Ringing in your Ears? Read about what you can do to help with your tinnitus issues.

What Everyone Must Know About Help With Your Tinnitus Issues

If we tell you that 1 in 6 people globally could be afflicted with a hearing problem, it might seem unbelievable, right? But that is exactly how common tinnitus is – it has been estimated to occur in 15-20% of the global population, with around 1-3% sufferers experiencing a severe effect on their quality of life due to the problem. Knowing about tinnitus can help you decide if it is time to look for an audiologist near you.

What exactly is Tinnitus? Know about Tinnitus Symptoms

People affected by tinnitus would experience a constant sound despite the absence of any external source of the sound. Essentially, they hear a sound where none exists!

The phantom tinnitus sounds could be of any type such as:

• Ringing
• Buzzing
• Clicking
• Humming
• Hissing
• Roaring

One can experience tinnitus in one ear only or they can experience it in both ears.

Some people (although rare) may also experience what is called pulsatile tinnitus, where they hear a rhythmic pulsing or whooshing sound which comes and goes and is often in sync with their heartbeat.

If you are hearing any such sound for no apparent reason, or you can confirm that people around you are not hearing the sound that you are hearing, you could treat this as a symptom of tinnitus.

What are the common causes of Tinnitus?

Tinnitus may be caused due to multiple reasons such as:

• Hearing loss, where the cochlea (tiny, delicate hair cells in your inner ear which help you perceive sound) are bent or broken due to age or exposure to loud sounds, thereby ‘leaking’ random electrical impulses to the brain
• Head or neck injuries (typically they cause tinnitus in only one ear)
• Ear infection (thereby causing fluid build-up in the ear canal) or ear canal blockage due to ear wax, dirt, or foreign materials.
• Certain medications such as NSAIDs, cancer drugs, diuretics, antimalarial drugs, antidepressants, and some antibiotics may cause or worsen tinnitus
• Ménière’s disease
• Eustachian tube dysfunction
• Temporomandibular disorders
• Ear bone changes
• Blood vessel disorders such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, etc.
• Muscle Spasms in your inner ear
• Chronic conditions such as diabetes, migraine, thyroid issues, anaemia, autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus
• Acoustic Neuroma (which is a benign tumour that develops on the cranial nerve)

What are the Risk Factors that lead to Tinnitus?

While tinnitus can affect nearly anyone, the following are factors that put you at risk of getting afflicted by the condition:

• Exposure to loud noise, such as heavy industrial equipment, playing music in earphones at a high volume, and having to work in noisy work environments
• Alcohol and tobacco abuse
• Men are more prone to being affected by tinnitus
• Ageing
• Health problems such as obesity, hypertension, a history of arthritis, head injury, or cardiovascular problems

How is the impact of Tinnitus on quality of life?

Severe Tinnitus can affect quality of life by causing the sufferer to experience:

• Sleep problems
• Headaches
• Trouble with concentrating on studies or work
• Stress and Fatigue
• Irritability
• Anxiety and Depression

Also, once a person realizes that they have tinnitus, they may begin withdrawing from social life, thus leading to self-isolation and further compounding the above problems.

How can you reduce the chances of having Tinnitus?

While there is no foolproof or easy way to prevent tinnitus, the following precautions can prevent its onset to a large extent:

• Keeping your sound system or earphone volume to a comfortable level
• Using over-the-ear hearing protection if your occupation demands working in noisy environments
• Limiting if not totally avoiding the intake of alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine
• Regular exercise and healthy eating to ensure good cardiovascular health

What to do if you are already experiencing Tinnitus symptoms?

If you are already experiencing the symptoms that are mentioned earlier in this blog, you can use specially designed hearing aids which help in reducing the effects of tinnitus. But for this, you need to first undergo audiology testing for tinnitus. This includes a series of tests such as Pure Tone Audiometry, Tympanometry, Oto-acoustic emissions test, and Speech Understanding test.

Next, you need to undergo a pitch mapping and loudness mapping testing. This is to determine the frequency of the phantom sound that you are hearing and its volume.

Once the frequency and volume are determined, your audiologist program a hearing aid to effectively cancel out the phantom sound you are hearing in the ear. Once you wear such a programmed hearing aid, you will no longer have to listen to the sound.

Sound Rich Hearing is a chain of reputed hearing aid centres across India. If you are someone within the area of Delhi and are experiencing Tinnitus symptoms, do walk into one of our centres. You can benefit from being treated by some of the best audiologists who have a proven history of helping people experience a better quality of life by providing hearing aid solutions to manage tinnitus problems.