Ringing in ears
Ringing in ears is a perception of some noise in your ears which have no known external source. This is most often not a problem in its own right. Instead, it is a symptom or a sign of a deeper problem. The most common of these are aging, injuries to the ears, circulatory system disorders, and blood pressure problems.
It can take many shapes and forms. For instance, you might hear about some hissing, whooshing, buzzing, or ocean breeze problems. In most instances, this issue arises mainly as a result of damages to the cochlea or the inner ear. Even though it is temporary in nature, it may often become permanent with time especially if it is not mitigated in time.
In case you do get affected, you definitely have to be concerned. The issue has the potential to bring about a couple of serious problems and issues. It may also lead to permanent disability or the overall loss of enthusiasm for the ordinary chores altogether.
You are highly advised to seek medical intervention within the shortest time possible. That is because this condition is known to worsen with time. Specifically, it also poses some permanent damages to the ears and aural faculties.
On the whole, this condition develops gradually over a prolonged duration of time. However, some people do experience some unplanned for attacks of this kind. That is to mean that they are bombarded with the condition without any prior warning or foresight. It is for this reason that a timely response is all the more called for.
At the moment, there is no known cure for the disorder. However, a number of approaches have been improvised to mitigate it. These approaches are able to help you in managing the condition and warding off its adverse potential impacts.
It is absolutely necessary that you see a doctor as soon as the condition arises. Let the doctor examine the issue and take the earliest possible intervention. A timely response is also necessary in that it makes it possible for you to prevent the damages from worsening with time.
To prevent this issue, it is necessary that you put in place some preventive strategies. Among these are staying away from too loud noise, reducing your alcohol consumption, managing your stress, exercising daily, and avoiding some possible irritants. Needless to say, you also have to keep your ears as clean and wax-free as possible.
Given that old age is a must for all of us, you also want to ensure that you prepare adequately for it. Apart from taking great care of your ears you also want to reduce the volumes of the sounds you listen to. This has a way of diminishing the stress that your ears have to contend with.
Lastly. You also want to eat well. Prioritize those foods that are rich in Potassium but less on Sodium. Accompany this by consuming moderate amounts of alcohol as this has also been noted to intensify the problem altogether.
What causes ringing in the ears?
Prolonged exposure to loud sounds
This by far is the most common cause of the condition. It affects a whopping 90% of the people who have experienced this problem. The loud noise permanently affects the cochlea which impedes its ability to perceive sound. In the end, the ear generates the ringing sound.
Age-related Hearing Loss
As people age, so do their capacity to perceive sounds. It is hence not uncommon for them to develop this feeling of ringing on their ears. This kind of hearing problem is called presbycusis and affects many people who live beyond 60 years.
Earwax Blockage
The ear wax does play a crucial role in trapping dirt and inhibiting the growth of bacteria. However, when too much of it accumulates in the ear canal, it may become undesirable to your ears. It may also irritate the eardrum and if not mitigated, cause this ringing ear condition.
Ear Bone Changes
Some changes in the structure of the ear may also give rise to these conditions. Examples include the stiffening of the bones in the middle ear. Such alterations may affect the manner in which you perceive sound and ultimately give rise to this condition.
Meniere’s Disease
This disease affects the inner ears and mainly comes in the form of some undue pressure or pains in the ears. When these two issues hold on for a prolonged duration of time, they bring about a ringing or roaring sound. The disease runs mostly through families and is hardly caused by external factors.
TMJ Disorders
Whenever there are issues in the jaw joint, a hearing disorder is naturally bound to arise. The most affected bone of this kind is the temporomandibular joint. Given that it connects your jawbone and skull it can inflict some ringing sound if it does sustain some disorders or damages.
Head or Neck Injuries
Just like the jaw joints, your neck or head is also directly in the line of your hearing. It hence follows that any injuries to these two points on your body can and indeed do have a bearing on the health of your ears. That is mainly because such injuries can affect the functioning of your brain or nerves.
Acoustic Neuroma
Acoustic Neuroma is a non-cancerous tumor which typically develops on your cranial nerve. This nerve runs from your brain to your inner ears. It controls your balance and hearing. In most instances, this condition will usually inflict a ringing ear problem in just one of your ears.
Eustachian Tube Dysfunction
The Eustachian tube connects your middle ear to your upper throat region. When infected by this condition, it expands all the time and makes your ear develop a feeling of fullness. Accompanying this fullness is the perception of some ringing sounds in the ears.
Muscle Spasms
Muscle spasms are involuntary contractions of muscles. It does affect all muscles including those of the inner ears. When the muscles tense up a temporal hearing loss is experienced. If and when this issue persists for too long, the ears may develop a sense of ringing sound.
Constant ringing in ears
Even though ringing in ears is an intermittent problem, some cases do persist for too long or recur. If and when the issue is left unattended to in time, it might usually degenerate to a worse problem. Further to this, it might also pose some permanent damages to your aural faculties.
