Tinnitus Symptoms And Possible Causes

Noise that seems to be coming from inside your head is called tinnitus. Tinnitus symptoms can be temporary or permanent and can be rooted in a wide range causes. The most common causes of tinnitus are loss of hearing, drugs or medication, or prolonged or acute exposure to loud noises. Tinnitus is not a disease. Rather, it is a symptom of an underlying condition. The majority of Americans will experience tinnitus many times over the course of their lives.

Hearing Loss: Damage to the cochlea caused by aging, trauma or certain drugs can result in tinnitus symptoms. The theory for why this happens is based on how the brain handles the eye’s blind spot. With the eye, the brain fills in the blind spot in our vision field to make it the same as the surrounding color field. It is theorized cochlea damage produces gaps in normal signaling which the brain fills in, creating tinnitus symptoms.

The most frequently reported tinnitus symptom is a ringing in the ears. This is usually caused by loud noise, either over a prolonged period of time (e.g., factory workplace), a short period of time (e.g., rock concert) or instantaneously (e.g., explosion). If you have walked out of action movie where the theatre had the volume cranked and normal sounds seemed muffled and there was a ringing sound, you have experienced acute tinnitus. This symptom is an indication you should change or avoid such environments, as prolonged exposure will result in permanent hearing loss.

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.

Misalignments of the jaw and muscle spasms in the ear or throat haves been cited as causes of the tinnitus symptom of clicking. Ear sounds that follow the pulse of the individual’s heart are called “pulsatile tinnitus” and are caused by blood flow in the blood vessels of the middle or inner ear. Pulsatile tinnitus can be a symptom of thyroid problems. Other conditions associated with pulsatile tinnitus are pregnancy and high blood pressure.

Tinnitus symptoms can also be caused by tumors of cysts, although rare. A tumor that presses on the blood vessels of the ear will cause pulsatile tinnitus. Tumors pressing on the nerve that carries the signals from the ear to the brain’s acoustic processing center creates a condition known as acoustic neuroma. Unlike common tinnitus, this condition occurs in only one ear. For this reason single ear tinnitus should be investigated immediately.