Tinnitus Causes

Tinnitus causes

        There is a lot of confusion in the non-medical world about tinnitus. A lot of people believe, simply by hearsay, that tinnitus is, in itself, a disease. This belief is born because some people tend to muddle up the cause and the effect. For many out there, tinnitus is the disease and whatever comes afterwards is the result.

       The truth, according to medical doctors, is somewhere in the middle, as always. Tinnitus is not a disease, but not really just a symptom of something else. More like a combination of those two, being more often known as the reflection a more serious illness.

       Causes of tinnitus include afflictions of the ear, in all shapes and forms, ranging in gravity from complete hearing loss to mild disturbances. Also, other tinnitus causes can be perpetually loud noises, stress, drugs and excessive alcohol.

       As it is stated above, the most common tinnitus cause is the complete or partial loss of your hearing capacities. Hearing acuity is naturally both increased and lost with age. Young children hear better than their grandparents, for example. However, as we age and our bodies become exposed to an entire palette of harmful factors, the portion of the ear that is responsible with our hearing capacity gets injured. That part is known in medical terminology as the cochlea.

       Researchers have recently discovered that the damaged cochlea sends abnormal messages to the brain, which no longer has the ability to interpret them correctly and respond accordingly. Therefore, the brain develops, from scratch, its own sounds, to make up for the missing ones. Of course, our brain not being exactly a musician, the sounds are not melodious and do not feel right to the ear. Those noises are known as tinnitus.

       Another tinnitus cause is an ear infection. You can catch one of these nasty and very painful illnesses from virtually anywhere. You can contract a bug from the pool at your hotel to the seawater, and even from tap water. While they can hurt badly in their later stages, infections like these are usually ignored. That is a mistake because such problems usually lead to loss of hearing and, of course, tinnitus.

       Even though it may sound unusual or plain common sense, one of the more frequent tinnitus causes is wax in your ears. Medics have often found that the strange noises in the ears are an effect of a lack in hygiene. A serious lack in hygiene. Also, as a paradox, people who clean their ears too often or too forcefully injure their eardrums, which means that their cochlea does not function to its full capacity. As in everything else, moderation is the key for keeping your ears healthy.

       Included in the list of tinnitus causes are loud noises. Weirdly or not, tinnitus is both an occupational hazard for some people (mechanics, construction workers, medical doctors, and policemen) and a specific illness for the "IPod" generation. While you cannot turn down the noise on a drill, a stethoscope or a firearm, you can certainly and most definitely lower the volume on your music player.

Other tinnitus causes

       Less known, but no less dangerous as a cause of tinnitus is drug overuse. While a lot of people believe that the only drugs you can overdose with are the illegal kind, that is not entirely true. You can overdose on aspirin, for example. While it is unlikely to kill you, it will cause tinnitus. Also, a very powerful type of antibiotics (amynoglicosides) and quinine have the same effect on your body.

       Other causes, not as common as the ones listed above are Menieres' disease (which causes loss of balance and dizziness, as well as temporary tinnitus), a brain tumor known as acoustic neuroma (it causes tinnitus in only one ear, making it easy to spot), pregnancy, anemia, overactive thyroid, tumors involving blood vessels near the ear and benign intracranial hypertension (an increase of pressure in the liquid that surrounds the brain).