There’s that little ringing in your ear that you just can’t get rid of. You’ve checked the air conditioner, the microwave, and there’s no sound coming from them.
Maybe you’ve even tried noise-cancelling headphones to cut out the sound, but nothing worked.
You could be suffering from tinnitus: a faint and persistent ringing in the ears which is not coming from any external source that you can find.
If you’re suffering from and want to learn everything about tinnitus, these are the facts that can make a world of difference for your hearing.
The Scientific Description of Tinnitus
Tinnitus is known as an alteration in your perception of sound, which relays ringing, high-pitched noise into your ears at random times without an external aggressor.
Ringing from tinnitus is something that only the sufferer can hear, and may cause pain or discomfort that makes it difficult to carry on with your day.
Tinnitus may be caused by neurological trauma in the form of physical injury, constant infections, dental problems, medication side effects, auditory trauma, and recurring infections.
There are two main types of tinnitus.
Subjective Tinnitus
Subjective tinnitus may be caused by neurological disorders or issues. The sound is only available to the sufferer, and cannot be heard externally. S
ubjective tinnitus requires harsher remedies to combat the ringing sounds, because it’s 100% caused internally.
Subjective tinnitus will only affect those who are hearing it.
If you were to ask someone, “What’s that ringing sound?” and they say that there is no ringing sound, you may have subjective tinnitus (if this is a common occurrence).
Objective Tinnitus
Objective tinnitus is easier to pin down, because it has direct physical symptoms alongside it.
Users may experience extreme blood flow around their ears (bright red, hot ears are usually indicative of this) as a result of overused muscles or vibrations.
Objective tinnitus only affects the sufferer, but because it can be caused by external noises, such as auditory trauma, those same noises can be heard by other people (though the ringing is exclusive to the sufferer).
How Do You Get Rid of Tinnitus?
You don’t get rid of tinnitus. Currently, there is no cure, because there is no concrete, 100% way to diagnose it. We don’t know exactly why it occurs, as the brain is a complex organ.
Because other conditions exist in the world with life-threatening symptoms or the risk of mortality, it’s not likely that there will suddenly be a breakthrough in tinnitus research, unless it pertains to another type of research that is imperative to solving other conditional root problems.
Tinnitus is aggravating, and can impair your life in many ways, but it’s not something that sees a lot of attention—despite over 50 million Americans having it—simply because it doesn’t pose an immediate threat to you, myself, or anyone’s way of life.
You cannot cure tinnitus, but the symptoms are definitely treatable.
With ongoing, consistent effort, you can use a few different methods to remedy the situation and live with little to no symptoms for the rest of your life, so long as you keep at it.
These include:
- Natural remedy medication
- Using hearing aids
- Using earplugs
That ringing sound isn’t going to stop anytime soon, but you can lessen its burden on your life and help block the way your eardrum sends these sounds up to your brain.
As of right now, even the American Tinnitus Association states that there’s simply no cure.
It should be noted that not everything listed works for every individual.
Different users will see varying degrees of relief and/or aid from any one given propose treatment option.
What Causes Tinnitus in One Ear Only?
There are two main causes of tinnitus, both of which can exclusively occur in one ear.
Both of these options require you seeing your primary care physician and should not be self-diagnosed.
You should not attempt to treat these potential causes of tinnitus without medical intervention.
Earwax Buildup
Earwax is designed to help prevent infection in your ears and capture small germs and bacteria and trap them, effectively aiding in your health.
However, it is entirely possible to overproduce earwax to the point that it causes scratching or ringing sounds in your ears.
It’s important to know that your eardrum blocks earwax from travelling further into your canal.
Your eardrum is only located about 0.78” to 1.18” from the opening hole of your ear. It’s very close to the surface.
The inside of your ears are extremely sensitive.
This is why you often hear that Q-Tips can actually damage your ear, because while cotton is soft, it can be abrasive, especially when force is applied, to the sensitive skin inside your ears.
Earwax buildup can be cleaned out by your doctor.
They can either inspect and rinse your ears with warm water, or they can use a circular tool called a curette and gently, manually remove built-up wax from your ear canal.
If you have long-term hardened buildup that harbors newer earwax, this can help to prevent issues from arising for a long time.
Ear Infection
You can get an ear infection from wax buildup, since wax is designed to capture bacteria and prevent it from going to your eardrums.
It builds up over time and can breed if left untreated to create a bacterial infection, manifested in the form of an ear infection.
Ear infections are more likely to happen if you’ve suffered eardrum damage or have a long history of overproducing earwax.
