Tinnitus refers to a noise a person hears without an apparent source in the external world. In as much as it can be caused by many things, in the same way that many things can cause a fever or pain in the stomach, tinnitus is a symptom, not a disease.

Ringing it the ears is the common way of describing tinnitus, although the sound a person hears can have many different characteristics in different people. Some of the descriptions people with tinnitus use to describe what they hear include: buzzing, humming, clicking, crackling, swooshing, static-like and, of course, ringing.

Whatever the character of the sound, there are many different causes of tinnitus. In the end, though, a specific cause is never found. Research continues, but the in the meantime focus is on ruling out some treatable causes and otherwise treat the symptom.

It helpful to think of two classes of tinnitus: objective and subjective.

With objective tinnitus, the patient actually is hearing a noise produced by their body. The most important cause of this type of tinnitus is a narrowing in one of the main arteries supplying the brain, the carotid artery.

The most common cause of such narrowing is hardening of the arteries. As the plaque build up, blood flow becomes turbulent, like water flowing in rapids, and sets up vibrations in the artery wall. A physician can hear these vibrations as a noise in the neck if he listens with a stethoscope. Since the carotid artery passes close to the ear, it’s not surprising that the patient may be able to hear it themselves.

This type of sound varies as with every heartbeat and people usually describe it as a “whoosh, whoosh” sound. Not to alarm you, but anyone with this type of tinnitus should check in with a physician because hardening of the arteries is a leading cause of stroke.

Another cause of subjective tinnitus is temporal-mandibular joint syndrome (TMJ). It this syndrome, tightness and spasm in the muscles of the jaw cause a number of symptoms. Pain is the most symptom, but spasms can cause noises arising from the joint.

The other classification of tinnitus is subjective. With subjective tinnitus, there is no actual sound from the body or elsewhere that the person hears.

Although there’s no source of the sound, it’s not imaginary. Functional brain scans show that people with tinnitus frequently have brain activity in the hearing areas of the brain even where there is no sound to hear. It appears that the brain is receiving signals through the hearing system even though there is no sound.

Common causes of tinnitus are chronic injury of the hearing mechanism from exposure to loud noises, wax in the ear canal, drug side effects (some common ones are listed else where).

Tags: cuases of tinnitus, tinnitus