Symptoms and Best Treatment Options for Tinnitus

TConstant ringing, buzzing, or a humming sound in your ears can be disturbing, devastating, frustrating, and affect your everyday life. This medical condition is known as Tinnitus, in which you hear continuous noises that aren’t caused by any external sound, or typically not audible to other people. Tinnitus is a common problem and affects 15-20 percent of people. Let’s get into the detailed symptoms and find the best treatment options available.

Symptoms of Tinnitus

The condition is often described as a continuous ringing in the ear without any external source. The noise can vary in pitch, and you may experience it in one or both ears. However, there can be other types of noises such as constant:

Buzzing
Whistling
Hissing
Clicking
Humming
Noise that goes together with pain or if there is some drainage from the ear
Noise accompanied by dizziness
Associated symptoms such as hearing loss, headache, temporomandibular joint pain (TMJ)

When should you see a doctor?

For some, Tinnitus is not a problem, for some others, it can upset their day-to-day living. If you are of the latter group and experiencing the following problems, call the doctor without delay.

You have developed this condition soon after a cold or upper respiratory infection and do not recover within a week.

You are experiencing dizziness and hearing loss due to tinnitus.

You are experiencing depression or anxiety due to tinnitus.

What Treatments of Tinnitus Can You expect?

If you are experiencing difficulty coping with your symptoms, you should consult an ENT specialist. The doctor will suggest various medical and non-medical treatments to help reduce your symptoms. Some of them are summarized as follows:

In case of excessive earwax, the doctor will clean out the ears using a small instrument called a curette.

For those experiencing tinnitus due to infection, the doctor can prescribe hydrocortisone ear drops and antibiotics.

In rare cases of cyst, tumour and otosclerosis (calcification of soft tissue into bone-like material), surgery might be needed.

Tinnitus due to temporomandibular disorder will require the involvement of a dental specialist, as muscles and jaw nerves are close to the nerves in the ear.

Hearing aids might help eradicate hearing loss which could be causing tinnitus.

Masking devices resembling hearing aids are used to play pleasant sounds and muffle the internal noise produced by tinnitus. A new device tinnitus instrument is a combination of a masker and hearing aid.

Using Tinnitus Retraining Therapy, you can train your brain to filter out the signal on a subconscious level to prevent it from reaching the conscious perception. This kind of treatment has been highly successful for many people.

Cognitive Therapy is a kind of counselling that helps modify the reaction of a person towards tinnitus. It can be combined with masking for better results.

Acoustic therapy can make the ringing, buzzing or humming noise less noticeable.

Special customized devices can play sounds at different frequencies to help you cope with noises that other people aren’t sensitive to.

Bimodal therapy is another brain training technique that makes it think differently about sound using external devices and smartphone apps to stimulate two senses; touch and sound.

Stress can be devastating for patients with tinnitus. Exercises and relaxation techniques such as biofeedback, which help you gain greater awareness about your body and its functions, can help reduce tinnitus.

Cochlear implants can help treat hearing loss due to tinnitus. In this method, electrical signals are sent from the ear to the brain. Do note, that this surgery is not meant only for tinnitus, but mainly for hearing problems.

Living with tinnitus can be damaging and affect your ability to work, socialize and navigate properly with family. If you or your loved ones are suffering from tinnitus, do not hesitate to ask help from an ear, nose and throat specialist for scientific-based treatment unique to your needs.

CRH ENT, MRI & Diagnostics brings to Delhi NCR a unique concept of a dedicated single speciality ENT centre and the complete range of diagnostic services under one roof.

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