Are you going mad with that tinnitus in your ears? Find out what causes tinnitus and whether you could have inherited it.
What is tinnitus?
A ringing, buzzing, or droning in the ears with no outside cause of the sound is a condition called tinnitus. The word tinnitus translates to “ringing like a bell.”
How will tinnitus affect my daily living?
Tinnitus can interrupt personal connections in several annoying ways. It isn’t a disease in and of itself, but it’s a symptom of other conditions or conditions in your life like hearing loss or injury. Your ability to stay focused can be significantly interrupted when you start to hear tinnitus in one or both ears.
Tinnitus is always troublesome regardless of how it’s manifesting. Sleep loss, anxiety, and even depression can also be caused by tinnitus symptoms.
What causes tinnitus?
Tinnitus can be constant or temporary. Temporary varieties of tinnitus are usually caused by extended exposure to loud sounds, like a rock concert. Tinnitus has been known to manifest with several different medical conditions.
Here are several situations that generally go along with tinnitus:
- Bruxism, more commonly known as teeth grinding caused by temporomandibular joint issues, or TMJ disorder
- Various medications
- Inner ear infections
- Excessive earwax accumulation
- A benign tumor, called acoustic neuroma, forms on cranial nerve
- Injuries that affect nerves of the ear
- Depression or anxiety
- Meniere’s Disease
- Inner ear cell damage and irritation of the sensitive hairs used to transport sound, causing arbitrary transmissions of sound to your brain
- Exposure to loud sound for sustained time periods
- Changes in the structure of the ear bone
- Age-related hearing impairment
- Trauma to the neck or head
Is it possible that my parents could have passed down the ringing in my ears?
Tinnitus isn’t directly hereditary. But the symptoms can be influenced by your genetics. You can, for instance, inherit a tendency for your ear bone to change. Irregular bone growth can trigger these changes and can be handed down through genes. Here are a few other conditions you may have inherited that can cause tinnitus:
- Being prone to inner ear infections or wax build-up
- Specific diseases
- Being predisposed to depression or anxiety
You can’t directly inherit tinnitus, but there are disorders that become breeding grounds for tinnitus which you might have inherited.
If your family has a history of tinnitus, you should definitely come in for an evaluation.
