What is tinnitus?
What is tinnitus? Everything you need to know about tinnitus in your ears. Do you hear a sound that no one else hears, such as ringing, hissing, beeping or a pulsating sound? If the answer is yes, then you may have experienced tinnitus.
Tinnitus is a condition where you hear sounds that have no external explanation. Tinnitus can be constant or come and go, and can vary in intensity. Tinnitus can affect your quality of life, your sleep, your concentration and your mood.
What causes tinnitus?
Tinnitus can have many different causes, but the most common is hearing damage. When you are exposed to loud sounds, for example at concerts, in traffic or at work, you can damage the tiny hair cells in the inner ear that convert sound waves into nerve signals. When these hair cells become damaged or die, they can send incorrect signals to the brain, which interprets them as sound.
Other possible causes of tinnitus are:
- Age-related hearing loss: As you get older, your hearing may deteriorate and you may find it harder to hear certain frequencies. This can lead to the brain trying to compensate for the lost information by creating its own sounds.
- Ear infections: When you get an infection in the ear, it can lead to inflammation, fluid accumulation and pressure changes in the ear. This can interfere with sound transmission and cause tinnitus.
- Wax plugs: When you have too much wax in your ear, it can block the ear canal and prevent sound from reaching the inner ear. This can also cause tinnitus.
- Stress: When you are stressed, you can tense the muscles in your neck and jaw, which can affect blood flow and nerve function in the ear. This can also cause tinnitus.
- High blood pressure: When you have high blood pressure, it can cause the blood vessels in the ear to become narrower and stiffer. This may cause you to hear your own blood flow as a pulsating or rhythmic sound.
- Medicines: Some medicines can have side effects that affect hearing and cause tinnitus. For example, some antibiotics, pain relievers, antidepressants or cancer drugs can have this effect.
- Other diseases: Certain diseases affecting the ear or the nervous system can also cause tinnitus. For example, Meniere's disease, acoustic neuroma, otosclerosis, eustachian tube dysfunction or temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome may be linked to tinnitus.
Sometimes no clear cause for tinnitus can be found. This is called idiopathic tinnitus and is caused by the brain becoming hypersensitive to sound and interpreting normal signals as sound.
How common is tinnitus?
Tinnitus is a very common condition that affects around 15 percent of adults in Sweden. Tinnitus is more common among older people, men and people who work in noisy environments. Tinnitus is also more common among people who have other hearing problems, such as hearing loss or hyperacusis (extreme hypersensitivity to sound).
We want to change and improve!
We at Duearity want to improve the quality of life for people who suffer from tinnitus and give them hope and opportunities to enjoy life. That is why we have created a medical device that can be used at any time of the day, as tinnitus can vary greatly from person to person when it applies to treatment and relief times.
You can read more about the treatment by clicking here: Treatment with Tinearity G1
Please get in touch if you want to know more about how we at Duearity treat tinnitus: info@duearity.com
