- The WHO estimates that more than 1.5 billion people globally experience some degree of hearing loss.
- Most people with hearing loss do not have access to interventions due to lack of resources.
- It is estimated that one in 10 adults with hearing health problems suffers from tinnitus.
Among all the senses that people have, hearing is one of the ones that receives the least attention. The reality is that its importance goes beyond being able to appreciate all the sounds that are around us. While within the wide range of hearing health problems that there are tinnitus have positioned themselves as one of the most frequent.
What does it consist of?
Speaking of tinnitus or tinnitus refers to the persistent noise or buzzing in a person and which does not come from the outside. There are different types and hence the importance of making an accurate diagnosis because it is the key to this condition.
Dr. Gonzalo Corvera Behar, who is Director of the Mexican Institute of Otology and Neurotology, points out that some tinnitus appears because we perceive noises that are being produced within our body. For example, literally the blood that passes through our veins, and they are called pulsatile tinnitus.
In other cases the origin is muscular, product of contractures in the muscles of the neck or jaw. Other causes are linked to a hearing loss The ear converts surrounding sound, which is vibration from the environment, into nerve impulses, and those nerve impulses travel through different processing centers within the nervous system. In these nuclei, if the cells stop receiving the information that normally comes from the ear, they begin to have disorganized and unmodulated activity that we perceive as a buzz.
The only way to really make that feeling go away is return hearing function, something we can do in some cases and not in others. For all of the above we can see the importance of making a good diagnosis in a specialized center.
Based on a recent study carried out in the United States on the epidemiology of tinnitus, it was found that, in adults, one in 10 people suffers from this symptom. While of them, between 30 and 40% have constant tinnitus that can be problematic.
We can all hear a noise as an isolated event at some point, but when it is constant is when it becomes a problem. Likewise, it is worth mentioning that this condition is more frequent at older ages because one of the most frequent causes is low or lack of hearing. In addition, people who have been exposed to more noise throughout their lives are more likely to have tinnitus.
How to know if we have tinnitus?
In itself, we realize when we begin to hear a noise, which can have different characteristics. Note if it is constant like a gas leak, if it blows synchronously with the pulse, or if it sounds like “clicks” or like brown paper. All of which gives us data to make a good diagnosis. The “clicks” tend to be more muscular, the sensation of a gas leak tends to be more of the inner ear, the pulsatile ones tend to be more vascular, but the cause must always be corroborated with adequate studies.
Studies to be carried out
It is important to start with a audiometry. With this study we measure how the eardrum is vibrating and how the ossicles of the ear move. If the inner ear is fine, and we may even have some data that indicates when the problem could be neurological. Frequently the audiological study is enough to have a diagnosis, other times we require additional studies.
If the cause is treatable, the tinnitus can be eliminated or reduced. When it is not a cause that has a specific treatment, many times we can reduce the intensity with the use of hearing aids, in addition to other types of therapeutic resources that we have at our disposal. In general, knowing how to deal with the symptom tends to reduce the discomfort even if it does not disappear.