Saturday, March 23, 2024

Is Tinnitus Bad For Your Brain

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Ethics Approval And Consent To Participate

STOP TINNITUS: How To Quiet Your Brain With Your Hands | Dr. Mandell

The present study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital . Obtaining written consent from the study participants was unnecessary because the NHI data set comprises de-identified secondary data for research directions. The Institutional Review Board of Taipei Veterans General Hospital issued a formal written waiver for the demand for consent.

What Am I Talking About

Here is the psychological cycle I am talking about. When someone has ringing in the ears, it can either be mild or not. If its not mild, then the person will start having difficulty coping in social settings, be it at work, with family and friends and finding listening to music or watching TV, a painstaking mission.

The person begins to feel anxious causing them to withdraw from social interaction and abstain from multimedia engagement. He or she gets frustrated and angry and can display a lot of mood changes.

The person can then likely fall into a depression. The brain is an absolutely powerful thing and works with chemical balances to function at its best. Depression causes an imbalance in the brain and must be diagnosed and treated as soon as possible.

So what happens if this depression is not treated properly?

If not picked up early, then it may be too late. The individual starts getting suicidal tendencies and the last straw is drawn and LIFE comes to an END.

So is tinnitus dangerous? Yes, if the mind finds the tinnitus really unbearable,then it can be a threat to the persons life.

How significant is Tinnitus in our community?

According to the American Tinnitus Association, there are roughly 2million people who find tinnitus to significantly affect their lives.

Just out of interest, did you know that famous tinnitus sufferers include Star Trek actor, William Shatner, Comedian Steve Martin and Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan.

You Really Need To Turn The Tv Down: Loud Noises Are Bad For Tinnitus

Its nearly impossible to avoid loud noises. Thats a fact. It doesnt matter whether its part of your job, youre mowing the lawn, enjoying a fireworks show, or just listening to the TV a little too loudly.

These and other loud noises cause permanent hearing loss. For many people, tinnitus, which is characterized as a ringing in the ears, is an early sign of hearing loss.

The good news is that you can take steps now to prevent further hearing damage from loud noise. You can start by wearing protection for your ears such as earplugs or earmuffs if you work in a loud environment or spend a lot of time at loud concerts. When you have a choice, try to spend less time in noisy places like nightclubs. And most importantly, never try to drown out noise with music, because that really just makes things worse.

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Does Alcohol Make Ringing In My Ears Worse

Alcohol is a huge contributing factor to tinnitus and hearing loss. For many, a glass of wine with dinner or a nightcap is a simple luxury theyd rather not give up, but this one little thing could be making your tinnitus worse.

Alcohol not only increases tinnitus but over time it increases your risk of permanent hearing loss. Alcohol actually raises your blood pressure, which as we covered earlier affects blood flow to the ears, which can cause permanent cell death.

Make note of when the tinnitus volume increases or becomes more noticeable. Does it coincide with an alcoholic drink? You may need to limit your liquor consumption to protect your hearing.

What Causes Tinnitus Brain Scans Show Multiple Areas Are Responsible For Perpetual Ringing

10 Bad Habits That Damage your Brain

Most of us know it as that ringing sound we hear after a loud concert, but an estimated 45 million Americans experience some form of the condition, which is called tinnitus, with 20 million constantly suffering from it, unsure of where the sound is coming from. But now, a new study has shed some light on the source of that sound.

Taking advantage of a rare opportunity to observe the brain of someone with tinnitus this person had to undergo surgery for epilepsy researchers from the University of Iowa and Newcastle University discovered that the condition affects areas of the brain beyond the primary auditory cortex. They found this persons brain was also active in the areas involved with the broader perceptions of noises, including those that control attention, memory, and emotion, New Scientist reported.

Its like when youre walking home on a dark night and you can hear every little flicker of sound that would normally go unnoticed, Will Sedley, of the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle, told New Scientist. Maybe in people with tinnitus, the high alert activity somehow kicks in, gains access to wider perception networks in the brain, and is difficult to dislodge.

In other words, tinnitus may occur when the brain amplifies sounds that normally wouldnt enter our consciousness.

Source: Sedley W, Gander P, Kumar S, et al. Intracranial Mapping of a Cortical Tinnitus System using Residual Inhibition. Current Biology. 2015.

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Tinnitus The Troublemaker In Your Brain

The music is jubilant and lively. But suddenly, a shrill, high note on the violin begins to pull at the nerves: In his string quartet, From my Life, the Czech composer Bedich Smetana translated the ringing noise in his ears into music. The composer describes his experience in a letter: But the greatest torture is caused me by the almost continuous internal noise which goes on in my head and sometimes rises to a thunderous crashing.

