Tinnitus
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Tinnitus Evaluations & Management
Get the Buzz on Tinnitus
Each year about 1 in 10 adults nationwide has an episode of tinnitus that lasts longer than 3 months. Tinnitus is not a disease. Instead, it is a symptom that something is wrong with your auditory system. The problem may exist somewhere in your ear, in the nerve that connects the inner ear to the brain or in the parts of the brain that make sense of sounds. Because tinnitus can arise from so many conditions, ranging from hearing loss to high blood pressure to medications, diagnosing the cause or causes can be a challenge. For many people, the ringing in their ears begins for no obvious reason.
Often, people are told by their physician that they “have to live with it” and “there’s nothing we can do for it.” While it is true that there is no known cure for tinnitus, there are ways to help people manage it and provide relief. Tinnitus affects everyone differently, and our goal is to learn about you and your unique situation. Our treatment options include education and counseling, hearing devices and sound therapies that are specifically designed for each individual patient.
We start off with a comprehensive tinnitus evaluation which includes a thorough case history, a comprehensive evaluation of your auditory system, tinnitus testing and educational counseling. Together, we can determine the best course of action to provide you with relief for your tinnitus.
Tinnitus FAQ
What is tinnitus?
Tinnitus is commonly described as a ringing in the ears, but it also can sound like roaring, clicking, hissing, or buzzing. It may be soft or loud, high pitched or low pitched. You might hear it in either one or both ears. Roughly 10 percent of the adult population of the United States has experienced tinnitus lasting at least five minutes in the past year. This amounts to nearly 25 million Americans.
What causes tinnitus?
Tinnitus (pronounced tin-NY-tus or TIN-u-tus) is not a disease. It is a symptom that something is wrong in the auditory system, which includes the ear, the auditory nerve that connects the inner ear to the brain, and the parts of the brain that process sound. Something as simple as a piece of earwax blocking the ear canal can cause tinnitus. But it can also be the result of a number of health conditions, such as:
- Noise-induced hearing loss
- Ear and sinus infections
- Diseases of the heart or blood vessels
- Ménière’s disease
- Brain tumors
- Hormonal changes in women
- Thyroid abnormalities
Does having tinnitus mean I have hearing loss?
Tinnitus is sometimes the first sign of hearing loss. It also can be a side effect of medications. More than 200 drugs are known to cause tinnitus when you start or stop taking them.
People who work in noisy environments—such as factory or construction workers, road crews, or even musicians—can develop tinnitus over time when ongoing exposure to noise damages tiny sensory hair cells in the inner ear that help transmit sound to the brain. This is called noise-induced hearing loss.
Service members exposed to bomb blasts can develop tinnitus if the shock wave of the explosion squeezes the skull and damages brain tissue in areas that help process sound. In fact, tinnitus is one of the most common service-related disabilities among veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pulsatile tinnitus is a rare type of tinnitus that sounds like a rhythmic pulsing in the ear, usually in time with your heartbeat. A doctor may be able to hear it by pressing a stethoscope against your neck or by placing a tiny microphone inside the ear canal. This kind of tinnitus is most often caused by problems with blood flow in the head or neck. Pulsatile tinnitus also may be caused by brain tumors or abnormalities in brain structure.
What is the source of the sounds in my head?
Although we hear tinnitus in our ears, its source is really in the networks of brain cells (what scientists call neural circuits) that make sense of the sounds our ears hear. A way to think about tinnitus is that it often begins in the ear, but it continues in the brain.
Scientists still haven’t agreed upon what happens in the brain to create the illusion of sound when there is none. Some think that tinnitus is similar to chronic pain syndrome, in which the pain persists even after a wound or broken bone has healed.
Tinnitus could be the result of the brain’s neural circuits trying to adapt to the loss of sensory hair cells by turning up the sensitivity to sound. This would explain why some people with tinnitus are oversensitive to loud noise.
Tinnitus also could be the result of neural circuits thrown out of balance when damage in the inner ear changes signaling activity in the auditory cortex, the part of the brain that processes sound. Or it could be the result of abnormal interactions between neural circuits. The neural circuits involved in hearing aren’t solely dedicated to processing sound. They also communicate with other parts of the brain, such as the limbic region, which regulates mood and emotion.
