We're coming up on the tinnitus awareness week and I've been asked to give a little talk about
tinnitus and I want to start by telling you tinnitus is not a disease it's a symptom and
it's very common basically eighty percent of our patients with hearing loss will have tinnitus
and in my experience about five percent of my patients who have normal hearing have tinnitus
so it can be brought on by any number of things and in many times we don't necessarily
find a cause but it is important that patients who do complain of tinnitus have an evaluation which
would include an audiogram or hearing test and they should see an ear nose and throat physician
to rule out serious underlying conditions the most common cause of hearing loss is either
exposure to loud noise or just the normal aging process so of course prevention is good we can't
prevent aging that's normal but we can prevent exposure to too much noise with the proper use of
hearing protection such as ear ear plugs or ear muffs when exposed to any kind of loud noise such
as power tools or working in a noisy environment or certainly we see a lot of rock concerts
uh these days where people are exposed to a tremendous amount of very loud noise the patients
that i see with tinnitus 90% or 95% are not bothered by it they say yes I have it it's very
common i've had it for many years and I don't even listen to it but then there's that group of maybe
five percent of my patients who are very disturbed by it they can't sleep they say it wakes them up
they have difficulty going back to sleep they have difficulty concentrating we also did some
testing called the minnesota multiphasic personality inventory
and found that those who had severe tinnitus were either depressed or had anxiety disorders
or a combination of both and more recently with functional MRIs we have located the area of the
brain where tinnitus is generated and by the way it is generating the brain not in the ear
so we now know that it's in the brain and it's located near the limbic system which is the
emotional center of the of the brain so anxiety depression pain
anything that adversely affects a person can spill over and cause a stimulation of tinnitus i became
very much aware that anxiety and depression were important components and I heard that
biofeedback can be helpful in other words teaching patients to relax teaching teaching patients to
become more aware of how their emotions and their situation can can affect their tinnitus
and we did biofeedback studies found some good results in many patients so we find that cognitive
behavioral testing treatment can work biofeedback can help sometimes medications is a mild sedative
or maybe an antidepressant all these things can help that small group of patients who are very
seriously severely disturbed by their tinnitus thank you so much Dr. House as Dr. House said
tinnitus is a symptom and not a disease and it is most often associated with hearing loss one
of the leading causes of hearing loss is exposure to loud noise that's why this tinnitus awareness
week we partnered with EarPeace a leading brand in the field of hearing protection if you're at
a concert working with power tools or any kind of environment in which you're exposed to loud noise
don't forget to wear hearing protection check out EarPeace at the link in our description box below
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research education and global hearing health efforts here at House for symptoms like tinnitus