It’s very common for people to experience tinnitus. Tinnitus can become so extreme that it becomes a burden to live with for around 20 million people around the world. This doesn’t even count the more common types of tinnitus, which for most individuals can come and go without causing a major impact on their quality of life.
When you hear sounds in your ears that don’t have an external source and nobody else can hear them, that’s tinnitus. It might manifest as a persistent buzzing or ringing in the ears. Tinnitus is often linked to hearing loss, but that doesn’t mean that one condition will immediately result in the other.
In fact, there are a considerable variety of forms of tinnitus. Dealing with these varieties of tinnitus will require different approaches.
Tinnitus – exactly what is it?
So, what is tinnitus and where does it come from? Well, it’s significant to note that not all kinds of tinnitus are the same. Regardless of the specific cause, the symptoms will be similar. But identifying the cause can be crucial to finding the best treatment approach.
In some cases, concussions or other traumatic brain injuries or neurological issues can be the cause. In other instances, tinnitus may be caused by age-related hearing loss. Here are a few of the most prevalent types of tinnitus:
- Neurological tinnitus: Issues with the ear are not always the cause of tinnitus. Sometimes, the underlying cause lies within the brain. If your baseline neurological functions are damaged by injury it can trigger neurological tinnitus. In other words, something has gone wrong with the normal ways that your brain and ear interact. As a result, a phantom sound is heard which isn’t actually there. Neurological tinnitus can be due to concussion, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and more. As the brain heals, neurological tinnitus will, in some instances, clear up on its own. For others, it may be permanent.
- Subjective tinnitus: With subjective tinnitus, the sound you’re hearing is phantom and has no external source and no one else can hear it. Lots of other types of tinnitus also fall into this category. For instance, neurological tinnitus can also be subjective tinnitus. There are a large number of sounds that can manifest with subjective tinnitus, including buzzing, ringing, screeching, roaring, thumping, and many others.
- Objective tinnitus: When the sound you’re hearing in your ears is a real, verifiable sound, it’s known as objective tinnitus. Objective tinnitus does occur, though it’s not as common as subjective types. Most commonly, this means you’re dealing with something called pulsatile tinnitus, which occurs when you’re hearing your pulse or circulatory system. Objective tinnitus causes those sounds to be abnormally loud.
- Somatic tinnitus: For many people, the sound they hear with tinnitus is fairly constant. That’s true for both subjective and objective tinnitus. But, somatic tinnitus is different. This is tinnitus that gets worse with movement. Typically, somatic tinnitus is most sensitive to movement of the head or neck areas.
Often, individuals will have more than one type of tinnitus simultaneously. You might have subjective tinnitus and neurological tinnitus together, for example. In order for us to put together a treatment plan, we will first need to determine the underlying cause of your tinnitus.
Finding tinnitus support
If your tinnitus is here one minute and gone the next, you likely don’t have to do anything about it. But if your tinnitus sticks around or comes back frequently, it could have real and severe impacts on your everyday life. When that occurs, your best plan to get some relief is to contact us for a consultation.
We have a few different tinnitus management methods we may try depending on the underlying cause of your symptoms. Several treatments can make the sounds you’re hearing less evident. Other treatment solutions can mask the sound you’re hearing.
Tinnitus can’t usually be cured, but it can be successfully managed. We will work with you to formulate treatments that work for your symptoms. This will help you enjoy life again by moving your symptoms into the background where they can be more easily disregarded.