Tinnitus is a variety of sounds that a person hears constantly and from which there is no relief. There is no known cure, but there are things people can do to lessen the volume and effect of the sounds.

Tinnitus retraining therapy is a relatively new procedure that takes from 1 to 2 years. The main purpose is to help the person manage tinnitus so that he is no longer affected negatively by it.

Dr. Pawel Jastreboff developed tinnitus retraining therapy in the mid 80s. In talking with many people who had tinnitus, he discovered that the tone and intensity of the noises had little to do with the problem. The difficulty lay in the person's perception of the sounds. He discovered that many people had grown accustomed to the sound and it no longer bothered them.

This discovery led him to develop tinnitus retraining therapy based on the fact that there are constant noises people hear daily, such as the hum of a refrigerator. These noises are barely noticeable to a person because their central nervous system has recognized them as insignificant.

Jastreboff believed that it was possible to retrain the nervous system into thinking that the noise the person was constantly hearing was insignificant. The first step in tinnitus retraining therapy is to remove any negative psychological notions connected with the tinnitus sounds. The second step is to maintain the person's perception of the noise during training. If they become unaware of the tinnitus, they may not be able to retrain the nervous system.

Tinnitus retraining therapy usually lasts for up to two years. The person wears a hearing device behind his ear whenever the tinnitus is most noticeable. A therapist sends low noise through the device to cover up the periods of silence that can make tinnitus worse. This allows the patient to become less annoyed by the noise and removes the negative emotions associated with tinnitus. The idea is to reprogram the nervous system into thinking that the tinnitus is an insignificant noise and not something stressful or bothersome.