Like Smetana, more than 50 million people in the United States experience tinnitus: a sound they can hear when no actual sound is present. The name tinnitus comes from Latin and describes the ringing sound described by many patients. 20 million people are estimated to struggle with a chronic form, while 2 million suffer from an extreme form of tinnitus. So far, there is no cure that makes the sound disappear in all forms of tinnitus most therapies aim to help patients cope better with the constant sound, which can be so uncomfortable that tinnitus sufferers have been driven to suicide. But a new model suggests that tinnitus is the side effect of a mechanism that improves hearing, and points towards potential new ways for treating tinnitus.

Should I Be Concerned About Tinnitus

Even though tinnitus is often benign, there are some specific symptoms that should alert people to seek medical evaluation:

  • pulsatile tinnitus of any kind
  • tinnitus in one ear only
  • bothersome tinnitus that cannot be ignored
  • tinnitus associated with room-spinning sensations
  • tinnitus associated with sudden changes or fluctuations in hearing status.

If you experience tinnitus with any of the symptoms above, it is important to discuss them with your doctor or an otolaryngologist, who is a specialist in diagnosing, managing, and treating medical conditions of the head and neck, including the ears.

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What You Need To Know About Tinnitus

You dont need me to tell you that finding a cure for tinnitus can be a very challenging experience mainly because it is so hard to determine why you are hearing these crazy sounds in your head that no-one else can. It is enough to drive anyone up the wall! While finding effective treatment can be challenging, it is not an impossible task and there are some home remedies that may work. So lets get to these 10 ways on how to stop tinnitus using home remedies that you need to try right now!

Stop tinnitus using home remedies

1. Stay positive

While staying positive will not stop tinnitus, it is an important step as you seek relief from tinnitus. Staying positive will keep you trying various methods and not give up hope until you find what works to get rid of your tinnitus.

Being negative will not be productive at all and will only lead you to becoming angry, depressed, isolating yourself, developing addictions to drugs or alcohol, becoming suicidal and every negative emotion and behavior out there. It will be hard. You will want to give up but dont let tinnitus rob you of your life. There is a solution for every problem. You just need to do the work to find it and staying positive will help you get up every morning and continue fighting.

Another benefit of staying positive is that it will help with stress. Many people with tinnitus report that when they are stressed, tinnitus symptoms are much worse and once stress is reduced or eliminated, the symptoms arent as bothersome.

Hearing Aids For Tinnitus

Research Shows Tinnitus May Affect Brain Responses

Sometimes all it takes is finding the right app for tinnitus or even simply wearing hearing aids for tinnitus, since hearing loss and tinnitus often go hand-in-hand. Learn more about hearing aids for tinnitus.

In my opinion, the best way forward is to pick a strategy, stick to it for a while, and be disciplined in your approach. Because habituation can take time, regardless of how you choose to go about it.

But its worth the effort, because the end result is getting your life back, and at the end of the day, thats what most tinnitus sufferers really want.

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Your Ears Give Madame Tussaud A Run For Her Money

No, your ears are not a world-famous wax museum.

Sometimes people get tinnitus because they are over-producing wax, which can happen when people try to clean their ears with a cotton swab.

Cleaning your ears with cotton swabs can push old, dirty wax that was on its way out of the canal back into the ear and can also cause your ear to react by producing more wax. Both of these things can result in a blockage of the ear canal, which can cause ringing in the ears.

When you use a cotton swab, make sure you only clean the outside of your ear. If you think you have too much wax build-up in your ears, you should have a hearing specialist check your ears. Theyll determine the best course of action for you, which usually involves a professional removing the excess wax.

Factors That Contribute To Insomnia For A Person With Tinnitus

Sleep disturbance usually involves a combination of:

  • health problems for example, arthritis, migraines or asthma
  • psychological factors for example, stress or emotional crisis
  • drug use for example, alcohol or sleeping medication
  • disturbing environments for example, an uncomfortable bed or intrusive lighting
  • conditioning for example, the more you associate bed with struggling to get to sleep, the harder it is to relax there.

To successfully improve your sleep patterns, you will need to look at all the contributing factors.Research has shown that relaxation techniques, such as yoga, meditation, biofeedback and progressive relaxation, can work well. Experiment and find the technique that works for you. You might like to try a regular relaxation class or use a self-help relaxation app.It may also help if you:

  • try and get up at the same time every day
  • reserve your bed for sleeping avoid arguments or serious discussions in bed
  • avoid naps during the day
  • experiment with low-intensity background noises in the bedroom, for example, leave the radio playing softly or play tape recordings of ocean surf.
  • alcohol
  • tea, coffee and caffeinated soft drinks
  • cigarettes.

Regular exercise helps you to cope better with stress and reduce fatigue, both of which can make sleeping more difficult or disturbed.

