Treatment or Cure to Tinnitus — How Close Are We?

[Rog]

Dr @Nagler

Do you believe that we are getting there? Are we closer to it than 10 years ago? Sounds like a stupid question but if I ask my ENT he would have a stupid answer .

 

[Dr. Nagler]

Do you believe that we are getting there? Are we closer to it than 10 years ago? Sounds like a stupid question ...

Hi @Rog -

It's not a stupid question at all. Actually, it's one of the most common questions posed to me whenever I speak to a tinnitus group. The problem is that folks often get upset at my answer - like the fact that I might feel one way or the other can somehow influence the future. What will be will be, and what I might have to say about it matters not a whit.

So, with that brief introduction ...

No, I do not believe that there will ever be a cure for tinnitus. I would very much like to be wrong about that and have donated thousands and thousands of dollars over the years to tinnitus research in the hopes that I am, indeed, wrong.

There are a number of reasons I feel the way I do, but it basically comes down to the fact that 94% of the non-tinnitus and normally hearing population will hear their own tinnitus that they never before knew that they had if they purposely listen for any sounds they can detect while seated in a sound-isolated chamber. The variety of sounds they describe are the same as the variety of sounds described by folks with severe intrusive tinnitus - the only difference is in the volume and intrusiveness of the sound. So basically researchers are trying to come up with a cure for a naturally-occuring phenomenon the problem of which comes down to "degree." But degree is a moving target! And I do not believe it likely that researchers will come up with a cure for a moving target.

I realize that many will disagree with me. But that is how I personally have come to see it.

Dr. Stephen Nagler