Learn about the causes of tinnitus and what to do about it.

Say no to tinnitus

What is tinnitus?

Tinnitus is a common condition in which you experience noise in your ears that others cannot hear. It usually sounds like a buzzing or ringing in the ears, but crackling, hissing, buzzing, or cicada sounds are not uncommon.

The sound of tinnitus may come and go, or it may be present all the time. It affects approximately 10 to 15 percent of the world’s population. In some cases, tinnitus can be loud enough to interfere with your ability to concentrate or hear actual sounds.

Why do I have tinnitus?

Often, tinnitus is caused by an underlying medical condition. This could be age-related hearing loss, ear injury, ear infection, blocked ear canals, medications, or circulation problems. Most of the time, tinnitus improves when the underlying condition is addressed or with treatment that reduces noise perception.

Severe tinnitus can have a negative impact on a person’s quality of life, disrupting sleep and causing communication problems, anxiety, irritability, difficulty concentrating, or depression.

What are the symptoms of tinnitus?

Tinnitus is an unusual noise (or noises) that you can hear. However, the noise does not come from outside the ears. Types of noise people hear include:

  • Ringing in the ears.
  • Buzzing.
  • Whistles.
  • Roaring.
  • Humming.
  • Machine-type noises.
  • A pulse or beat that is the same as the pulse rate.

The noise is usually more noticeable when you are in a quiet place or when you are tired. Some people with tinnitus are also more sensitive to normal, everyday sounds.

In rare cases, tinnitus can be heard using a stethoscope or simply by holding it close to the ear. Objective tinnitus accounts for less than 5% of all tinnitus cases and is often associated with vascular or muscle disease.

How is tinnitus treated?

Typically, tinnitus cannot be treated, but there are many effective options for managing the tinnitus condition and the body’s response to it:

  • Sound therapy – listening to neutral sounds to distract you from the sounds of tinnitus.
  • Counseling – Treatment designed to educate you about tinnitus and help you learn to cope with it more effectively.
  • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) – therapy designed to help change the way you think about tinnitus so that it becomes less noticeable.
  • Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT) – Therapy designed to help retrain the way your brain responds to tinnitus so that you begin to tune out the sound and become less aware of it.

How to get rid of tinnitus

Some measures can help prevent and reduce tinnitus:

  • Reduce exposure to extremely loud noise
  • Avoid total silence
  • Decrease salt intake
  • Monitor blood pressure
  • Avoid doping
  • Exercise
  • Reduce fatigue
  • Manage stress

While there is no known cure for most forms of tinnitus, there are a variety of treatment options, and most people with tinnitus find varying degrees of relief from one or more methods.