Let’s set the scene: You’re lying in bed trying to fall asleep after a long exhausting day. You feel yourself starting to drift off to sleep. Then you start to hear it: a buzzing sound in your ears. You know it’s nothing in your room because the radio, TV, and phone have all been turned off. No, this sound is coming from inside your ears and you don’t know how to make it stop.
If this scenario sounds familiar, then it’s likely that you’re one of the 50 million people that are afflicted by tinnitus. This problem causes you to hear buzzing, whooshing, and ringing sounds, among others, inside your ears. The majority of people suffering from tinnitus consider it a mere annoyance; it comes and goes but doesn’t really affect their daily lives. For other individuals, however, tinnitus can be debilitating and cause them to lose sleep and have difficulty engaging in work and recreational activities.
What’s The Primary Cause of Tinnitus?
Tinnitus remains somewhat of a mystery, but this condition has been narrowed down to a handful of causes. It appears commonly in individuals who have damaged hearing, as well as people who suffer from heart problems. Restricted blood flow around the ears is generally believed to be the main cause of tinnitus. This causes the heart to have to work harder to pump blood to where it’s needed. People who have iron-deficiency anemia commonly suffer from tinnitus symptoms because their blood cells do not carry enough oxygen throughout their body, which, once again, makes the heart work extra hard to get oxygen and other nutrients where they need to go.
Tinnitus also occurs as a symptom of other conditions, like Meniere’s disease, ear infections, and ear canal blockages. Situations where tinnitus becomes more pronounced happen with all of these condition because they all affect the hearing. Sometimes treatment can be challenging when the cause of tinnitus isn’t evident, but that doesn’t mean treatment is impossible.
Is There Any Cure For Tinnitus?
Depending on the underlying cause of your tinnitus, there might be several possible treatment choices. One important thing to take note of, however, is that there is presently no known cure for tinnitus. But these treatments will still present a good possibility for your tinnitus to improve or disappear altogether.
Studies have shown that hearing aids help cover up tinnitus in individuals who have hearing loss.
If covering up the noise doesn’t help, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to help people live with the buzzing in their ears that doesn’t disappear with other treatments. This mental health style of treatment can help people who have tinnitus to function more normally on a day to day basis by helping them transform their negative thoughts into a more positive mindset.