Are you experiencing ringing in your ears that’s driving you crazy? Find out what causes tinnitus and whether you might have inherited it.
What is tinnitus?
Tinnitus is the term referring to a person’s perception of a ringing, droning, or buzzing in the ear with no external stimulus present to explain this experience. The word tinnitus translates to “ringing like a bell.”
How will tinnitus impact my everyday living?
Tinnitus can be annoying and can disrupt intimate interactions. It’s normally an indication that you have damaged hearing or some underlying health condition and not a disease in and of itself. Your concentration can be seriously disrupted when you begin to hear tinnitus in one or both ears.
Regardless of how you’re experiencing tinnitus, it’s always disruptive. impact your sleep and even cause anxiety and depression.
What are the causes of tinnitus?
Tinnitus can be enduring or it can come and go. Lengthy exposure to loud sound, such as a rock concert, is normally the cause of short-term tinnitus. Tinnitus has been known to manifest with a few different medical conditions.
Here are several conditions that generally accompany tinnitus:
- Different medications
- Head or neck injuries
- Hearing impairment related to aging
- Changes in the structure of the ear bone
- Inner ear cell damage and irritation of the delicate hairs used to conduct sound, causing random transmissions of sound to your brain
- Anxiety or depression
- Buildup of excessive earwax
- Prolonged exposure to loud noise
- Meniere’s Disease
- Teeth grinding (bruxism) caused by a TMJ disorder
- Injuries that impact nerves of the ear
- Acoustic neuroma where a benign tumor grows on the cranial nerve running from the brain to the inner ear
- Inner ear infections
Is it possible that my parents may have passed down the ringing in my ears?
Tinnitus isn’t directly inherited. However, your genetics can play a part in this condition. You can, for instance, inherit a tendency for your ear bone to change. Irregular bone growth can trigger these changes and can be passed down through family genes. Some of the other conditions that can cause ringing in the ear may be passed down from your parents, including:
- Being predisposed to depression or anxiety
- Being prone to inner ear infections or wax build-up
- Certain diseases
You can’t directly inherit tinnitus, but there are disorders that become breeding grounds for tinnitus which you could have inherited.
If you have a history of tinnitus in your family, it’s really in your best interest to schedule an appointment with us so we can evaluate your hearing.