Subjective tinnitus in 10 cases (10 ears) suffering for an average of 9.6 years was uncured by the use of western medicine. We chosed acupuncture points for tinnitus treatment in the Oriental medicine, used a 0.3 Tesla magnet (SmCo) as an electrode, applied 30Hz rectification of 10-20μA current for 20 minutes continuously 3 times a week routinely, and administered a herb medicine to these patients concurrently during treatment periods. Thus we observed their clinical progress.
We judged treatment outcome on the loudness, duration and degree of tinnitus grading from a questionnaire administered to the patients. As a result, 50% of the patients were shown to be “improved” or “remarkabley improved”, though it was 70% judging from the feeling of the patients themselves.
A decrease of 5-15 dBSPL in the loudness of tinnitus was measured using the heptachord pitch-matching test in 4 cases. Tinnitus pitch lowered in two of the four cases by 2.5 and 4.5 whole tones.
Thus, it is supposed that both electro-magnetic treatment and a herb medicine may be effective in the treatment of subjective tinnitus.
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