Tinnitus is the sensation of hearing a ringing, buzzing, or other noise that isn’t there. While there is no cure for tinnitus, there are treatments that can help lessen the symptoms. One such treatment is hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). HBOT uses high-pressure oxygen to help improve blood circulation and healing. Recent studies have shown that HBOT may be an effective treatment for tinnitus. If you are interested in trying HBOT to treat your tinnitus, speak with your doctor. There may be centers near you that offer HBOT therapy.
What is HBOT and how does it affect your body?
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) is a medical treatment for a variety of conditions that involve exposing the body to an increased level of oxygen. During HBOT, patients are placed in a pressurized chamber and given pure oxygen at a much higher concentration than normal atmospheric pressure. This increased pressure allows more oxygen to be absorbed into the blood and carried to the body’s tissues and organs, including areas where blood flow is restricted or decreased. This extra oxygen helps to reduce inflammation, improve circulation, stimulate the healing of damaged tissue, fight infection, reduce swelling, and promote new blood vessel growth.
How does Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) help?
Whether you are suffering from unilateral Tinnitus (Tinnitus in one ear) or Bilateral Tinnitus (Tinnitus in both ears), Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is the highly effective method for this disorder. You might be wondering how it heals your ear dysfunction. Relax, let’s have a detailed look at it below:
1. Increases Oxygen Supply to the Cochlea
Patients suffering from Tinnitus experience low oxygen supply to the blood cells, especially the brain. Therefore, they hear disturbing sounds in the cochlea or inner ear. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy reduces Tinnitus by supplying enough oxygen to the brain cells. The HBOT session is carried out in specialized oxygen chambers in which highly purified pure oxygen is supplied to the cells.
2. Reduces Inflammation
On top of all, the best use of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is in dealing with inflammations. Increasing oxygen pressure in the inner ear helps in the proper blood flow from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure. Moreover, HBOT creates an oxygen-rich environment that reduces the effects of hearing loss and neuro sensitivity.
3. Speeds up Healing
During acute hearing loss, the pressure in the cochlear decreases rapidly which significantly affects the ear and produces irritating sounds. If the situation becomes worse, it can even cause infections in the ear. To heal these ear infections, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy takes a step ahead and speeds up the tissue healing process. Enlisted below are some ways that show how HBOT speeds up the healing process in the ear:
- It brings oxygen-rich plasma to the ear tissues
- Release fluid that nourishes the brain cells directly
- Causes swelling that removes the damaged cells
4. Improves Microcirculation Around Tissues
In Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, you breathe pure oxygen for a limited period which helps in increasing your blood flow to all body tissues. Not only this but you also build and repair damaged blood vessels leading to the ear and directly to brain cells. In this way, the patient suffering from Tinnitus gets the proper circulation of blood around tissues and throughout the body parts.
5. Lessens Internal Sounds
When you are dealing with Tinnitus or hearing loss, you got irritated by unpleasant internal ear buzzing and unwanted sounds. HBOT has found an effective solution to this. By nourishing your brain tissues with pure oxygen, HBOT helps in eliminating internal sounds and thus a patient feels relaxed after the therapy.
Besides reducing sound severity, it also helps in improving your hearing. For instance, if you are a Tinnitus patient, you will be hearing internal sounds at a greater frequency of 37.7 decibels. What HBOT does is it lessens this frequency range and reduces it to a moderate range of 19.3 decibels. Alternatively, this act as an improvement for your ear.
Some other therapies for tinnitus
Tinnitus or hearing loss has a wide impact on your brain cells, disturbing the brain’s normal functioning. The lack of sufficient oxygen in the body tissues enhances this dysfunction and you feel like it’s more than an ear irritation.
To cope with such situations, neurologists have advised different preventive measures, yet no valid medications have been found to permanently reduce Tinnitus. This also states that there is no treatment discovered for this ear disorder. However, you can take help from the following therapies to get rid of Tinnitus:
Sound Therapy
The best therapy for listening to neutral sounds bring the external sounds inside and reduce the internal buzzing or disturbing voices.
Counselling Therapy
It aims to cope with mild Tinnitus symptoms including insomnia, depression, and mental instability.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT focuses on your thinking abilities and changes the way how you think in different situations.
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT)
It helps in retaining the way how your brain responds in Tinnitus conditions and makes you less aware of the inside sounds.
How Many HBOT Sessions are Effective for Tinnitus Patients?
It is no doubt that Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy has a wide name in improving your ear health and hearing problems. However, patients are not sure about the proper intake of HBOT sessions. According to recent studies, there are no strict instructions about how many HBOT sessions you should take on a weekly or monthly basis. Check this chambers from Oxyhelp : https://oxyhelp.com/hyperbaric-oxygen-chambers/ Yet, it has been shown by experiments that 40 to 60 Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Sessions are significantly effective for Tinnitus patients. Remember to keep these sessions between 60 to 90 minutes.
If you are tired of living with the ringing in your ears, it may be time to consult a specialist about hyperbaric oxygen therapy. HBOT is an effective treatment for tinnitus by increasing oxygen supply to the cochlea, reducing inflammation, speeding up healing, improving microcirculation around tissues, and lessening internal sounds. The number of sessions needed varies from patient to patient, but most people see significant improvement after just a few treatments. If you are ready to get rid of your tinnitus once and for all, hyperbaric oxygen therapy may be the answer.
