Roaring trucks, spinning washing machines or static radios. Super annoying sounds for a while, but imagine hearing them all day long. This is daily practice for people with tinnitus. What is Tinnitus? How does it arise? And more importantly, how on earth do you get rid of it?
What is tinnitus?
Tinnitus is the collective name for all non-present sounds that people hear in their ear. Everyone has a ringing in their ear from time to time, but almost two million Dutch people suffer from chronic tinnitus. For some of them, the complaints are so bad that they have trouble sleeping, cannot concentrate or have problems at work. ‘People come to my outpatient clinic with the most varied beeps, rustles and whooshing’, says Bas Op de Coul, ENT doctor at the ENT Medical Center. How does this ringing in the ears occur in all those people?
What Are the Causes of Tinnitus?
1. Hearing loss
‘There are a few known causes of tinnitus,’ begins Op de Coul. “One of the most important is hearing loss and noise damage.” You can compare that to the (temporary) beep you hear when you’ve been to a noisy concert or club. The noise caused by hearing loss depends on the type of hearing damage. ‘Loss of high tones leads to a high-pitched squeak, while the reverse happens with low tones.’
2. High blood pressure
Another possible cause of tinnitus is the rushing of your blood vessels. Have you ever heard the sea in a shell that you press to your ear? That is also the murmur of the blood vessels just in front of your ear canal. ‘In patients with very high blood pressure, turbulence occurs in those blood vessels. And turbulence sounds like a noise.’
3. Teeth grinding
Jaw complaints also sometimes cause tinnitus. How? Chronic teeth grinding or muscle pain in the jaw joint stimulates the nerve pathways towards your ear canal. Your brain converts that pain stimulus in your ear into sound, so you hear it as a whooshing. ‘We call that referred sound’, explains Op de Coul.
4. No obvious cause
Although there are several known causes of tinnitus, doctors unfortunately do not find a clear reason for the ringing in the ears in most cases. ‘Fortunately, ninety percent of the patients at my outpatient clinic are reassured after an explanation about tinnitus. That’s enough for them.’ And what about the other ten percent? How do you treat tinnitus?
Learning to live with tinnitus
Unfortunately, tinnitus cannot always be cured. The best treatment for chronic tinnitus then depends on the severity of the complaints. This is determined by the Tinnitus Handicap Index, a questionnaire about the limitations someone experiences due to the complaints. Questions such as: does your complaints make you angry or are you unable to sleep because of the tinnitus? Patients who score high receive behavioral therapy to learn how to deal with their complaints. The noise may not disappear, but its effects are reduced. Op de Coul: ‘You can deal much better with the same noise when you are lying on a tropical beach than when you are hard at work.’
So do you suffer from tinnitus? Book a beach holiday with a doctor’s prescription.
We often take our ears for granted. But how does your hearing actually work and how important is your auricle? And did you already know the dangers of the cotton swab?
2023-07-28 08:12:47
#tinnitus #rid