Sign and Symptoms of Constant Ringing in Ears
Below are some of the signs and symptoms that signal the constant ringing in ears:
Regular Facial and Jaw Pains
If you happen to have this condition, you will usually experience some regular facial and jaw pains. Due to this pain, you might find it difficult to move your jaws up and down while you talk. Also, you will lose some confidence in the process of approaching and conversing with your peers.
Difficulty in Chewing Food
Coming in next after the problem above is the difficulty in chewing food. This issue arises typically when you want to chew food which is ordinarily hard. You may even sustain some bleeding in the course of doing so. This, of course, leads to indigestion and the problems which accompany the issue.
Boredom
With your ears constantly ringing, the most natural problem you will experience is some boredom. You will lose interest in those activities which used to give you some joy only in a few months past. In particular, you will find watching movies and listening to music quite disgusting.
Insensitivity to Low Sounds
You will also experience some insensitivity to low sounds. With regards to this, you will want people to yell and shout at you severally to be able to hear what they are talking about. This might impede your learning process if you happen to be a student.
Loss of Interest
Lastly, you will also lose interest in many of those activities which formerly gave you joy and satisfaction. This might lead to withdrawal which in turn may give rise to many social problems such as stress, anxiety disorders and ultimately depression.
Most Vulnerable People
Even though constant ringing in ears can affect just about any other person, three kinds of persons are particularly the most risk of this condition. They are identified and explained here below:
Arthritic Persons
Arthritis is a disease which is characterized by the stiffening of the joints and some inflammations. If these inflammations and stiffening happen at those joints which are located at the jaws, face, and ears, the end result will normally be some hearing problems.
Facial Impacts
The above case also applies to those persons who have suffered some facial impacts. Any impacts that touch on the joints which make up the face will usually have the undesired side effect of interfering with the proper functioning of the ears.
Dirty Environments
Those who work or stay in dirty environments are also at a higher risk of contracting this medical condition. That is because such environments have higher bacterial contents. As noted, bacteria has a major role to play in the emergence of this particular medical problem.
Ringing in ears blood pressure
In this section, we are going to explore and examine in details the correlation between the condition of ringing in ears and the blood pressure levels. When the pressure levels are normal, every faculty of the body operates well. However, when the conditions are altered, the same effects are felt by the entire body.
a.) Correlation between Ringing in ears and Blood Pressure
Cardiovascular Problems
Some cardiovascular problems are responsible for the emergence of this condition. In most cases, when the blood vessels are narrowed or rendered incapable of discharging their roles effectively, they might normally impair your hearing. This, in turn, will usually cause the ringing sound to arise.
Hypertension
Hypertension refers to high blood pressure. Even though it does not in and of itself cause the condition, it can greatly magnify it all together. The same case applies to those factors which naturally cause the problem like the caffeine, alcohol, and stress levels.
Tumors
Tumors refer to abnormal growths of the various parts of the body. If a tumor presses blood vessels in the neck or head region, it will most often interfere with the smooth flow of blood. This in turn either causes or accelerates the problem of ringing in ears.
Turbulent Blood Flows
The rate at which blood flows is just as important. When blood vessels are narrowed, the pace of flow is increased. The opposite is true if the vessels are excessively dilated. In either case, the hearing may be interfered with, which causes the ringing in ear problem.
Medications
Some medications have been noted to impact the ears negatively. The ones for treating hypertension have particularly been identified as the single most significant cause of this condition. Luckily, when the condition is caused in this manner, it does not persist for too long a duration of time and is hence easily manageable.
Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis refers to the buildup of fatty deposits (plaque). These may often clog your arteries.in the course of so doing, it also reduces the flow of blood and reduced the supply of nutrients to the ears. In the final analysis, this impedes your ears to perceive sounds well.
b.) How to manage blood pressure levels
To prevent or mitigate the problems above, you are advised to follow the procedures below:
Walk and Exercise Regularly
It is necessary that you walk and exercise on a regular basis. As you walk and exercise, you get to lower your stress and blood pressure levels considerably. That is because your heart beats faster which leads to the burning of more fat in the body.
Reduce Your Sodium Intake
Sodium is the number one cause of high blood pressure. The reason here is that it dissolves in the blood plasma and increases its overall density and viscosity. Consider therefore reducing your intake of sodium as a long-term measure of mitigating the condition.
Drink Less Alcohol
Alcohol also has a role to play in upping the levels of blood pressure. The reason being that higher intake rates mean more solutes dissolved in the blood and with it, higher pressure levels. Do reduce your intake of alcohol as a way of combating blood pressure.
Eat more Potassium-rich Foods
Lastly, eat foods that are rich in Potassium. Potassium lowers the blood pressure by neutralizing the negative impacts of Sodium. This leaves your blood vessels unclogged and in the process, less likely to give rise to the condition stated above.
Ringing in ears treatment
A number of approaches may be used to treat this condition. Now, we are going to delve into discussing them. Also, we are going to look into how to go about the whole issue of treating this condition. You do not want to make any mistakes in the course of doing so.
When to treat the illness
Generally speaking, you are supposed to seek treatment as early as you possibly can. Holding on for too long might give the disorder ample time to develop and become too difficult to get rid of later. It might also inflict more or permanent harms on your ear altogether.