Some individuals are more sensitive to aggressors than others, and simply get more ear infections over the course of their lifetime than your average joe.
Thankfully, your doctor can prescribe antibiotic medication to you and rid you of that ear infection.
In many, many cases, tinnitus is the symptom of ear infections as the underlying problem.
Talk to your doctor and allow them to determine if this is the right solution for you.
What is the Main Cause of Tinnitus?
Most commonly, tinnitus occurs when the small hair cells in your ears undergo light tissue damage.
These hair cells are sensors, which let you know when your ear is itchy, and may signal that you have too much wax depending on your sensitivity.
The reason that millions of Americans have symptoms of tinnitus every single year is because we don’t have access to proper information about just how easy it is to damage the soft tissue inside of our ears.
People still use Q-Tips despite the rough cotton causing abrasions, and other methods of cleaning your ears out. This damage develops into tinnitus over time.
How do You Know if You Have Tinnitus?
It’s not something you should just stop and say, “I definitely have this.”
Tinnitus can be objective or subjective, as we mentioned earlier, and it’s difficult for a doctor to diagnose you with something when we don’t truly know what the root cause is (subneural).
However, depending on the symptoms you’re facing, you may have tinnitus.
Be very critical and skeptical when looking to self-diagnose this, and do not seek out treatment unless you’re certain you have this.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Is a constant ringing in my ears making it difficult to sleep at night?
- Can I hear constant ringing in my ears that distracts me during otherwise pleasant experiences?
- Are my ears irritated from a low hum or light ping sound?
- How many times per day do I hear a ringing sound in my ear?
- Is it difficult for me to relax because of this ringing in my ears?
You want to be consesrvative when looking to diagnose yourself here, but if you experience a light ringing sound that’s making it difficult to enjoy any aspect of your life, then you’re likely suffering from the effects of tinnitus.
What is the Most Effective Treatment for Tinnitus?
Because tinnitus is in our brains, at the very core of this problem, most external treatment options will not work.
Surprisingly, many tinnitus sufferers have reported successful relief of their symptoms by taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication.
Treating general anxiety disorder or clinical depression isn’t something that’s taken lightly—your healthcare professional will not prescribe your these medications if you don’t need them for their primary functions.
Apart from medications, there are a few different things you can do. You can likely cure tinnitus by getting back on a proper sleep schedule.
The majority of Americans are not getting enough sleep, and sleep affects your brain in ways that we’re still learning about, but we do know quite a bit.
You have a waste system located inside your brain.
When you, an adult, get at least seven or more hours of sleep a night, your brain empties this waste system and readies itself for the next day.
Without proper sleep, this waste system doesn’t pull all the toxins from your brain.
Sleep is the most basic health tool at our disposal to alleviate many, many things, one of which is tinnitus.
Apart from that, you may find that earplugs/hearing aids help you remove the ringing sensation of tinnitus.
It’s different for everyone, but for about 95% of people, earplugs are going to at least mitigate the symptoms, or alleviate them altogether.
Does CBD Oil Help with Tinnitus?
CBD oil has only truly been available for testing out-in-the-open since late 2018.
That doesn’t give the long rapport that scientific studies required to state if any evidence is concrete or can be repeated numerous times with varying degrees of similar results.
There are two points in your brain, which are called CB1 and CB2, and these both respond to CBD oil. We understand this much to be true.
As we often do, scientists have tested the effects of CBD oil on rats who happened to have tinnitus.
From a very short amount of studying without too much evidence to ensure bulletproof accuracy, it was found that CBD oil may actually increase the frequency and volume of tinnitus-related symptoms.
As far as we know, CBD oil may help with other things in your life, such as stress and anxiety, but there is no solid link between CBD oil and tinnitus symptom relief.
Is There a Pressure Point for Tinnitus?
Yes, there are four pressure points to help alleviate the symptoms of tinnitus.
They are called the ermen (TB21), tinggong (SI19), tinguie (GB2), and fengchi (GB20).
These are most commonly associated with acupuncture, but don’t worry: you don’t have to endure that to find relief.
Three of these pressure points are located just above your earlobe, and at the closest points where the skin of your face transitions into cartilage.
The last is a series of two pressure points located on the back of your head.
These are linked to helping with tinnitus, but natural methods work for everyone differently, so it may not be the best option for you.
Relief is Within Your Grasp
There are natural remedies, medications, and earplugs/hearing aids that you can use to help relieve the symptoms of tinnitus.
While it’s believed that tinnitus is caused by something subneural in your brain, you can combat the symptoms and get back to living your life the way you want to.
