May 2009 Archives

How Can I Get Relief From My Tinnitus?Do you love listening to excessively loud music? “Ringing in the ears” is an exasperating condition that affects many rock concert enthusiasts. They now know too well the frustration of this condition called tinnitus. Did you know that ear splitting music, like that at most concerts; can cause permanent hearing loss? Is there any form of tinnitus relief available to ease the symptoms that plague so many due to their misspent youth standing a little too close to the speakers!

Unfortunately there is no known cure for those suffering from tinnitus. This means that you will have a permanent souvenir of all of those thunderous concerts. The good news though, is that there are several options for gaining tinnitus relief which will help alleviate some of the symptoms.

One of the methods employed for tinnitus relief is to leave an air conditioner running or a radio turned on. This is known as “White Noise” and the way it brings relief, is to mask the ringing sound with an entirely different noise. Now you’re probably wondering how that helps? Noise is noise; right? Not always. If it distracts your mind from the ringing sound, it works.

Retraining therapies work in a similar way to the White Noise method, and are designed to retrain your brain to switch off or ignore the noise, which is often easier said than done. Some people find that a hearing aid helps alleviate the noise some what. Any tinnitus relief is most welcome, even if it is only temporary!

A popular treatment for tinnitus relief is the use of herbs such as Ginko Biloba and other natural therapies. An Asian Alternative Medicine that is mostly used to treat cardio and lung disorders, but it is also believed to increase blood circulation and oxygen to the brain making is believed to be beneficial. Because this treatment does thin the blood, it is vital that extra care is exercised to ensure that it doesn’t cause other health problems.

Everyone knows that smoking and too much caffeine in the diet definitely do you a great deal of harm, so cutting down on coffee and quitting the cigarettes are another beneficial tinnitus relief strategy. Other lifestyle changes that you could implement regularly include a high fibre diet, getting outdoors more to exercise and even meditation can help alleviate some of the symptoms.

Make no mistake; prevention is much better than trying to alleviate the symptoms of tinnitus. Next time you go to a rock concert, stand at the back or wear earplugs! Or better still; the best type of tinnitus relief is to bid a final farewell to loud rock concerts once and for all!


Filed under Tinnitus Relief, Tinnitus Tips by on . Comment#

What Are The Symptoms Of Tinnitus?If you hear a noise that seems to be coming from inside your head, you are experiencing tinnitus. Tinnitus is a symptom, not a disease. According to the experts at the National Institute on Deafness, most people will experience tinnitus at some point in their lives. Tinnitus symptoms can be acute (temporary) or chronic (reoccurring or permanent) and can be rooted in a wide range causes, the two most common being hearing loss and loud noise and certain types of medication.

Loss of hearing from disease, infection, trauma or aging can also give rise to tinnitus symptoms. The reasons for this are not completely understood and may be related to the phantom limb syndrome. In amputees it is common for the brain – interpreting input from nerves that are still functioning but no longer terminate in the amputated foot or hand, to register the missing body part as still existing. It is theorized this phenomenon creates tinnitus symptoms from malfunctioning auditory nerves.

A ringing in the ears is the most frequently reported tinnitus symptom. This is commonly, but not always, caused by loud noise. Have you ever walked out of a rock concert and had sounds from the outside world sound muffled, accompanied by a ringing noise inside your head? That is acute tinnitus caused by loud noise. If you are frequently exposed to loud noise over a long period of time, the hearing loss and accompanying tinnitus can become permanent.

Medications that can cause tinnitus symptoms include common aspirin if overused; quinine, a naturally occurring drug commonly used to treat malaria; and the powerful antibiotic aminoglycoside.

Sounds other than ringing that are frequently reported by tinnitus sufferers include sounds like waves, crickets, wind and whistling as well as clicking and humming as if from an electronic device.

Clicking sounds heard in the inner ear can be auditory signals that reach the inner ear through skeletal conduction. This sound is usually found to be caused by a misaligned jaw bone, but can also be caused by spasms of the muscles of the ear or throat. Tinnitus symptoms that involve the whoosh of blood being pumped through the vessels of the ear are know as pulsatile (as in pulse) tinnitus. Common causes of pulsatile tinnitus symptoms are high blood pressure, anemia or an overactive thyroid.

On rare occasions, tinnitus symptoms are attributable to tumors or cysts in the middle or inner ears. A tumor that presses on the blood vessels of the ear can cause pulsatile tinnitus. Tumors on the nerve that carries the signals from the ear to the acoustic processing center of the brain cause acoustic neuroma. This condition occurs in only one ear, which distinguishes it from other types of tinnitus and should be examined by a doctor immediately.


Filed under Tinnitus Tips, tinnitus symptoms by on . Comment#