Tinnitus is noises like hissing, ringing, swishing, clicking, roaring, pulsating, or another type of sounds which originating in one or both ears. The sound sensation is different for each individual. It could be continuous, intermittent, or pulsating. The loudness of the noise is varying also. Oftentimes, people with tinnitus disorder find it hard to sleep because the background sound is so quite. It is not a serious problem in many cases, but it is quite disturbing. Tinnitus is a symptom, not a single disease. Almost 36 millions of US citizens have this hearing disorder. People with severe tinnitus have difficulties to hear, work, or sleep.

It is not true that tinnitus causes hearing loss. The loss of hearing can not be associated with tinnitus, because no clinical research has been able to prove that loss of hearing caused by it nor it causes hearing loss. People with tinnitus usually have no problems with hearing. In a few cases, some people with tinnitus even have sensitive ears, this makes them muffling or masking the external voices by taking some steps.

Tinnitus varies in conditions. Sometimes, it can be caused of infection and the symptom is gone after the infected disease is treated. On different cases, tinnitus remains to happen even if the infection is cured. Some additional treatments, either by decreasing or covering it are needed to handle the ringing sounds.

In most people, tinnitus is caused by infection, injuries on the head, or exposures to extremely loud noise such as gunshot or explosions. Common diseases such as flu could also be the cause of tinnitus. Employees at heavy industrial machinery, power tools, or loud concerts are vulnerable to this symptom. Tinnitus can also caused by the blocking of Eustachian tube, the drugs that damage the ear such as antibiotics and aspirin, the injuring from blasts or explosions, hearing loss, the blocking of ear canal, tumors in the middle ear vessel, menjere’s diseases, and otosoleroris.

Diseases could also be the cause of tinnitus. People with anemia, disorder of heart and blood including hypertension, and low thyroid hormone level (hypothyroidism) are subjected to hear sounds in the ear. Some conditions are causing tinnitus too. The unwanted sounds could be resulted from wax build up which is able to block the ear, infections, or tumor on the auditory nerve.

Chronic tinnitus often happens to the elderly people, because the advancing age generally followed by numbers of hearing nerve impairments. Ringing sounds in the ear sometimes happen when somebody is in stressed or tired. So, with so many causes of tinnitus, people who experience it should consult with the doctor to find out the root causes of this symptom. But the most common case of tinnitus is enduring exposures to extreme loud sounds like explosions, gunshots, and heavy industrial machineries. The loud sounds cause permanent damage to a sensitive organ, cochlea, in the inner ear. Unfortunately not so many people concern about the damaging impact of terribly loud sounds, firearms, and high powered music.