Constant tinnitus: causes, what to do, how to treat tinnitus

Tinnitus, or scientifically tinnitus, is not a real sound, but an illusion of sound that occurs in the nerve circuits of the brain. It can be heard as squeaking, ringing, hissing, buzzing, clicking, etc. The volume of tinnitus can range from barely noticeable to severe, interfering with a person's ability to carry out their normal activities.

About 15% of the world's population suffers from tinnitus. If a squeak or hiss appears and disappears within a few minutes or hours, this is not a cause for concern. But if tinnitus becomes constant, interferes with work during the day, and prevents you from sleeping at night, then it’s time to make an appointment with a specialist. This may be a symptom of developing hearing or nervous system problems.

Causes of tinnitus

The main cause of persistent tinnitus is hearing impairment. 80% of patients who turn to a neurologist or ENT specialist with a noise complaint already have varying degrees of hearing impairment.
A concussion can damage the inner ear, causing tinnitus.
Sulfur plug. When a large amount of wax accumulates in the ear, hearing deterioration occurs, but this problem can be solved in a few minutes in the ENT doctor’s office.
Problems with the heart and blood vessels can cause pulsating tinnitus, which is often accompanied by dizziness and weakness.
Tinnitus is a side effect of certain medications - for example, NSAIDs, diuretics, aminoglycoside antibiotics. If tinnitus occurs in response to medication, discuss this with your doctor.
Age-related hearing loss can also cause tinnitus. The main risk group is people who have been exposed to strong noise throughout their lives - working in noisy industries, in the subway, at concerts and clubs, working with aircraft engines, etc.
Young people who often attend concerts and listen to music at high volumes are also at risk.
Chronic and severe diseases - brain tumors, damage to cranial nerves, diabetes, hepatitis, hypothyroidism, hereditary anomalies.

Causes of noise: ear diseases

Tinnitus can be caused by diseases of the hearing organ, which are also accompanied by pain in the ear and a feeling of stuffiness. Similar diagnoses include:

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Otitis is an inflammatory process of the hearing organ. Usually otitis media leads to this condition. It is accompanied by severe ear pain and a feeling of stuffiness. With delayed treatment, the disease turns into a purulent form. With purulent inflammation, purulent masses accumulate in the tympanic cavity, causing a feeling of fullness. As soon as there is not enough space for the pus, it breaks through the eardrum and pours out. After this, congestion and pain go away.
Labyrinthitis is an inflammation that affects the internal part of the hearing organ. With labyrinthitis, the patient also complains of dizziness, hearing loss, impaired coordination and balance.
Eustachitis is inflammation of the Eustachian (auditory) tube. The infection most often enters it from the nasopharynx due to improper treatment of rhinitis, pharyngitis, sinusitis, etc. With this diagnosis, in addition to tinnitus, there is a sensation of fluid transfusion in the ear cavity, a feeling of stuffiness and hearing impairment.
Mastoiditis is an inflammation of the mastoid process of the temporal bone, which usually acts as a complication of otitis media. Mastoiditis is characterized by severe ear pain radiating to the back of the head, fever, decreased hearing, ringing in the ears, attacks of nausea and vomiting.
Diseases of the auditory nerve - such pathologies include sensorineural, occupational and senile hearing loss. When hearing loss occurs, the auditory receptors are affected, which causes progressive hearing loss.
Earwax is a common cause of tinnitus and a feeling of stuffiness. Impactions are accumulations of wax that block the outer ear canal and cause hearing problems.
Ear tumors can also cause noise, pain, dizziness and other unpleasant symptoms.
Mechanical damage to the hearing organ - problems with the ears can be caused by bruises, head injuries, barotrauma, etc.
A foreign object getting into the ear canal—parents of young children often turn to an otolaryngologist with a similar problem. While playing, children often stick small toy parts, beads, etc. into their ears.
Meniere's disease is a non-inflammatory disease of the internal organ of hearing, occurring with attacks of dizziness, ringing and progressive hearing loss.

When the first alarming signs appear: pain and ringing in the ear, congestion, dizziness, the first thing you should do is contact an otolaryngologist. It is possible that one of the pathologies of the hearing aid has developed, which requires immediate, competent therapy.

Friends! Timely and correct treatment will ensure you a speedy recovery!

Symptoms of Tinnitus

The main symptom of tinnitus is tinnitus of any type - whistling, ringing, rustling, buzzing, clicking, crackling, squeaking.

If the noise is accompanied by a sharp headache or severe dizziness, call an ambulance immediately. This may be a symptom of a cerebrovascular accident or hemorrhage.

