New treatment for tinnitus could finally bring relief to millions of sufferers

Tinnitus affects as many as seven million people in the UK alone, and yet treatment for this quality-of-life-ruining ailment still varies from a non-existent ‘deal with it’, to impossible-to-pin-down and quantify ‘brain retraining’.

Symptoms range from simple 'ringing in the ears' to invasive perception of loud or unpleasant high and low frequencies, to repetitive and intrusive 'beating' or 'swooshing' sounds which can seemingly come and go at random.

And given the aural nature of the illness, it’s no surprise that musicians, engineers, producers, DJs and anyone who relies on critical listening in their day-to-day, are among the most affected.

And while it’s possible to avoid its arrival through ear protection and actively avoiding loud, and potentially damaging environments, it seems that some sufferers are simply more prone to the illness than others, with its onset being frequently unaccounted for.

But now there’s some good news.

Researchers at Newcastle University, funded by hearing loss charity RNID, have discovered a treatment that – in trials so far, at least – has had a marked effect on alleviating the problems of sufferers within their test group.

The researchers have trialled the treatment on 77 people suffering from tinnitus, playing them different musical pitches, making small changes to the notes for one group, while giving the second group placebo frequencies.

The trial group listened to these sounds for an hour a day for six weeks, followed by a three-week break. Then they changed the groups over for a further six weeks of treatment.

“At the moment, there aren't really very good treatments to get rid of the tinnitus sound, and it's all about helping people disengage and learn to live better with the symptom,” Dr Will Sedley, a researcher at Newcastle University, conceded, in an interview with Sky News.

However, their tests show that those members of the group who listened to the “active” sounds (as opposed to placebo ones) remarked upon a “significant” quieting of their tinnitus – reducing by around 10% on average.

This quieting – diminishing the continuous, intrusive sounds that sufferers endure – then went on to last for up to three weeks after the trial had finished. It’s now hoped that the treatment could be developed upon with “different modifications”.

"If we could build this into the normal, listening to music, talk radio, and podcasts people are doing anyway, they could rack up hours and hours of listening every day,” Sedley suggests.

It's hoped that, with further refinement, the treatment could be rolled out in the years to come, giving much-needed relief to musicians and more.

We'll have more on this one as the story develops.