How to treat the illness
It is absolutely essential that you leave the treatment of the disease to the qualified healthcare professional. By going it alone, you might end up worsening the situation altogether. As soon as you have acquired sufficient evidence that you have the problem, visit your nearest healthcare facility.
What to target while treating the sickness?
To be able to accrue the best possible outcomes, you have to target the underlying causes of the disease. These are listed above for your consideration. You should not focus only on the signs and symptoms of the problem as you might not really achieve some permanent outcomes.
Also, it is necessary and absolutely vital that this condition is prevented from arising in the first place. That is because curing it may be consuming and tricky later. In particular, you should clean your ears thoroughly and stay away from too loud music.
Different Kinds of Medications
Various kinds of medications do exist for your use. They are explained here below:
Homeopathy
Homeopathy works much like a vaccine. In this approach, some pathogens are weakened and then introduced to the body. The body tackles these pathogens and in the course of so doing, gains the strength to handle even more severe forms of the disease.
Herbal Cures
Herbal cures are derived from nature. For this reason, they are safer and less likely to inflict any adverse long-term health side effects. However, unlike their clinical medicine counterparts, these herbs are not so potent. They are therefore limited in efficacy and may not yield far-reaching impacts.
Physiotherapy
This is the use of physical effort rather than drugs to reverse the effects of ringing in ears. The neuromonics and the noise generator are two of the most common methods under this technique. It is noteworthy that this approach is very involving in nature.
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT)
In this method, a combination of masking device and cognitive behavioral therapy is used. These two play the role of helping you to learn while at the same time disregard those ringing noise in the background. They do not completely reverse the effects of the disorder.
Clinical Medicine
Finally, clinical medicine may also be used to mitigate this issue. In this arrangement, some medicinal drugs are used to combat the problem from the roots. These medicines are very potent and may usually leave behind some undesirable side effects.
What to take for ringing in the ears
As part of your treatment and mitigation of the ringing in ear menace, you can take or ingest some kinds of medications and approaches. In this last segment of the discussions, we endeavor to discuss these medications and approaches for your consideration. Definitely, you want to seek the guidance of your doctor before taking them.
a.) Medications
Even though drugs do not really cure ear ringing, they can nonetheless reduce the severity of the symptoms of these conditions as well as the accompanying complications. Below are some of the possible medications which may handle this problem well:
Tricyclic Antidepressants
These are medications which are geared towards relieving the harshness of anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. For the mitigation of the ear ringing, the nortriptyline and the amitriptyline have stood out as the more effective ones. They, however, do inflict some adverse side effects which may be troublesome if not handled with care.
Alprazolam
Administered and sold under the trade name Xanax, Alprazolam is almost always used to manage anxiety disorders in the short run. It also has the potential to inflict some disorders if not handled with the utmost care that it deserves. Examples of these include nausea and drowsiness.
b.) Physical Therapy
You can also, if you so wish, undergo some physical therapy to tackle this ear ringing menace. As the name suggests, this simply entails the use of physical rather than medicinal approaches to treat diseases. The following are the two main physical therapies which may come in handy while mitigating the ear ringing.
Noise Generator
A noise generator is a wearable audio device. It produces and exudes some constant white noise which has a gentle rushing sound quality like that of a radio whose station is off tune. This sound distorts and cancels the one that is generated by your ears. The end result is some silence. Needless to say, you must seek the support of a trained healthcare specialist before putting it on.
Neuromonics
Neuromonics refers to the manipulation of the nervous system to rectify the ringing in ears. In this technique, the doctor desensitizes the ears by discharging some neural stimulus. This, in turn, allows your brain to filter out some somewhat disturbing sounds and leave out only those that are great to hear.
c.) Herbal Remedies
Lastly, you may also try out some herbal remedies. These are safer than their medicinal counterparts and have the added benefit of being cheaper to come by. Below are some kinds of the herbal remedies you might consider prioritizing:
Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar has some anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. This being the case, it can mitigate both the bacteria and the fungi which have the capability of inflicting this condition in your ears. To administer it, simply mix with honey and water and apply using some clean cloth.
Basil Leaves
These are leaves that are derived from the basil plant. They do possess some great antibacterial properties. In light of this, they can kill the bacteria which has the potential to inflict this problem. To enable them to kill the bacteria, you just have to apply some leaves to your inner ears.
Onion
Apart from serving as a condiment, onion also possesses some antibacterial properties. It is mostly used to reduce inflammations especially those that arise out of bacterial infestations. You just have to squeeze the onion in the affected portions of the ears to let it discharge this role.
Garlic
Garlic, just like an onion, also plays a secondary role in reducing pain and killing bacteria. In particular, it reduces inflammations and also boosts the circulation of blood in the body considerably. You will also have to follow the same steps as those of the onions above.
Mustard Oil
Lastly comes the mustard oil. This one is also a great antifungal agent which can help clear infections besides boosting the immune system. Pour some of the oil on a cotton ball and apply it to the ears. Leave to settle for 5-10 minutes before unplugging. Repeat the procedure for several days till you obtain the desired ends.