It’s really common for individuals to experience tinnitus. Tinnitus can become so extreme that it becomes a burden to live with for around 20 million people around the world. And there are also more prevalent presentations of tinnitus which are a lot more mild and sporadic and are also easier to deal with.
When you hear noises in your ears that don’t have an external source and no one else can hear them, that’s tinnitus. This could be a ringing in the ears or a buzzing sound you can’t get rid of. Tinnitus is often associated with hearing loss, but that doesn’t mean that one condition will immediately result in the other.
In fact, there are a substantial variety of types of tinnitus. Dealing with these varieties of tinnitus will call for different approaches.
Tinnitus – exactly what is it?
Exactly what is tinnitus and what are its causes? The first thing to recognize is that tinnitus comes in numerous forms and causes. Regardless of the particular cause, the symptoms will be similar. But determining the cause can be crucial to finding the proper treatment strategy.
For some individuals, tinnitus is the outcome of a neurological issue, including a traumatic brain injury or a concussion. In other instances, tinnitus may result from age-related hearing loss. The following are a few other potential causes:
- Neurological tinnitus: Tinnitus isn’t always caused by ear problems. In some cases, the root cause lies within the brain. Neurological tinnitus is caused by injury to or problems with your baseline neurological functions. In other words, something has broken down with the normal ways that your brain and ear interact. The outcome is that you hear a phantom sound that may not be there. A stroke, concussion, or brain injury can all be the underlying sources of tinnitus, as well as others. As the brain heals, neurological tinnitus will, in some situations, clear up on its own. It might be irreversible in other instances.
- Subjective tinnitus: With subjective tinnitus, the sound you’re hearing is phantom and doesn’t objectively exist and no one else can hear it. Lots of other forms of tinnitus also fall into this category. For example, neurological tinnitus can also be subjective tinnitus. There are a large number of sounds that can manifest with subjective tinnitus, including buzzing, ringing, screeching, roaring, thumping, and many others.
- Objective tinnitus: When the sound you’re hearing in your ears is a real, verifiable sound, it’s referred to as objective tinnitus. Objective tinnitus is not really as common as subjective tinnitus, but it still happens. Most commonly, this means you’re experiencing something called pulsatile tinnitus, which happens when you’re hearing your pulse or circulatory system. For people with objective tinnitus, that pulsing sound typically seems louder than it ought to.
- Somatic tinnitus: For many individuals, the sound they hear with tinnitus is relatively constant. That’s true for both subjective and objective tinnitus. However, somatic tinnitus is different. This form of tinnitus becomes more severe when you move around. Normally, somatic tinnitus will cause the symptoms to get worse when you move your head or neck.
Frequently, individuals will have more than one form of tinnitus at the same time. For instance, you may have neurological tinnitus and subjective tinnitus. In order for us to formulate a treatment plan, we will first need to determine the underlying cause of your tinnitus.
Getting tinnitus assistance
You probably won’t need to take any specific action if your tinnitus symptoms are intermittent. But your quality of life can be seriously impacted if your tinnitus symptoms are fairly constant or keep returning. That’s when it’s particularly important to talk to a hearing specialist to receive specialized care and find some tinnitus relief.
We have a number of different tinnitus management strategies we may try depending on the root cause of your symptoms. Several treatments can make the sounds you’re hearing less obvious. Other treatment options can mask the sound you’re hearing.
Generally, there’s no cure for tinnitus, although it can usually be successfully managed. We will work with you to formulate treatments that work for your symptoms. That way, you can more easily ignore the buzzing or ringing in your ears, and get back to the life you love.