Dealing with acupuncture treatment of tinnitus

Studies dealing with acupuncture treatment of tinnitus reveal that a distinctive pattern exists for people who have gotten well from the treatment: tinnitus patients who possess symmetric hearing thresholds and those whose ringing sound is strongly lateralized to one ear and. Because the asymmetry of the ringing noise and the symmetry of hearing, these sufferers are not likely to have a solely auditory origin of their tinnitus. These people are suspected to a have special type of condition that has a relationship with the jaw, neck, and upper back muscles or have somatically induced tinnitus.

One study of note published in certain acupuncture journals talked about a 60 year old male with left ear tinnitus. In hearing threshold tests, there was less than a 10dB difference between each ear. The patient stated that he felt a dramatic improvement of his condition after the initial acupuncture treatment with the benefits lasting several months. Another study dealt with a female 45 years of age suffering from a chronic form of right sided tinnitus. She had not loss of hearing. After just one treatment, she got completely cured of her condition.

Apart from these two cases, there is another albeit less dramatic case. This study involved a group of patients all suffering from a chronic case of unilateral tinnitus. The patients were divided into two groups. The tinnitus in about a quarter of the patients was intermittent. The control group showed improvements that were markedly less than the group who received acupuncture treatment.

However, most doctors and acupuncturists agree that a plan of treatment using both Western and Eastern forms of treatment is the best way of addressing chronic tinnitus.