Dr. Jennifer Gans is one of the leading experts on Tinnitus. Here is why.

Discovering Tinnitus Through Clinical Work
Well, I'm a clinical psychologist by training, but, uh, I have always woven in deafness into my work through the years.

And I was working at the UCSF cochlear implant center. And my job was to basically evaluate everybody who was a potential candidate for a cochlear implant to make sure that they were emotionally ready, that they were psychologically supported, so that they would be a better cochlear implant user.

So that was the goal, is to obviously have some good cochlear implant users.

And so, while I was there, I'm going through patient after patient after patient, and I'm hearing a lot of people saying, you know, "My tinnitus is really bothering me."

And, you know, none of the doctors wanted to touch it. You know, they—they would say, "Oh, well, let's just focus on the hearing loss. Let's, you know..." It was almost as if tinnitus was the stepchild of these patients coming in here.

And just being the person that I am, it actually made me more curious. So I started going down the tinnitus rabbit hole.

And at the same time, I was also becoming fascinated and studying John Kabat-Zinn and his work with mindfulness-based stress reduction. And there was some wonderful research that he was producing—I think, uh, that—well, some great research that was coming out with mindfulness-based approaches, or his approach, with chronic pain.

And anytime, anytime there's a treatment for chronic pain, it makes me wonder, "I wonder if it will help somebody with tinnitus."

And so, uh, that began my research study that looked at Mindfulness-Based Tinnitus Stress Reduction, an eight-week program that I created at UCSF.

So, I guess that pretty much summarizes it. It just came from where no other doctors wanted to touch it.

You know, me being who I am, I got really curious about that and finding that tinnitus is not this—this un-understandable body sensation.

So, uh, that brought me down this road.

The Importance of Accurate Education
Sher: Well, that's wonderful because I know for me and for a lot of people who have tinnitus, when we ask our doctors or professionals about it, sometimes we just get this kind of shrug of the shoulders, or there's really nothing you can do. And that's absolutely untrue.

So, I'm glad that you're out here sort of spreading that message for people because it's really an important one.

Dr. Jennifer Gans: Right. And I, you know, we could get into reasons why that might have developed over time. There's—I think it's also important to understand that.

But I—I have found, through thousands of hours of sitting with people with bothersome tinnitus, and we can distinguish between bothersome and non-bothersome tinnitus, or no tinnitus at all, but the people that have bothersome tinnitus, uh, education is critical.

And for anybody that has tinnitus, the first thing they do is they go to the internet.

And all it takes is one bad piece of information to get their mind locked and loaded on it and the stories to start swirling around it.

And that is the downfall of anybody with tinnitus.

And so, my—what I have found to be the most rewarding part of my work is making sure that everybody has the—the fundamental, uh, or the primary part of tinnitus care, which is accurate education.