Sound that isn’t there
Everyone suffers from a constant buzzing and whistling sound in the ears after a loud concert. And if you put people in a room where there is total silence, more than 80 percent will experience tinnitus within minutes. Where does this sound come from that isn’t there?
To understand what tinnitus or tinnitus is, you must first understand how hearing works.
Operation gehear
Our pinna captures sound waves and conducts them to the ear canal, where they are amplified and begin to drum on the eardrum. These vibrations are transmitted via the ossicles to a membrane, after which the movement continues as a wave in the fluid of the inner ear.
There is the cochlea with 15,000 hair cells. They convert the vibrations into electrical signals, which they transmit to the auditory nerve. From there they end up at the brain cells that translate the electrical signals into sound.
In tinnitus there is no external sound source. The part of the brain responsible for becoming aware of sound is activated without there being any external sound. And so you hear a sound that isn’t really there. That sound can take different forms: hissing, whistling, ringing, hissing, humming, high or low tones, continuous or interrupted, along with the heartbeat, loud or quieter.
Hearing loss
Ringing in the ears or tinnitus can have various causes. For example, you can get severe tinnitus on one side if your hearing on that side suddenly or gradually loses.
Another cause is noise. Noise damages the hair cells that have to convert sound waves into electrical signals. Because the signal to the brain is lost or changed, the brain cells responsible for translating it into sound are disrupted. They start working uncontrollably and give a sound sensation that ‘sounds’ like ringing in the ears.
Aging can also be a cause of tinnitus. The hair cells responsible for the high tones age faster than the hair cells responsible for the low tones. If the brain no longer receives information about high tones, the low will also control the high. As a result, that brain zone receives incorrect information. And this creates sound that isn’t there, so tinnitus.
Research shows that more than 50 percent of all people with tinnitus also have hearing loss due to an inner ear disease. In these cases, hearing aid treatment is often the first step towards symptom relief. They compensate for the hearing loss making it possible for the wearer to focus on external sounds instead of internal ones. If the tinnitus cannot be controlled with a hearing aid, a combination of hearing aid and noiser is a solution. An additional advantage of these devices is that they can be used as a hearing aid when the tinnitus decreases or disappears
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy may also offer a solution. You then learn to think about something else and you can try to ignore the ringing in the ears. Ambient noise can also help ease the burden of tinnitus.
Another option is an electronic ear implant. This is possible in people with unilateral tinnitus, which is accompanied by deafness on that side. The ear implant reduces the loudness of the tinnitus by 80 percent. This significantly improves the quality of life.