If the noise is accompanied by pain in the ear, purulent discharge, or partial hearing loss, consult an ENT doctor. Most often these are symptoms of ear infections.

Rehabilitation and prevention of tinnitus

Rehabilitation for tinnitus involves limiting your stay in places with high noise levels. However, silence also aggravates the disease: during the consultation, the doctor will tell you how to organize your day to avoid extremes. He will also prescribe personal ear protection and show you how to use it. If you are prescribed a hearing aid for treatment, you will have a fitting session and periodic maintenance. In this case, the rehabilitation period will increase, since you will have to learn to hear and understand words in the device.

As for preventing tinnitus, it is simple: use earplugs to protect your ears if you work in a factory or other noisy place. Listen to loud music on headphones less or avoid them altogether.

By the way, many celebrities suffer from tinnitus. Read what they think about this in the article “Little Secrets of Big Stars: 10 Hearing-Impaired Celebrities – Part 1.” We wish you good health!

Treatment

Treatment is prescribed by an otolaryngologist and a neurologist. In some cases, the help of a cardiologist and endocrinologist is required. Prescriptions depend entirely on what disease was identified during diagnosis.

What treatment may include:

Drugs for the treatment of the underlying disease - antibiotics, antipsychotics, hormonal drugs;
B vitamins;
Physiotherapy and mechanotherapy;
Psychotherapy in combination with meditation and breathing exercises;
Noise maskers - for example, recording the noise of a forest or sea;
If necessary, surgical intervention - removal of the tumor, impact on the sympathetic nerve nodes, surgery to improve hearing.

In the medical department you can get advice from doctors: a neurologist, an otolaryngologist, a psychotherapist and a surgeon. Make an appointment right now so as not to waste time and get qualified medical care.

With us you can get tested and undergo the necessary procedures during the treatment of tinnitus and related diseases.

Diagnostics

At the initial consultation, the ENT doctor questions the patient for complaints, collects a detailed history and performs an otoscopy or endoscopic examination. An informative study of the degree of hearing impairment is audiometry. In addition, a tympanometric study of the functions of the middle part of the hearing organ (tympanic membrane and auditory ossicles) can be carried out. If there is a suspicion of a disease of the labyrinth (internal part of the hearing organ), special tests are performed to identify vestibular abnormalities. Sometimes an X-ray, CT scan or MRI may be needed.

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At the same time, laboratory blood tests and examination of discharge from the ear cavity, if any, are prescribed to determine the causative agent of the disease and sensitivity to antibiotics.

To make a diagnosis, as a rule, a routine examination or questioning of the patient’s complaints is not enough; it is necessary to conduct a set of studies to establish the correct cause of the unpleasant condition.

Consequences of lack of treatment

Ignoring a symptom such as tinnitus can ultimately lead to partial or complete hearing loss. If the cause of tinnitus is a tumor, then the worst result of lack of treatment can be death. Tinnitus is most often a symptom whose causes should be investigated by a doctor.

Don't delay visiting a specialist. Pay attention to symptoms and get diagnosed promptly. After 40 years, doctors recommend checking the condition of the hearing organs annually in order not to miss the onset of age-related changes and to prevent hearing loss.

Be healthy!

What is tinnitus like?

In medicine, such a condition as noise in the ear has its own (medical) name - tinnitus. The noise can occur in the right or left ear, or in both at once.

The human ear is an organ with a complex structure. In the inner part of the ear there are special hair cells that convert external sound vibrations into nerve impulses so that our brain can perceive them correctly. If some pathological factors adversely affect hair cells, they begin to move in a chaotic manner - and the brain perceives this chaotic movement as noise.

What else is important to know about tinnitus? That it is a symptom and not a separate disease. Accordingly, treating noise exclusively will not give a positive effect - the person will only waste precious time.

It is necessary to determine the underlying disease that caused the pain and noise and treat it.

It is customary to distinguish two types of noise: subjective and objective. With subjective noise, only the person hears the sounds. At the same time, there are no external sounds. Objective noise is actually present sounds that the doctor also hears during examination.

Noise can manifest itself in different ways. Patients describe their sensations as if they were in the ear:

rings;
squeaks;
buzzes;
whistles;
gurgles;
clicks.

The sooner the immediate cause of tinnitus, which is accompanied by pain and ear congestion, is determined, the sooner the correct treatment will be selected.

Meniere's syndrome

The disease is characterized by problems with the inner ear, which is responsible for balance. The inner ear contains ear stones and fluid. When you move your head, they affect nerve fibers.

