- Hi guys, Cliff Olson, doctor of audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
in Phoenix, Arizona.
And in this video,
I'm talking about the link
between tinnitus and suicide,
and the four different treatment options that you can use
to successfully treat your tinnitus.
Coming up.
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The relationship between tinnitus and suicide
got thrust into the national spotlight
when the founder and CEO
of Texas Roadhouse, Kent Taylor
ended up taking his own life in March of 2021.
And according to his family,
tinnitus may be one of the main reasons
why he committed suicide.
While the number of tinnitus related suicides is unknown,
it is speculated that as many as one
out of every six individuals with tinnitus
has suicidal thoughts.
Tinnitus or tinnitus is otherwise known
as ringing of the ears.
And it is very common,
especially in individuals who have hearing loss,
who comprise 90% of individuals with tinnitus.
In fact, one of the most common theories
about why people develop tinnitus
is the absence of sound
that makes it from their ears to their brain.
So if you happen to have hearing loss,
it creates a situation
where your brain is not receiving
the full amount of auditory input,
and it ends up creating its own phantom sound to replace it.
According to the Centers of Disease Control,
in the United States alone,
approximately 15% of the United States population
has tinnitus.
This equals about 50 million individuals.
And of those individuals,
approximately 2 million of them have debilitating tinnitus.
While the majority of individuals with tinnitus
can easily ignore the ringing and buzzing,
it is the individuals with debilitating tinnitus
that literally suffer from this condition
every second of every day.
If you were one of those individuals
with debilitating tinnitus,
then you already know that it can dramatically impact
every aspect of your life.
Whether you're at home in a quiet room
trying to read a book,
whether you're at the office
trying to get work done,
or whether you're just trying to fall asleep at night
or stay asleep at night.
I myself have tinnitus,
but it does not negatively impact every aspect of my life,
so I can not truly empathize with everything
that you're going through.
However, I have treated a number of patients
inside of my clinic who have debilitating tinnitus.
And it's so severe that they're borderline suicidal.
The reason I say borderline suicidal
is that I've never actually had a patient
attempt to take their own life
after they've reached out for treatment.
This is largely because there are a variety
of different treatment options
that can significantly reduce
or even eliminate your perception of tinnitus.
Basically, what I'm saying
is you do not need to commit suicide
to get relief from tinnitus.
You need to find an audiologist
who specializes in tinnitus treatment
so they can provide you with guidance.
Now, there are a variety
of different tinnitus treatments out there,
but there is no one single treatment
that's perfect for everybody.
So you have to find the treatment option
or treatment options that help you reduce
the perception of your tinnitus.
But before I get into these options,
if you could do me a huge favor
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That being said, I really appreciate it.
Now let's go ahead and get into those treatment options.
The first potential treatment option is hearing aids.
If you happen to be one of those many individuals
who also has hearing loss
in addition to your tinnitus,
then hearing aids can be one of the absolute best ways
to reduce your tinnitus.
Because six out of every 10 individuals
who use hearing aids to treat their hearing loss
also get a significant reduction
or complete elimination of their tinnitus
while they're wearing those devices.
Now, I know that treating your hearing loss
isn't really high on your list of priorities
if you're watching this video,
but trust me,
hearing aids can be an absolute lifesaver, literally.
How does this work?
Well, remember the theory
that I was talking about earlier
where it's the absence of sound
making it from your ears to your brain
that actually triggers this internal response of your brain
making this tinnitus sound?
Well, if you can restore sound back to the brain,
oftentimes you can shut off that mechanism.
Hearing aids also have tinnitus maskers built into them
which can be customized
to drown out the sound of your tinnitus.
And this also happen to be your second treatment option.
Tinnitus masking is basically
when you play an external sound to either drown out
or mask over the perception of your own tinnitus.
You do not need to have hearing aids
to use the tinnitus masker.
You can either run a fan in a room,
you can buy a noise generator
or something like the SNOOZ
that you can customize the audio of that masking sound
to drown out the perception of your tinnitus.
You can even use a regular set of earbuds
and then play sounds from the Starkey Relax app
on your smart device
to drown out the perception of your tinnitus.
Not only does tinnitus masking work really well
throughout the day,
it works really well at night
in order to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.
If these first two options of hearing aids
and tinnitus maskers don't work on their own,
then you need to strongly consider
the third treatment option
which is professional therapy.
Some of these professional therapies
include cognitive behavioral therapy,
progressive tinnitus management,
and tinnitus retraining therapy.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy,
otherwise known as CBT is a form of psychological treatment
that is used to treat a variety of problems
including depression, anxiety, drug abuse,
eating disorders, and of course, tinnitus.
This particular therapy is designed
to help individuals control
their negative emotional reactions
to their tinnitus.
Progressive Tinnitus Management,
otherwise known as PTM,
just like the name suggests,
is a treatment plan that progresses
to higher levels of treatment
depending on the specific needs of an individual.
This particular type of tinnitus therapy
is endorsed by the United States Veterans Administration,
and it incorporates a variety
of different treatment options,
including CBT, as well as ear level devices
like hearing aids.
I will actually attach the PTM workbook
in the description below
if you wanna check it out for yourself.
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy,
otherwise known as TRT
is a form of therapy designed to train your brain
to habituate to the sound of your tinnitus
so you no longer focus on it.
It also includes psychological therapy,
often administered by an audiologist
as well as relaxation techniques
and stress management techniques.
There is also a fourth option,
which I would consider to be the new
up and coming therapies like bimodal neuromodulation
from companies like Neuromod.
The theory behind bimodal neuromodulation
is that by stimulating multiple sensory pathways,
that you would be able to modulate these neurons
that are causing this perception of tinnitus.
In the case of Neuromod,
you would actually place tiny electrodes
on the tip of your tongue
that stimulate the trigeminal nerve
while listening to specific sounds
through a pair of headphones.
In a clinical trial
that I will link in the description below,
tinnitus sufferers saw a significant improvement
in their tinnitus severity
with this bimodal neuromodulation treatment.
And these improvements lasted for up to 12 months
post treatment for 80.1% of the trial participants.
I think my point after presenting
all of these different tinnitus treatment options
is that suicide should never be considered
the solution for tinnitus.
There are many audiologists out there
who really know what they're doing
when it comes to tinnitus.
You have to reach out to them
and leverage their knowledge
and their treatment abilities.
So if you were having suicidal thoughts
because of tinnitus or anything for that matter,
you need to stop what you're doing right now
and pick up your phone and call for help.
If you live in the United States,
you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline,
24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1-800-273-8255.
If you live outside of the United States,
go online and find the number
for your National Suicide Prevention hotline
and give them a call.
When you're done talking to them,
go ahead and reach out to an audiologist in your local area
who can help you work through
your tinnitus treatment options.
Suicide is never the answer.
And in my opinion, if Kent Taylor,
the founder and CEO of Texas Roadhouse
knew how many treatment options he had available to him
and all the professional support
that he could have received for his tinnitus,
I truly believe that he'd still be alive today.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comment section below.
If you liked the video, please share it.
If you wanna see other videos just like this one,
go ahead and hit that Subscribe button.
Also, feel free to check out my website, drcliffaud.com.
And if you are having thoughts of suicide,
please reach out and ask for help.
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