Have you ever thought you heard a sound, only to tell yourself, “I must be hearing things?” We all have, whether we’ve mistaken one sound for another or simply talked ourselves into having heard someone call our name. But there’s another kind of phantom sound that isn’t so easy to dismiss. It’s called “tinnitus”—a ringing, hissing or other persistent noise that stays with you even though there’s no sound source nearby.
Tinnitus occurs when the hair cells of the inner ear, which create electrical impulses for the brain, become damaged or begin to die off. The brain, in turn, starts receiving faulty information and registers sound that isn’t really there. If you’re experiencing that, we strongly urge you to have a complete, professional hearing evaluation.
Where does tinnitus come from?
If you’ve ever left a sporting event and felt you could still hear the roar of the crowd, even while driving home, you’ve experienced a temporary version of tinnitus. In broad terms, an event like that can overwhelm your hearing mechanisms for the short term, causing you to experience tinnitus for a few hours or so.
People exposed to exceptionally loud noises for prolonged periods of time can find their hearing overwhelmed to the point where the pressure of all that noise causes permanent damage to the inner ear. The resulting tinnitus noise, in those cases, never goes away.
Among those at risk for tinnitus are people who work around heavy machinery in factories or on job sites, those who work around loud motors, even hobbyists who spend a lot of time operating power tools and motorsports vehicles. Just running a lawn mower constantly, without hearing protection, can put you at risk for tinnitus. Eighty-five decibels is the level at which noise become dangerous, and that’s a surprisingly easy threshold to reach
What can be done about tinnitus?
Tinnitus can’t be cured, since it really isn’t a condition. It’s a symptom. If it can be traced to something treatable (e.g., high blood pressure has been connected to tinnitus) the phantom sounds may go away. But in most cases, the cause is noise-exposure, inner-ear trauma or simple wear-and-tear that has resulted in age-related hearing loss.
Rather than eliminating tinnitus, the most common course of action is to manage it, through lifestyle changes such as avoiding loud noises, wearing appropriate ear protection when noise can’t be avoided and making use of technology that can relieve one’s tinnitus
Hearing aids have been found to help a great deal with tinnitus by simply amplifying ambient sound and crowding out the tinnitus. There are also hearing aids with built-in sound-masking technology that produces specially-programmed sounds that help tinnitus fade into the background. Technology, combined with tinnitus counseling and stress management (stress has been found to exacerbate tinnitus) is a very effective way to deal with tinnitus.
It all starts with a professional hearing assessment. Please, contact us about an appointment.