Causes of tinnitus and hearing loss

When the inner ear is injured or inflamed, the amount of fluid in it increases. This leads to increased pressure on the nerve fibers. This disease needs treatment. One effective treatment method is a set of exercises called the Eple maneuver.

Headaches, constant ringing in the ears and head.

Elena

1202 views

April 24, 2020

Hello dear doctors, please prescribe a course of treatment for me.
Gender female, 44 years old, weight 79 kg, height 160 cm. Blood pressure is usually in the range from 93/67/64 to 116/79/81, in the morning I take Lthyroxine 50 mcg (as prescribed by the endocrinologist), Dibazol 0.02 g ¼ tablet, as an immunostimulant (I’ve been taking it since the end of March, no one prescribed it). I have been constantly dripping Xylene into my nose for many years because I have a deviated septum and often experience a lack of oxygen. Complaints: In the morning I wake up with a headache and neck pain, sometimes to the point of nausea. (I have three different pillows, including an orthopedic one. During the night I have time to sleep on all of them). The pain is mainly localized on the left, left ear, left side of the head, teeth on the left. Noise and ringing in the ears and throughout the head all day long, a feeling of pressure in the ears, a heavy head. I began to confuse the letters when writing and rearranged them. Hearing has decreased. The other day my head and neck hurt so much that I took Fezam 400/25 mg – 1 pc. and Mexidol 125 mg - 1 pc. together (neurologists previously prescribed them to me, so they stayed in the medicine cabinet). Then I walked around all day, lethargic and sleepy, with zero productivity. Before this, I relieved pain with Neurodiclovit capsules (this is diclofenac + vitamins) and they help well, but they cannot be used constantly. I’ve been taking this for a week now: Mexidol 125 mg morning and evening. 1 pc., for lunch Asparkam 1 pc. The ringing and heaviness do not go away, but at least there are no more severe headaches. Every day I do physical therapy, doing exercises for the neck and spine in general. Already diagnosed and performed examinations: 1. MRI of the cervical spine 2021. – conclusion: MRI picture of degenerative-dystrophic changes in the cervical spine (osteochondrosis), median C5-6 disc herniation, circular protrusion of C6-7. 2. Duplex scanning of extracranial arteries of the head and neck 2021. – conclusion: Asymmetry of blood flow through the vertebral arteries with a difference of 37% (clinically significant) Vertebrogenic effect on the vertebral arteries. 3. Duplex scanning of extracranial arteries of the upper extremities 2021 – conclusion: Reduced blood flow velocity and spectral characteristics in the distal arteries of the arms on both sides. 4. Audiogramma 2021 — Sensorineural hearing loss of grade 1. 5. MRI of the brain July 18, 2019 – conclusion: MRI picture of a low location of the cerebellar tonsils. 6. Transcranial Dopplerography of cerebral vessels 07/26/2019 – conclusion: According to ultrasonography, extra- and intracranial arteries are without signs of stenosis and AVM. Extracranial: Blood flow through the CCA, ICA, ECA, RCA, VA is of the main type, symmetrical, blood flow velocity is within normal limits. Intracranial: The circle of Willis is open in the posterior regions on the right. The blood flow through the main intracranial arteries is symmetrical, the blood flow velocity is within normal values. The reactivity of the resistive arteries is preserved. A pronounced disturbance of the venous outflow is a high blood flow rate in the straight sinus, the vertebral veins are located in a horizontal position. Please prescribe a course of treatment. It is very desirable without IV (there is simply no one to do them during a pandemic). I can inject myself IM myself if I have to. Thank you for your work, very grateful. Chronic diseases:
Hypothyroidism, neck herniation of C5-6 disc, circular protrusion of C6-7.

The question is closed

noise in ears

osteochondrosis

pain in the neck

neck hernia

How does ringing in the ear occur?

It does not arise by itself. This is just a symptom that accompanies the underlying disease. Moreover, there are many more reasons for ringing in the ears than might seem at first glance. And the real reason is not always related to the disease.

Let's figure out how our ear functions. The sound wave captured by the auricle is transmitted to the middle part of the ear, where it vibrates the eardrum. These vibrations are transmitted through the auditory ossicles to the internal part of the hearing organ - the cochlea. The snail is filled with fluid. There are also special hair cells in the inner ear. Fluctuations in the fluid set these same cells in motion. And already at the last stage, hair cells convert sound vibrations into nerve impulses, which go directly to the brain. This is what the algorithm for sound perception looks like in a healthy person. A malfunction of the hearing organ can occur at every stage of sound transmission, which will lead to hearing impairment and the sensation of ringing.