balanced and knowledgeable. I know a few of its members. At least one is a tinnitus sufferer who has tried a number of novel treatments himself.

I think the guidelines would answer many of the questions raised here and would do so based on the best available information. Most people afflicted with intrusive tinnitus ultimately come not to be consumed by it. The appropriateness of cognitive behavioral methods, if better appreciated by those who seek treatment and those who do the treating might make a world of difference. Those with hearing loss might benefit by properly chosen hearing aids.
And many people here might benefit just by having some questions answered, such as "Do I need an MRI?"

Many illnesses and afflictions have clinical practice guidelines. Many come with decision trees to lay out treatment plans in some detail. (Asthma is a good example.)

One of the main reasons that clinical practice guidelines don't recommend the latest treatments to be explored or pushed by researchers or clinicians is that the vast majority of those fail to survive a test by a randomized trial.

 

Hearing aids are no more than amplifier inside your ears, so they will accelerate you hearing loss.