Can I prevent tinnitus?
Noise-induced hearing loss, the result of damage to the sensory hair cells of the inner ear, is one of the most common causes of tinnitus. Anything you can do to limit your exposure to loud noise—by moving away from the sound, turning down the volume, or wearing earplugs or earmuffs—will help to lessen the likelihood that you will experience tinnitus.
Treatment
Treatments for Tinnitus
Hearing Aids
Hearing aids often are helpful for people who have hearing loss along with tinnitus. Using a hearing aid adjusted to carefully control outside sound levels may make it easier for you to hear. The better you hear, the less you may notice your tinnitus.
Counseling
Counseling helps you learn how to live with your tinnitus. Most counseling programs have an educational component to help you understand what goes on in the brain to cause tinnitus. Some counseling programs also will help you change the way you think about and react to your tinnitus. You might learn some things to do on your own to make the noise less noticeable, to help you relax during the day, or to fall asleep at night.
Tabletop Sound Generators
Used as an aid for relaxation or sleep. Placed near your bed, you can program a generator to play pleasant sounds such as waves, waterfalls, rain, or the sounds of a summer night. If your tinnitus is mild, this might be all you need to help you fall asleep.
Wearable Sound Generators
These are small electronic devices that fit in the ear and use a soft, pleasant sound to help mask the tinnitus. Some people want the masking sound to totally cover up their tinnitus, but most prefer a masking level that is just a bit louder than their tinnitus. The masking sound can be a soft “shhhhhhhhhhh,” random tones, or music.
What’s Next in tinnitus treatment?
Widex Zen Tinnitus
Zen is available in all Widex Moment, Evoke, Beyond and Unique hearing and tinnitus devices at all price points.
ZEN tones are inspired by the relaxing effects of music. ZEN plays random, chime-like tones that can be used for relaxation and for making tinnitus less noticeable. With stress named as one of the most common factors involved with tinnitus, relaxation and stress reduction are vital elements in effective tinnitus management.
ZEN is available in all Widex EVOKETM, BEYONDTM, and UNIQUETM hearing and tinnitus devices at all price points.
For some people with tinnitus, counseling and the use of hearing and tinnitus devices with ZEN may be the key to reclaiming your life. The effect of using ZEN can be immediate, but for most, it will take some time. ABC Hearing will help you set realistic goals and can adjust the ZEN program if needed.
The ZEN program is for daily use. You can use it to avoid complete silence to reduce your focus on the tinnitus. It can also be used for meditation and relaxation purposes.
Widex researchers, designers, audiologists, and engineers have been committed to helping people suffering from tinnitus, all of whom have been affected by frequent or persistent hearing disruptions. We are proud of our unique approach, which provides millions of people with a promising option for tinnitus management.
Noise-Induced Hearing Loss
What is Noise-Induced Hearing Loss?
Every day, we experience sound in our environment. Normally, these sounds are at safe levels that don’t damage our hearing. But sounds can be harmful when they are too loud, even for a brief time. These sounds can damage sensitive structures in the inner ear and cause noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).
NIHL can be immediate, take a long time to be noticeable, temporary or permanent, and it can affect one ear or both ears. Even if you can’t tell that you are damaging your hearing, you could have trouble hearing in the future. Regardless of how it might affect you, noise-induced hearing loss is something you can prevent.
Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL)
What are the Signs of NIHL?
When you are exposed to loud noises you may slowly start to lose your hearing. Over time, sounds may become distorted or muffled, and you might find it difficult to understand other people when they talk or have to turn up the volume on the television. Extremely loud bursts of sound can rupture the eardrum or damage the bones in the middle ear.
Loud noise exposure can also cause tinnitus, a ringing, buzzing, or roaring in the ears or head. Tinnitus may subside over time, but can continue constantly or occasionally throughout a person’s life. Hearing loss and tinnitus can occur in one or both ears.
Get In Touch
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Kent Stark South
Professional Building
6231 Frank Ave. NW
North Canton, OH 44720
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