can bad head and neck posture cause ringing in your ears how is this even possible
and are there any treatments all of that in today's episode hello posture lovers
welcome to week seven of posturing 101 where every Wednesday afternoon I'll be
answering one of your questions by video this week is two days delayed because
I've been flat out with a nasty nasty cold make sure you're following my
facebook.com/posturedoctor youtube.com/posturedoctor
so you never miss an episode and if you've got a question for me about your
posture or health simply post it on my Facebook page with your name where
you're from and your question if your question is selected I'll give you a
personal shout-out and of course an entire video made just for you
let's jump straight into this week's question from Denise Pyeatt who asks does
forward head posture cause ringing in the ears I've seen an ENT ears nose and
throat doc in conjunction with an audiologist was told no hearing loss and
most likely was stress okay can we please stop telling people their
problems are just stress if we don't know the answer isn't it okay for a
doctor to just say that okay she's noticed an increase in the amount
of pain in her neck and she's wondering if the cause of the
ringing is neck related Denise thank you for this excellent question but quickly
first for those of you meeting me for the first time i'm dr. paula moore the
online posture doctor and I've been helping people correct their posture for
20 years as your posture doctor I'm not here to highlight your pain and symptoms
but to focus on the inside of your body the alignment of your spine in other
words the root cause of your problems back to Denise's question so ringing in
the ears or tinnitus sounds we hear in our ears ringing buzzing roaring
clicking hissing humming and crackling and I've created three sort of main
causes of tinnitus I've grouped them together
the first is benign nothing really to worry about earwax actually has a
function believe it or not it helps to keep the ear canal clean
but if it dries out especially as it can during the winter months if you have a
furnace it can clump together and cause a blockage so see your doctor the second
group is medical and often accompanies hearing loss if you suspect you have
hearing loss you need to get a hearing test see your doctor
so infections they can also cause fluid in the ear to build up now this is
important remember that the majority of ear infections well over 70% are viral
so antibiotics should not be prescribed just say no other diseases that fall
under the medical category would be diseases like Meniere's disease there's
a triad for that three things hearing loss tinnitus and vertigo or feeling
like the room is spinning that's what vertigo is another disease otosclerosis
excess bone growth over those small bones in the middle ear and that causes
hearing loss what about the third category our head and neck posture when
the head moves forward there's an increase in the muscle effort in the
back of the neck and upper back forward head posture also causes compression in
the upper neck joints this leads to chronic neck pain and thirdly there's a
relationship between neck pain and TMJ dysfunction TMJ is the jaw so if you're
saying I have TMJ well I hope you do because you've got a jaw what you mean
to say is I think I have TMJ dysfunction so dysfunction in the jaw from forward
head posture can cause jaw pain headaches vertigo tinnitus because the
jaw shares some of the same muscles and nerves as your middle ear AHHA what does
the science say here's a small study in the Journal of Oro Facial Pain 1995
they looked at 33 subjects with jaw disorders and they found that the head
was further forward in the group that had jaw problems this larger study in
the Scandinavian Journal of rehab medicine 1999 they looked at 483 people
from the population as a whole almost 39 percent of them had
neck pain at some time in the previous 12 months and of that 39 percent almost
half 47.4% had jaw dysfunction whereas only 28.6% had jaw dysfunction in the
non neck pain group so in other words people with neck pain and we know from
the previous study that forward head posture and neck pain are associated
so people with forward head posture have neck pain and those with neck pain have
a much higher incidence of TMJ dysfunction so what does it all mean if
you're wondering if your tinnitus is the result of your forward head posture and
if your forward head posture is causing TMJ dysfunction let's take a simple test
number one does your tinnitus change when you chew yawn or cough you can
try that on your own number two does it change when you move your jaw forward
jutting it forward or side to side or when you clench down on your teeth and
number three does your tinnitus change when you move your neck turning it
side-to-side moving it front to back if you answered yes to any of these your
tinnitus is likely due to the TMJ problem and the TMJ problem is likely a
part of your forward head posture here is my tinnitus triad poor posture in
particular forward head posture leads to jaw dysfunction and jaw dysfunction
leads to tinnitus forward head posture puts stress and strain on the tissues and
structures of the head and neck leading to TMJ dysfunction the jaw and inner ear
share the same muscles and nerves meaning that jaw problems often get
translated into middle ear symptoms like tinnitus Wow
so you've got tinnitus how should you treat it well we could follow the usual
medical approach and treat the immediate symptoms you've got tinnitus so we could
try ear drops and antibiotics and maybe even noise
therapy but guess what the tinnitus always returns because you haven't dealt
with the cause we could treat your jaw dysfunction and that would probably be
better and have the tinnitus disappear for a while but you'll keep paying for
TMJ treatment and the symptoms will usually return or you got it
you can fix the underlying cause of your tinnitus and correct your forward head
posture so how do you do that let's take a look I designed this course for anyone
feeling insecure about their forward head appearance and those who recognize
that correcting their head and neck posture is going to take more than a
quick fix exercise but feel motivated to learn by the end of the course you'll
know what caused your forward head posture and there's a good chance it
might not be what you think it is you'll recognize some of the unusual signs and
symptoms and understand that it's the position of your head that has been
causing some of your suffering you'll learn a few new exercises and find out
if you're a candidate for further medical investigation and what questions
you need to ask I'll be teaching you everything I know about forward head
posture and believe me I understand your struggles because that was me now's your
chance to enroll on my forward head posture course this is currently my
all-time best-selling course and you can preview each of the 45 lectures in this
course when you click the link below this course means a lot to me as I show
you exactly the exercises I used to correct my own chronic headaches and
forward head posture I'll also include a link in the description below to that
course if you're watching on youtube thank you so much for watching this week
and I'll see you all again in seven days time bye bye for now