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Posted by Milo7
Doctors who dismiss tinnitus treatment get an earful
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010326/3174124s.htm
USA Today 3/26
Page 8D
Doctors who dismiss tinnitus treatment get an earful
By Robert Davis
USA TODAY
Ear, nose and throat specialists are getting their bells rung by a patient
advocacy group.
The American Tinnitus Association (ATA) represents the 50 million Americans who
hear noise -- sometimes constantly -- when no sound is present.
The association has written to about 10,000 doctors to urge them not to tell
tinnitus patients that nothing can be done for them. Tinnitus patients are told
that ''a majority of the time,'' says Cheryl McGinnis, the association's
president.
''The most painful words they will ever hear are, 'Go home and learn to live
with it,' '' says Barbara Tabachnick Sanders, director of education for the
ATA, who wrote the letter to the doctors. ''Some go home and kill themselves.''
These specialists, she says, ''have the power to stop that.''
However, a spokesman for the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck
Surgery says, ''That's just not true.''
The academy's Neil Ward says, ''In my experience of over 30 years in private
practice, I would say it would be a rarity for somebody to say that.''
Both groups have information on their Web sites about therapies for the
disorder.
The number of tinnitus sufferers is expected to rise as baby boomers age. Like
aging, ''noise-induced tinnitus is not curable,'' says Stephen Nagler, an
Atlanta tinnitus specialist and chairman of the ATA's board of directors. ''But
it can be treated.''
Therapies include:
* Hearing aids for hearing loss.
* Noisemaking devices to mask the ringing and to train the brain to ignore the
constant noise.
* Biofeedback to help people manage stress.
* Alternative treatments such as acupuncture, the use of magnets, hyperbaric
oxygen and hypnosis.
* Drugs, including antihistamines and antidepressants.
''They can't just sit in a quiet room and read,'' Nagler says. ''They don't
have peace and quiet.''
The result can be maddening.
''It's a horror show,'' says Robert Winston, a Boston fire chief who spent
years around sirens, noisy equipment and blaring smoke alarms inside burning
buildings.
He wants cities nationwide to provide hearing protection, such as earplugs and
headphones for emergency workers. Not all cities do so now.
''Maybe we will have to have enough people end up deaf as a hammer to show that
we need these things,'' says Jim Miles, a Houston Fire Department captain who
also suffers from tinnitus.
''Some people are so desperate,'' Tabachnick Sanders says. ''Our role is to
give them hope.''
