Health Spotlight | Breakthrough tinnitus treatment

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Imagine hearing a ringing in your ears all the time.

The noise can be so loud it can be debilitating.

It’s called tinnitus, and more than 50 million Americans are living with it right now.

No one knows why it happens, but a new drug-free, FDA-approved device is helping to silence the sound.

Everything is checked … and ready to go!

Bert Light has been at the controls for more than 32 years.

But he was almost grounded when his ears started to ring.

“And all of a sudden my hearing or the tinnitus went from a level four to a level 12 out of 10,” Light said.

Worse yet, nothing could stop it. “It’s a really difficult beast to treat because there’s no one size fits all with this,” Light said.

Dr. Melissa Wykoff, a hearing audiologist at Peachtree, says nobody knows why it happens.

“Tinnitus can be inescapable. you can’t shut it off,” Wykoff said.

Traditionally treated with cognitive behavioral therapy, sound therapy and retraining therapy, now tinnitus is being treated with this.

“Here’s your tongue tip. Put that into your mouth,” Wykoff said.

The Lenier device is the first and only FDA approved device to use sound and sensory stimulation to teach the brain to ignore the sounds.

“It’s stimulating two different pathways. So, what’s happening is there’s feeling on your ton...