Tinnitus can develop gradually or come out of nowhere. The causes of tinnitus are varied and difficult to pinpoint. However, in the vast majority of cases, tinnitus is not related to any serious physical condition. Millions of people have a ringing in their ears, a condition called tinnitus, often with no discernible cause.
Tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, can be caused by many things. It's a symptom of another health problem. For some people, tinnitus is a transient condition. Your brain hallucinates sounds for a while, but then disappears before returning.
Tinnitus, therefore, is prone to outbreaks. Sometimes it's worse, and sometimes it's better. Even a short, very loud noise can cause tinnitus, but this usually goes away quite quickly. If loud noises last longer, perhaps because you are at a concert, your symptoms may last longer and if you regularly expose yourself to loud noises, perhaps at work, your symptoms may even become permanent.
Glenn Schweitzer is an entrepreneur, blogger and author of Rewiring Tinnitus and Mind over Meniere's. It's not uncommon, for example, to experience tinnitus-like symptoms at the end of a loud rock concert. Most patients think of a tinnitus spike as an increase in volume or intensity, but it can also be a change in pitch, tone, or sound that makes it more difficult to ignore. Tinnitus along with problems walking, speaking, or maintaining balance can be a sign that you have a neurological condition.
If you experience a severe peak of tinnitus and your suffering is 10 out of 10, there is very little chance that that number will drop to zero. As long as there is no sign of something more serious, such as a brain tumor or vascular problems that can arise with pulsatile tinnitus, it is not entirely necessary to find out the source of the sound in order to treat it. The first thing to understand is that if your tinnitus increases, you haven't done anything wrong, and you haven't erased any progress you've made if you've been working to get used to it. Manufacturers also make hearing aids with special technology designed to counteract tinnitus symptoms.
If tinnitus is due to natural hearing loss that is common with aging, it can also be permanent. When this happens, it is possible to have a relapse of tinnitus in which habituation is lost, and the vicious cycle begins to increase again. If you think you have hearing loss (which is often associated with tinnitus), you should have a hearing check. There will be a number of factors that determine how long your tinnitus will stay, including the root cause of tinnitus and your overall hearing health.
But beyond the big three, each case of tinnitus is unique to such an extent that a specific trigger for one person (whether dietary, environmental, or otherwise) could be something that improves tinnitus in another person. Keep in mind that not all hearing clinics treat tinnitus, so you may need to browse through several clinic pages to find the right provider. The good news is that spikes aren't a sign that you've undone any progress you've made in learning to live with tinnitus. According to one measure, 50 million Americans or 25 percent of the population experienced tinnitus in the past year, while 16 million, or 8 percent, experienced it “frequently.
Leave Message