Can Tinnitus Appear From Concussions?
Can tinnitus appear from concussions? Accidents happen all the time. You can easily suffer an injury due to your own negligence or someone else’s. Head injuries often result in concussions. And if you are suffering from a concussion, then this can easily result in tinnitus.
If you haven’t heard about this term before, here’s a brief explanation. It is the sensation of something ringing in your ears when there isn’t noise around you at all. You can experience it or not depends on the type of head injury you have suffered. Check out the link if you want to learn more about concussions https://www.brainline.org/article/16-things-about-concussion-parents-need-know.
The high-pitched ringing can appear in one ear or two. It can also appear periodically and sometimes consistently without disappearing. In other words, you might experience it every single day. This can be uncomfortable for a lot of people, especially if they can’t find a way to deal with it. But, you should know that everyone has experienced ringing in their ears because of a number of reasons.
The sound you might experience is a high-pitched ringing sound. Patients have also described the noises as static, buzzing, pulsing, and whooshing.
In this article, you will find the causes of post-concussion tinnitus. Here are some of them:
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Can Tinnitus Appear From Concussions: Concussion “Labyrinthine”
Plenty of people with this type of concussion have damage to the inner ear. But, you should know that this type doesn’t result in bone fractures. If you have been diagnosed with this medical injury, you should know that patients have suffered from total loss of hearing. And, when there’s nothing you hear around you, this is where the ringing starts.
If you want to discover more, you should talk to your doctor. The only answers you actually need will be provided to you through the guidance of a medical expert. Even if you end up losing your hearing, it is not the end of the world. There are always hearing aids that you can wear to restore your hearing.
Ossicular Chain Disruption
Three small bones consist of the ossicular chain. These tiny bones aid in the transmission of sound from the tympanic membrane to the inner ear’s cochlea.
Head trauma may result in these three small bones being misaligned, leading to conductive hearing loss. And it eventually causes tinnitus. If you start to experience the ringing because of bone damage, then it is called somatic tinnitus. Read more here.
Meniere’s Syndrome
A head injury can occasionally result in a problem called Meniere’s Syndrome. This problem arises due to the build-up of pressure inside the ear. The pressure causes more than a necessary movement of the ear fluid, affecting both your balance and hearing.
In addition to damaging your hearing, tinnitus symptoms may result from this unusual ear pressure. You should know that there’s no cure for this syndrome. However, specific meds and steroids can relieve a person from its symptoms. This also works for tinnitus.
Sensorineural Hearing Loss
The sensorineural loss of hearing also accompanies tinnitus. This happens when damage occurs inside the inner ear responsible for transmitting sound to the auditory nerve or the hair-like cells. Sometimes, it does not contribute to complete hearing loss, but it typically affects those frequencies.
Researchers, however, still do not fully understand why tinnitus occurs with hearing loss, but what is apparent is that the loss of specific sound frequencies transforms the sound processing of the human brain. This ensures that your brain can respond to the new shift when your brain encounters lower-than-normal external stimuli at a specific frequency.
A lot of researchers pose a hypothesis that tinnitus can be the result of the brain trying to fill the lost sound that the frequencies can no longer get.
Temporomandibular Joint Disorder
Another form of tinnitus associated with head injury (somatic tinnitus) occurs after the temporomandibular joint is impaired. This joint can be located in front of your ears, where the lower jaw is attached to the skull. The temporomandibular joint shares the middle ear with nerve connections and ligaments, causing damage to the cartilage of the jaw or muscles to result in tinnitus after a blow to the head.
If you happen to experience tinnitus because of this disorder, there’s a chance that you might experience other symptoms as well. Those symptoms include limited jaw motion, pain in the jaw or face, popping sound when you chew something.
Is there a treatment?
It is possible to treat most tinnitus symptoms following an injury to the head, such as a concussion, by discovering and fixing the root cause. For example, several times, undergoing surgery to repair the ossicular chain disturbance results in the relief of symptoms of tinnitus. This is why it’s vital to have an in-depth diagnosis with an ear specialist.
Therefore, there’s no way to treat it if tinnitus results from the way the brain processes sounds. But there are still ways that the accompanying symptoms can be managed by the patient.
The truth is that you should learn to manage tinnitus because there’s no cure for it. lots of people try to do this with a device, also known as a “mask.” It resembles a hearing aid, and it is used for creating customized sounds to drown those annoying ringing sounds you hear all day.
You can also try using white noise sounds such as those of nature, a fan, and even music. Who doesn’t want to listen to music?
Can Tinnitus Appear From Concussions: Other treatments to try
If the one mentioned above doesn’t suit or help you, here are some treatment options that you can give a shot. Some of those include cognitive-behavioral therapy, acupuncture, exercise, and meditation. The last two options are incredibly beneficial for your body and your mental health because they make you happier and calmer.
You shouldn’t allow tinnitus to control your life. People that see it as a threat often are anxious, nervous, and stressed. This is not the way to go through life. Therefore, here are some options you can try and see which one works best for you.
