Tinnitus, known as ringing in the ears, is a condition in which a person regularly experiences sound within the ear or head in the absence of any external sound. A common disorder, it affects about 25 million people in the United States, and for 2 million of them, the symptoms are severe and disabling. Tinnitus arises in the outer, middle or inner ear, or in the brain. The condition is not a disease in itself, but a symptom that accompanies physical or psychological disorders. In some cases, no definite cause such as exposure to loud noise or an illness is found. Usual care involves education, counseling and support, and behavioral therapies. These therapies are often augmented by the use of various acoustic stimuli to mask the tinnitus including specialized white noise generators that are worn like a hearing aid. Tinnitus retraining therapies help the patient to become
desensitized to the sounds.