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Can I Train My Brain To Ignore Tinnitus

When I fist was diagnosed with tinnitus the idea that I could somehow train my brain to ignore tinnitus seemed absurd and perhaps a little too simple to be true. So like many tinnitus sufferers I ran the gauntlet of conventional medicine and the rollercoaster of alternative medicines. None of which came close to easing my ear ringing. However, I had all but given up on my quest for relief when I stumble upon a little know and somewhat novel concept. And that was can I train my brain to ignore tinnitus?

Can I train my brain to ignore tinnitus?

But lets start right back at the beginning..Like you I had tinnitus and it was driving me crazy! You know the drill, the sleepless nights and the agitation. Slogging through your day grasping at the hope that they will find a cure or it will somehow go away on its own. Well, I hate to burst your bubble because as you might already know if youve had tinnitus for over 6 months, its pretty much there to stay.

However, hang on in there with me and DO NOT DESPAIR! This story does have a silver lining.

So I was desperate to put a stop to the insidious racket within the confines of my cranium.

Id previously been told by my doctor, the ENT and an audiologist that the tinnitus will more than likely never go away, in fact it could get worse the older I get. I didnt like that prospect whatsoever. Im the type that has to go down fighting or at least find a happy medium.

I wanted to fill my ears with cement

What Are You Paying Attention To

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And now you want to know precisely how tinnitus is going to impact your brain. Tinnitus has repercussions for your brain because your brain is wired to pay attention to sounds.

When your tinnitus acts up, your brain goes into a heightened state. Its looking for the source of that sound. Your brain wants to know whether that source is a danger or not .

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Tinnitus Causes Changes In The Brain

Tinnitus causes the brain to be more connected with the network in the brain that is active when something holds a persons attention. The changes made by tinnitus also make the brain less connected with that network in the brain which is used when a person relaxes. This affects persons with tinnitus in a negative way because it makes them more tired and unfocused. These are the findings in an American study.

Lifting The Signal Above The Limit

Their model is based on stochastic resonance, and Schulze credits a postdoc in his group, Patrick Krauss, with the initial idea. Stochastic resonance is the name for a phenomenon that can occur when a signal is too weak to be detected. When noise is added to the weak signal, the combination of signal and noise may be strong enough for the sensor to detect the signal. This could be at work in our hearing system, says Schulze. We think that this occurs at the first point at which information from our ears reaches our brain, at the dorsal cochlear nucleus . We presume that here, the flow of information to our brain is continually optimized. When less information reaches the DCN, too little to be sent on to the next relay point, neuronal noise is added. The sum of the original signal and the noise is then strong enough to be passed on. This is a fine-tuning mechanism to continually optimize information transmission in our auditory system.

In this model, tinnitus is noise in the system that can be heard. When hearing is damaged, the flow of information from the neurons covering these frequencies is reduced. To improve hearing, more noise is added to the weak signal. This boosts the signal and partly compensates for the damage, but the increased neuronal activity is perceived as tinnitus.

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What Does Tinnitus Have To Do With My Brain

Tinnitus is a condition in which you hear sounds that arent there. Typically, what you hear is a buzzing or ringing, but tinnitus-caused sounds could also take the form of clicking or whooshingthere are plenty of varieties, lets just put it that way.

First and foremost, tinnitus is a hearing condition and is often experienced by people who also have hearing loss. But thats not exclusively the case. There are several underlying issues that could cause tinnitus. Theres Menieres Disease, ear infections, traumatic brain injuries, ear traumayou get the idea.

At first glance, then, you might assume that tinnitus is strictly an ear issue. Its true that the ear is often where the root problem will be located. But the work of interpreting sounds is done by your good old brain. So maybe its not all that surprising that research suggests that tinnitus seems to have a direct impact on your brain.

Why Is My Tinnitus Worse When It Rains Might Be The Air Pressure

A new treatment for tinnitus | The Check Up

Does the ringing in your ears get worse right before torrential summer rains? Or maybe its during the warm-up period at the end of winter when the buzzing of your tinnitus is hardest to ignore. Curiously, its not the precipitation or the temperature that might be making your tinnitus worse. Its the air pressure.

The fault lies in your inner ear. The fluid in your inner ear, after all, is designed to help you detect all kinds of changes . But that fluid makes your inner ear especially sensitive to changes in air pressure.

When the pressure suddenly changes, your inner ear reactsand this can cause a flare-up in your tinnitus symptoms. These flare-ups tend to be the worst in the Spring when drops in barometric pressure are the most extreme. But changes in atmospheric pressure can also be common when youre flying.

Theres no cure for tinnitus, of course, but keeping an eye on the weather could help you better manage any flare-ups in your symptoms. Likewise, if you plan to fly, you can plan some self-care accordingly to try to keep your tinnitus symptoms under control.

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