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 individuals worldwide. This doesn’t even reference the more common forms of tinnitus, which for most individuals can come and go without causing a huge impact on their quality of life.
When you hear noises in your ears that don’t have an outside source and nobody else can hear them, that’s tinnitus. This could be a ringing in the ears or a buzzing sound you can’t shake. Although hearing loss is frequently associated with tinnitus, there isn’t always a cause-and-effect relationship between the two.
As a matter of fact, there are a substantial variety of forms of tinnitus. Dealing with these varieties of tinnitus will require different approaches.
What is tinnitus?
So, what is tinnitus and where does it come from? Well, it’s significant to mention that not all types of tinnitus are the same. Regardless of the particular cause, the symptoms will be similar. But distinguishing the cause can be essential to finding the best treatment approach.
For some people, tinnitus is the outcome of a neurological issue, including a traumatic brain injury or a concussion. Hearing loss related to age can be another factor that can cause tinnitus. The following are a few other possible causes:
- Neurological tinnitus: Problems with the ear aren’t always the cause of tinnitus. Sometimes, the underlying cause lies within the brain. Neurological tinnitus is a result of injury to or issues with your baseline neurological functions. This means that the standard communication between your brain and ears isn’t functioning correctly. The result is that you hear a phantom sound that may not be there. Neurological tinnitus can be caused by concussion, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and others. As the brain heals, neurological tinnitus will, in some cases, go away on its own. It might be permanent in other circumstances.
- Subjective tinnitus: When only you can hear the sound of your tinnitus, which is quite common, hearing specialists will talk about your condition as a subjective tinnitus. Lots of other types of tinnitus also fall into this category. Neurological tinnitus, for example, is often also 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 does happen, though it’s not as common as subjective types. Most commonly, this means you’re experiencing something called pulsatile tinnitus, which occurs when you’re hearing your heartbeat or circulatory system. For individuals with objective tinnitus, that pulsing sound typically seems louder than it should.
- Somatic tinnitus: For many people, the sound they hear with tinnitus is fairly constant. That’s true for both subjective and objective tinnitus. With somatic tinnitus though, things are a bit different. This is tinnitus that grows worse with movement. Normally, somatic tinnitus will cause the symptoms to get worse 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 at the same time, for instance. In order for us to put together a treatment plan, we will first need to identify the root cause of your tinnitus.
Getting assistance with your tinnitus
If your tinnitus is here one minute and gone the next, you likely don’t have to do anything about it. But if your tinnitus hangs around or returns frequently, it could have real and severe impacts on your everyday life. That’s when it’s especially important to talk to a hearing specialist to get specialized care and find some relief from your tinnitus.
We have several different tinnitus management strategies we might try depending on the root cause of your symptoms. A few of these techniques can decrease the severity of your symptoms making them less evident. We may also employ masking techniques to hide your symptoms.
Tinnitus can’t usually be cured, but it can be effectively managed. We will help you personalize the best treatment for your particular situation. This will help you enjoy life again by pushing your symptoms into the background where they can be more easily ignored.