Sound therapies in various forms are often being applied in order to alleviate the tinnitus symptoms. The most common form of a sound therapy is a 'tinnitus masker (noiser)' , which is a device that produces 'white noise' in order to distract from the tinnitus noise. In this way it is hoped that the person learns to focus less on the tinnitus and thus push the latter in the background. For some people tinnitus maskers appear to provide some relief in this sense (especially in the early phase), but the drawback is that they make it more difficult to get used to the tinnitus and thus habituate to the latter. So a masker (noiser) could actually lengthen the time required for the tinnitus if not to be cured but then at least be reduced to a level where it does not present any problems anymore (compensated tinnitus). The strategy of fighting fire with fire in this sense may therefore not be the best one for everybody. In fact, it is not rare that maskers worsen the tinnitus (I personally had contact with a couple of people where the noiser actually added a new tinnitus tone to the existing one).

Sounds are however not only used to acoustically mask the tinnitus, but also in order to provide relaxation. Relaxation CDs and sound files (especially nature sounds) are very popular and in general helpful for tinnitus sufferers (as relaxation will calm the nerves down and thus reduce the tinnitus noise).

Recently there have been some scientific experiments with 'notched' music where certain frequencies (centered around the tinnitus frequency) were filtered out (see for instance this BBC news bulletin. Whether this has the potential for a recognized therapy is still questionable, music CDs treated in this sense are already commercially available. Their prices are unfortunately quite inflated, but with suitable Audio software, one cam actually produce 'notched' recordings oneself without any cost.

So whilst sound therapies can be quite useful and effective in improving tinnitus symptoms, one should be aware of its limitations and not expect a full cure from this. One should also take care not to overdo it and cause more harm than good by exposing oneself to too much music and sounds. This holds especially if one uses headphones as these can cause problems with regard to pressure equalization on the ear. In particular, in-ear headphones ('earbuds') should be avoided, but also headphones that completely close around the ears. Better use 'open' headphones that don't prevent ventilation of the ear.

Thomas