Tinnitus is the perception of a sound that doesn’t exist in the environment. Tinnitus is a symptom, not a disease. Tinnitus may be temporary and mild or can be long-lasting, cause distress and decrease your quality of life. If you are experiencing tinnitus, Hear Here Audiology can help. Find a treatment plan that breaks the tinnitus cycle and restores your quality of life.
Tinnitus causes
Tinnitus is a symptom of an underlying disease. For example, tinnitus can be caused by high blood pressure. Treating high blood pressure will resolve the tinnitus.
On the other hand, certain drugs such as aspirin or cancer treatment drugs can cause tinnitus. The symptoms may be temporary, and when the drug is stopped, the tinnitus clears. Ototoxic drugs cause permanent hearing loss, and hearing loss is the most common cause of tinnitus.
In addition, tinnitus can be caused by loud noises, head injuries, excess earwax, ear or sinus infections, TMJ or changes to the bone structure in the ear or damage to hair cells in the cochlea.
Minimizing tinnitus
There are several steps you can do to reduce your tinnitus symptoms. These reduce the tinnitus by addressing possible underlying conditions. If you start experiencing tinnitus you may try:
- Reducing your exposure to loud noise
- Avoiding total silence
- Decreasing your salt intake
- Monitoring your blood pressure
- Avoiding caffeine and nicotine
- Regular exercise
- Reducing fatigue and managing stress
Tinnitus treatments
There are several treatments to minimize or eliminate tinnitus. The tinnitus treatment recommended by Hear Here Audiology may include:
Psychological intervention and habituation reduce the stress, distress and distraction associated with tinnitus and, as a result, reduces the impact of tinnitus.
Music therapy soothes the limbic system and stimulates the auditory cortex. The therapy is tuned to exclude the pitch of the individual tinnitus sound.
Sound therapy uses masking noises to eliminate the sound of the tinnitus. These devices can be worn or sit on a desktop. Masking the tinnitus reduces the distress and, as a result, reduces the tinnitus.
Tinnitus retraining therapy trains the brain to perceive tinnitus in a different way, so it fades into the background.
Hearing aids amplify noise and restore auditory input levels to the brain. This is proven to reduce or eliminate tinnitus caused by hearing loss.