What is Tinnitus?

Tinnitus is a sensation of hearing a sound when there is no external sound source. There two main types of tinnitus subjective tinnitus and objective tinnitus. Subjective tinnitus is tinnitus only you can hear and objective tinnitus is a tinnitus that can be heard by another individual.

Symptoms of tinnitus

The symptoms often described as ringing, hissing, buzzing, clicking, whistling noise, pulsing, whooshing or humming. It can be intermittent or continous and can occur in one ear or both ears or in the head.

Causes of tinnitus

There are different causes to tinnitus.

• Research suggest there is high correlation between tinnitus and hearing loss
• Long term exposure to loud noises or music
• Certain medications
• Stress and Anxiety
• Ear infections
• Build-up of ear wax
• Glue ear (common in children)
• Ménière’s Disease
• Head injuries or neck injuries

Tinnitus treatment

• Hearing aids
  Many individuals who have tinnitus also have hearing loss. Hearing aids should help with communications and also provide relief from tinnitus by amplifying low level background sounds. Most digital hearing aids have a program for tinnitus which can be activated by your audiologist.
• Maskers
  Produce sound to mask the tinnitus.
• Tinnitus instrument
  This is a combination of hearing aids and maskers .
• Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT)
  TRT focus on reducing the perception or awareness of tinnitus by using a combination of sound therapy and counselling.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
  CBT is a psychological approach that can help individuals to better manage their tinnitus.
• Relaxation techniques
  Stress can make your tinnitus worse, relaxing more helps reduce your tinnitus.

More information about tinnitus can be found here: