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August 22, 2007
That ringing in your ears can be caused by many things
Question: Is tinnitus -- or ringing in the ear -- a disease?
Answer: It's the most common ear symptom there is. It affects about 36 million people.
It's a symptom because it has a cause. Now the variety of things that can cause people to have noise in their ears is extensive. The most common is because the hearing nerve in the inner ear is not normal.
That can be due to age-related hearing loss or damage to the ears as a result of noise exposure. There's a host of other problems that can contribute to this -- ear infections, metabolic problems like high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, abnormalities of blood flow, medication, or certain kinds of inner ear tumors.
Q: Does this involve only ringing sounds?
A: The kind of noise that people have can vary from buzzing to crickets to hissing sounds or their heartbeat in their ear.
For some people, the symptom comes and goes. For others, it's there all the time but it's so low in intensity that they really only notice it when they're in a quiet room.
There are some people who have tinnitus that disturbs their sleep.
Ear noise is the ear equivalent of floaters in the eye.
Q: Can anything be done?
A: A lot of times people are told, you just have to live with this. That's not true. You have to determine what is the reason for the noise and that will determine what you can do about it.
Tinnitus is not a diagnosis; it's a symptom and you always look (for) the reason for the symptom.
For most people, it's not serious, but we're always concerned by a lack of symmetry, if someone has a hearing loss or buzzing in one ear and not the other. That's something that you don't lightly dismiss.
Q: If it's not a tumor, what can be done?
A: There's no perfect solution. But in my opinion, you can always help them do better. First, explain the underlying reason for the noise.
If it's a medication reason, you stop the medication. If it's due to noise, avoid exposure to loud noise.
If it's a blood pressure problem, you control the blood pressure.
If you've done all these things and you still have noise, avoid things that irritate the inner ear like smoking or caffeine.
If you have noise in your ear that's associated with hearing loss, consider hearing aids.
Other factors that contribute to noise are stress and fatigue. So many things have been tried to help tinnitus, including biofeedback, cognitive therapy, stress-reduction management, hypnosis, herbs like gingko.
Noise is the inner ear's way of saying, "Ouch."
Have a topic for Ask the Doctor? Contact Shari Rudavsky at (317) 444-6354 or via e-mail at shari.rudavsky@indystar.com.
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Posted by 4HL on August 22, 2007 8:12 AM
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