Joris Bartstra, doctor and journalist, answers readers’ questions. This time the question: I, a 72-year-old woman, hear continuous hissing, whistling and other sounds that are not there. How can I deal with this? I am physically and psychologically exhausted.
Joris Bartstra, journalist with a medical degree.
After a certain age, everyone experiences hearing loss and this is often accompanied by hissing, hissing, humming and ringing sounds, usually at a pitch that you can no longer hear. This is because the cilia in the cochlea, which receive these frequencies, are damaged. The centers in your brain that receive these frequencies are then no longer controlled and start producing signals themselves. It’s a bit like phantom pain. Ultimately, you have to rely on distraction. I realize that’s difficult because the sounds themselves are so distracting. No drug treatment has been shown to work, and that’s especially true of alternative treatments. Sometimes a hearing aid with countersound can do something, but then the sound must have one special frequency. If you suffer so much that it makes you depressed or sleepless, treatment is effective. The crux of treatment for depression is often also that you become interested in other things again, so that negative thoughts go into the background.
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