Tinnitus is a condition in which you experience a persistent ringing in your ears. There are many causes for this. Some of them can be treated while others have a limited amount of treatments available. According to MayoClinicThe following are a few important things you need to know about tinnitus and the treatments that are available.
Confirm your diagnosis
The first thing you need to do is see your primary care physician. Your doctor will want to give you a physical and examine your ear carefully. There are many reasons for ringing in your ears, so your doctor will want to rule out anything that is creating this condition. In some cases, this ringing may be a symptom of another problem. Your doctor may also want to have a CT scan done to look for any issues near the ear that could be the cause of the ringing. Your medications will be double checked to make sure that the ringing is not due to a side effect from one a drug or a result of the interaction between two or more of your medications. If everything checks out fine, at this point, you will likely be sent to an ears, nose and throat specialist.
Visiting an ear specialist
On your first visit to an ears, nose and throat specialists, or ENT, you will likely be given a hearing test to check for any damage to your hearing. Usually, people who have tinnitus have good hearing, it is simply an issue with an annoying ringing. An ear doctor may be able to eliminate a few causes that a general practitioner is not aware of. A specialist, at this point, may begin looking at ways to reduce the ringing to help give you a better quality of life. Sometimes tinnitus will go away on its own, but more often, it is something you have to live with. If this is the case with you, then you should know about the possible treatments that are available to you.
Your diet can be a factor
According to experts atCentral Park ENT, certain things in your diet can make your tinnitus worse. One example is caffeine. This has been known to create a temporary ringing in the ears, even for those without tinnitus, but when you suffer from this condition, it can often aggravate the problem. For this reason, you need to reduce or eliminate the caffeine you consume on a daily basis.
Over-the-counter medications
There are many possibilities here that may help relieve your symptom. The most common type of medication is not even a medication but a dietary supplement. Some of them seek to improve your circulation, and this is thought to reduce the noise in your ears. There are also herbal supplements that have been effective for many people. One example is gingko biloba. This herb is thought to help tinnitus because of its effect on blood circulation.
Medications
One possible treatment for tinnitus are pharmaceuticals. In particular, it is the class of anti-depressant drugs that have proven helpful to many people. Naturally, these medications must be prescribed by a doctor, but it is something you might want to explore. Keep in mind that there is no cure for this condition, but this class of drugs can often help relieve anxiety and relax you. This in turn can reduce the number of occurrences of tinnitus as well as the strength of the ringing that you experience.
Relaxation
Of course, you may not need any pharmaceuticals to relax, and relaxing has shown to be effective for many people. What you need to do is get away from as much of the sounds around you as possible. The next step is to listen to sounds that are relaxing. The sounds of nature are usually a good choice. You can buy CDs that contain sound loops of a brook with running water and the gentle sounds of the forest.
Noise masking
These have become popular with tinnitus sufferers, and many of these people swear by it. In short, it is a device that delivers white noise to a person’s ear. This high-frequency sound then masks the ringing in a person’s ear. There are electronic devices that produce this noise, and they are available in a variety of designs.
