Say, fellow tinnitus sufferers….

(How many spam comments you figure that headline is going to bring?)

Apparently, new therapies are helping those of us who suffer from those annoying noises. I’m pretty sure my tinnitus is partly genetic, partly from TMJ caused by gum-chewing during my first serious attempt to quit smoking. Although it could, apparently, also be from my whiplash injury that same year.

Although there is no cure, researchers say they have never had a better understanding of the cascade of physiological and psychological mechanisms responsible for tinnitus. As a result, new treatments under investigation — some of them already on the market — show promise in helping patients manage the ringing, pinging and hissing that otherwise drives them to distraction.

The most promising therapies, experts say, are based on discoveries made in the last five years about the brain activity of people with tinnitus. With brain-scanning equipment like functional magnetic resonance imaging, researchers in the United States and Europe have independently discovered that the brain areas responsible for interpreting sound and producing fearful emotions are exceptionally active in people who complain of tinnitus.

“We’ve discovered that tinnitus is not so much ringing in the ears as ringing in the brain,” said Thomas J. Brozoski, a tinnitus researcher at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield.

Indeed, tinnitus can be intense in people with hearing loss and even those whose auditory nerves have been completely severed. In the absence of normal auditory stimulation, the brain is like a driver trying to tune in to a radio station that is out of range. It turns up the volume trying but gets only annoying static. Richard Salvi, director of the Center for Hearing and Deafness at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said the static could be “neural noise” — the sound of nerves firing. Or, he said, it could be a leftover sound memory.

Huh. My tinnitus is mostly a roaring noise. I can now hear it during normal daytime noises. I used to only be able to hear it at night. Sometimes I have to turn on the white noise machine so I can get to sleep, which makes little sense unless you suffer from tinnitus. Believe me, the white noise machine is better than the roaring. I think, though, I’ll pass on this thing:

Similar to white noise, the broadband sound, tailored to each patient’s hearing ability, masks the tinnitus. (The music is intended to ease the anxiety that often accompanies the disorder.) Patients wear the $5,000 device, which is usually not covered by health insurance, for a minimum of two hours a day for six months. Since completing the treatment regimen last year, Mr. Edwards said his tinnitus had “become sort of like Muzak at a department store — you hear it if you think about it, but otherwise you don’t really notice.”

Um. I paid, oh, I dunno, maybe fifty bucks for my white noise machine at Brookstone, and that includes an extra cartridge. I notice my tinnitus when it’s quiet, and sometimes not even then. I guess it depends on my stress level, now that I think about it. But I’m luckier than some. Mine’s pretty much under control. It’s just annoying from time to time. (Watch, tonight, since I’m thinking about it, I won’t be able to do anything but hear it.)