What is ear tinnitus?

By Hen Priyanto
Posted: June 30, 2011

Have you ever felt like you hear some noises while you were doing your activities and you feel annoyed by that sound? In the medical dictionary, you can find that condition as the ear tinnitus. Tinnitus is a ringing, swishing, or other type of noise that seems to originate in the ear or sometimes in the head. So, we can say that the ear tinnitus is the same kind of condition but only when the noise is specifically originated in the ear. Most of the cases show that only the patient can hear the noise.

But it exists for real, it is not imagined. In fact, there are various reasons why you can feel the ear tinnitus. For example if you simply go swimming and feel the water flows into your ear but you have no idea to let it out so the fluid is trapped in, or if you have any infection and you feel like you have a higher body temperature and start feeling a buzz in your ear, or in the worse case is if you have a disease in your middle ear bones or tympanic membrane so you can feel the pressure in it, the painful one.

It could be anything. But surprisingly, what causes ear tinnitus the most today is the loud noise exposure. As we see that most of people grow with the newest technology, we often find them walking in the park, driving in the highway, doing the tasks, or even going to sleep at night with the earphone hang up in their ears. To us, it looks modern yet sophisticated. And they feel great at the same time for listening to the good music with a high volume and intensity. But, what they do not realize is that the habit can damage their hearing as well in silence.

How awful is that? And besides those things, stress and fatigue, some medications (such as: Aspirin) and other diseases of the inner ear can also cause the ear tinnitus.
As a conclusion, the ear tinnitus is not always the sign of a serious problem, but it is better if you can take it as a warning signal. Because in some cases, it can represent a symptom of many serious health conditions as brain aneurysm or brain tumor.

If you feel the tinnitus is troubling you, quickly go and see your doctor to know more about it. They will check your medical history, do the physical examination and do some series of special tests that can help them to determine where the tinnitus is originating. By doing that, the doctor will find out if the tinnitus is constant, intermittent, pulsating (synchronous with the heart beat), or is it associated with hearing loss or loss of balance.

One hundred percent of patients with the unexplained tinnitus will need a hearing test (audiogram), which the patterns of hearing loss will lead the doctor to the diagnosis. For further examination in some more urgent cases, the Auditory Brain System Response (ABR), a computerized test of the hearing nerves and brain pathways, a Computer Tomography Scan (CT scan) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can be needed to know if there is any tumor on the hearing or balance nerve that also can cause ear tinnitus.


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