Tinnitus can sometimes be a serious matter, causing distress even to the point
of despair. (Consider what it would be like to hear a sound like that of a
jetliner taking off immediately over your head for every waking moment of the
rest of your life.) It is also sometimes accompanied by hyperacusis, or pain on
the ears' being exposed to even moderately loud sounds.
Tinnitus can be caused by lots of things: exposure to loud sounds (either
continuing or sudden, like the report of a gun), of course, but also trauma to
the head, ingestion of certain drugs (especially the aminoglycoside
antibiotics, but even aspirin can do it in large quantities), muscular tension.
Depending on its pitch and other characteristics, it can also by a symptom of
serious conditions in their own right, such as Meniere's Disease or Multiple
Sclerosis.
The latest theories are inclined toward supposing that tinnitus is caused by
some sort of damage either to the cochlea (in the ear) or to the auditory
cortex itself: the perceived sound may sometimes be the result of the
brain "turning up the gain on its amplifier" in an effort to hear the sounds in
the pitch range of the ringing/hissing in which the acuity of the hearing has
been reduced.
I've done a lot of research on this, and am subscribed to the on-line Tinnitus
Newsletter; as far as anyone of whom I am aware knows, there is no cure for
tinnitus (repair of the cochlear or neural damage is still far in medicine's
future), though some people get some relief in various directions: herbals,
drugs, acupuncture, Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. Some people spend a lot of
money in a vain search for a cure or amelioration, while for some lucky others,
the tinnitus spotaneously vanishes, even after months or years.
First order of business: protect your hearing. Glad to learn you are already
doing that.
Second order of business: get your hearing assessed by either an audiologist or
an oto-rhino-laryngologist (usually now called ear, nose and throat specialist,
or ENT). You may not get much sympathy: even hearing specialists are likely to
say, "Get used to it" or "Mask it with noise." I think this is both because we
are primates and thus visual animals, so usually -- musicians are often an
exception! -- care less about our hearing than vision (and this despite the
fact that deafness is much more isolating than blindness: the suicide rate
among the hearing-impaired is far higher than that among the visually
impaired), and because there may not be a lot the healing arts can yet do for
people with tinnitus.
Good luck.
Windsor Viney
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
> Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:08:35 EST
> From: Dcammaro@aol.com
> To: shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Ear Problems??
> Message-ID: <7d.33fa1d77.2b5d7903@aol.com>
>
> I've noticed that I've developed ringing in my ears.
[etc.]
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