Let’s set the scene: You’re lying in bed trying to sleep after a long stressful day. You feel yourself starting to drift off to sleep. Then as you’re lying there in the quiet of the night, you begin to notice the sound of buzzing in your ears. Your phone, TV, and radio are all switched off so you know it’s nothing inside your room. Unfortunately, this sound is inside your ears and it won’t go away.
If this scenario sounds familiar, then odds are that you’re one of the 50 million people that are afflicted by tinnitus. This problem causes you to hear buzzing, whooshing, and ringing sounds, among others, in your ears. The majority of people who have tinnitus consider it a mere annoyance; it comes and goes but doesn’t really affect their daily lives. But this is not the case with everybody who is suffering from tinnitus. For some, it can cause them to lose sleep, to disengage socially, and to have a hard time working.
What’s The Main Cause of Tinnitus?
Tinnitus is still a bit of a mystery, but specialists have narrowed down a few triggers for this problem. It’s most prevalent in people who have damaged hearing, as well as people who have heart problems. It’s believed that tinnitus happens due to reduced blood flow around the ears, which makes the heart pump blood harder so that it can get where it needs to go. People who have iron-deficiency anemia frequently suffer from tinnitus symptoms because their blood cells do not carry enough oxygen throughout their body, which, again, makes the heart work extra hard to get oxygen and other nutrients where they need to go.
Tinnitus also happens as a symptom of other conditions, such as Meniere’s disease, ear infections, and ear canal blockages. Situations where tinnitus becomes more pronounced happen with all of these condition because they all impact the hearing. In other cases, there may not be an easily discernible cause of tinnitus, which can make treatment difficult, but not impossible.
What Treatments Are Available For Tinnitus?
There are a few treatments available to help stop the ringing in your ears, all dependent on the root cause of your tinnitus. One relevant thing to take note of, however, is that there is currently no known cure for tinnitus. Despite this fact, there’s still an excellent possibility that your tinnitus will improve or even vanish altogether because of these treatments.
Studies have revealed that hearing aids help mask tinnitus in people who suffer from hearing loss.
If covering up the noise doesn’t help, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has been confirmed to help people deal with the buzzing in their ears that doesn’t disappear with other treatments. This mental health style of therapy can help individuals who are afflicted by tinnitus to function more normally on a day to day basis by helping them change their negative thinking into a more positive mindset.