Tinnitus Management

According to Tinnitus Australia, around two in three people in our country suffer from tinnitus at some point in their life.

Tinnitus is not a disease or an illness – it is a sensation of noises in the ears or head when there are no environmental sounds around. These sounds can be ringing, buzzing, whoosing, roaring, whistling, humming. Some triggers of tinnitus include middle ear infections, or damage to the ear from loud noises.

The more common causes of tinnitus include:

• exposure to loud sounds
• extreme stress or trauma
• degeneration of the hair cells in the cochlea
• ear problems, such as otosclerosis (abnormal bone growth in the middle ear)
• Meniere’s disease (swelling of a duct in the ear)
• some medications.

You can habituate or become used to tinnitus. Before starting to adapt to tinnitus it is important to have medical tests to make sure that your tinnitus is not caused by an underlying serious illness. Hearing aids assist in the management of tinnitus because they address underlying hearing loss.

There are a variety of management techniques that may help relieve your symptoms. The aim of adapting to tinnitus is to reach a point where you do not have a negative emotional reaction to it. This is known as habituation. The key to habituation is no longer feeling threatened by your tinnitus. Another factor in tinnitus management is to understand that the more attention you pay to your tinnitus, the harder it is to become habituated to it.

Please talk to us if you are experiencing any of the symptoms listed above.