A Guide to Tinnitus

Tinnitus is a condition that is often described as buzzing, hissing or ringing in the ear. It’s not something that sufferers of tinnitus enjoy feeling, and it’s something that can be a symptom of almost every hearing issue out there. Your tinnitus can be either temporary or permanent, and it’s an appointment with a hearing care professional that can determine how bad it is and what the next steps are.

Temporary tinnitus can occur from exposure to loud noise. If you are a fan of concerts or mowing the law and you do both on a regular basis, you can expect to deal with a ringing in the ears for a little time after. If you start to notice that incessant buzzing in your ears, then you need to seek out the help of an ear, nose and throat specialist along with a hearing specialist.

Tinnitus and hearing loss

If you are experiencing tinnitus chronically, there is a very high chance that you have a degree of hearing loss. Don’t be mistaken; tinnitus doesn’t cause hearing loss. Whatever the cause is of the loss of hearing is the reason for the tinnitus being present in the first place. Sometimes, it’s due to something as simple as age. Tinnitus shouldn’t interfere with your ability to hear, but it doesn’t make it any less a total pain to cope with. It can interrupt your concentration and affect how well you can pay attention to something.

Frequency of tinnitus

Around 50 million Americans currently experience tinnitus, and around a quarter of those people notice it interferes with their life. It’s not normally bothersome for most people, but it doesn’t mean that anyone wants to have to live with it.

Treatments and coping with tinnitus

Unfortunately, there is not currently a cure for tinnitus. It’s a condition that can be managed instead of being cured, but the goal of management of tinnitus isn’t to mask the noise, it’s to learn to push it to the back of your mind. If you learn to pay less attention to our tinnitus, it’s going to bother you much less than it does right now. Once you progress to a point that tinnitus doesn’t have a negative effect on your life, you can manage daily activities far better and cope better with the things that you have to do.

Things to avoid

When you have tinnitus, you need to put yourself in positions where it can be lessened rather than exacerbated. Here are some of those situations:

1. When there are loud or harmful sounds, such as power tools and music concerts, wear ear defenders. Earplugs are a good alternative.
2. Excessively using drugs, alcohol or caffeine can affect the tinnitus, so keep it to a minimum.
3. Unfortunately, there is no herbal remedy that can make a difference, so don’t be sucked in by gimmicks.

Tinnitus isn’t an easy condition to live with, but it can be managed well with the help of a hearing professional.