It’s really common for people to experience tinnitus. Tinnitus can become so extreme that it becomes a burden to live with for about 20 million individuals worldwide. And there are also more prevalent presentations of tinnitus which are much more mild and intermittent and are also easier to deal with.
When you hear noises in your ears that don’t have an external source and nobody else can hear them, that’s tinnitus. This might be a ringing in the ears or a buzzing sound you can’t get rid of. Tinnitus is frequently related to hearing loss, but that doesn’t mean that one condition will immediately result in the other.
As a matter of fact, tinnitus comes in a number of forms. And each one will require a different treatment approach.
What is tinnitus?
So, what is tinnitus and where does it come from? The first thing to recognize is that tinnitus comes in a number of types and causes. The various causes of tinnitus will manifest with similar symptoms. But it’s still crucial to determine the cause in order to effectively manage the symptoms.
For some individuals, tinnitus is the outcome of a neurological issue, such as a traumatic brain injury or a concussion. Hearing loss due to age can be another factor that can cause tinnitus. The following are a few other potential causes:
- Neurological tinnitus: Tinnitus isn’t always caused by ear problems. Sometimes, the root cause lies within the brain. Neurological tinnitus is a result of injury to or problems with your baseline neurological functions. In other words, something has gone wrong with the normal ways that your brain and ear communicate. The result is that you hear a phantom sound that might not be there. A stroke, concussion, or brain injury can all be the root causes of tinnitus, as well as others. As the brain heals, neurological tinnitus will, in some situations, go away on its own. It may be permanent in other instances.
- Subjective tinnitus: With subjective tinnitus, the sound you’re hearing is phantom and doesn’t objectively exist and only you can hear it. Lots of other types 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: With objective tinnitus, you’re hearing a real, verifiable, objective sound. Objective tinnitus does occur, though it’s not as common as subjective forms. Pulsatile tinnitus, which is when you hear your heartbeat or pulse, is an illustration of this form of tinnitus. For people with objective tinnitus, that pulsing sound usually seems louder than it should.
- Somatic tinnitus: For many people, the sound they hear with tinnitus is relatively constant. That’s true for both subjective and objective tinnitus. But, somatic tinnitus is different. This type of tinnitus becomes more severe when you move around. Normally, somatic tinnitus will cause the symptoms to become more intense when you move your head or neck.
The majority of these types of tinnitus are not necessarily mutually exclusive. You might have subjective tinnitus and neurological tinnitus together, for instance. In order for us to formulate a treatment plan, we will first need to identify the underlying cause of your tinnitus.
Finding tinnitus assistance
If your tinnitus is here this minute and gone the next, you probably don’t need to do anything about it. But your quality of life can be significantly 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 relief from your tinnitus.
After we identify the root cause of your symptoms, there are a number of treatment strategies we can utilize. A few of these techniques can minimize the intensity of your symptoms making them less apparent. Other treatment options can mask the sound you’re hearing.
Tinnitus can’t typically be cured, but it can be successfully managed. We will work with you to formulate treatments that work for your symptoms. This will help you enjoy life again by moving your symptoms into the background where they can be more easily ignored.