People with tinnitus hear sounds that are not present in the external environment and which other people cannot hear. Commonly, people describe ringing, buzzing, humming, background sounds, roaring or whistling noises in their ears. Each individual’s tinnitus experience is unique.
Tinnitus can be caused by any number of disorders. Outer ear problems include earwax, hair or a foreign body touching the eardrum. Middle ear conditions include vascular abnormalities, infections, otosclerosis, muscle spasms, benign tumors and eustachian tube dysfunction. Inner ear disorders include sensorineural (nerve) hearing loss due to noise exposure, presbycusis (hearing loss from aging), labrynthitis (inner ear infection) and Meniere’s disease (associated with hearing loss and dizziness). Some medications, including high dosages of anti-inflammatory, certain sedatives and antidepressants and certain antibiotics and chemotherapy agents, may cause or aggravate tinnitus.
Systemic disorders such as high or low blood pressure, amenia, diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, glucose metabolism abnormalities, vascular disorders, acoustic tumours, head or neck aneurisms and hormonal changes may cause or aggravate tinnitus. Finally, trauma to the head or neck, cervical problems or TMJ misalignment may also involve tinnitus. While the majority of tinnitus sufferers have hearing loss, tinnitus does not cause hearing loss. It’s usually the other way around.
Tinnitus can be caused by compounding factors and each individual case is unique. For more severe cases, once tinnitus is generated in the auditory system, another part of the brain (the limbic system) attaches an emotional response to it. Similar to the feeling you get when you scratch your fingernails down a blackboard, tinnitus becomes more than just a sound. Tinnitus can trigger anxiety and stress responses in the body, through activation of the limbic system and the autonomic nervous system (a system that controls involuntary processes e.g. heart rate, breathing, blood distribution). At this point, tinnitus is more of a whole body problem than just an ear event.
Two advanced treatments for problematic tinnitus are now available: Neuromonics Tinnitus Treatment and Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT). Both retrain the brain’s response to tinnitus and can provide significant relief. Learning to live with it is no longer the only option for tinnitus sufferers.
For more information on tinnitus assessment or treatment, contact Randall Bartlett, M.A., Audiologist or Cydney Fox, Au.D. Audiologist of the Tinnitus and Audiology Center of Southern California, Inc. at 661-259-1880 or visit www.hearwell.net .