Do you have ringing in your ears that’s driving you mad? Discover whether your tinnitus is inherited or what the cause may be.
Tinnitus, what exactly is it?
A ringing, buzzing, or droning in the ears with no outside cause of the sound is a condition known as tinnitus. The term tinnitus translates to “ringing like a bell.”
How will tinnitus impact my everyday living?
Tinnitus can interrupt personal connections in several frustrating ways. It’s normally an indication that you have damaged hearing or some root health condition and not a disease in and of itself. You may hear tinnitus in one ear or both ears and it can impede your ability to concentrate.
Regardless of the way in which you’re experiencing tinnitus, it’s always disruptive. Sleep loss, anxiety, and even depression can also be triggered by tinnitus symptoms.
What are the causes of tinnitus?
Tinnitus can be long lasting or it can come and go. Sustained exposure to loud sound, like a rock concert, is typically the cause of short-term tinnitus. There are a few medical conditions that tend to go hand-in-hand with tinnitus.
A few of the conditions that could play host to tinnitus include:
- Anxiety or depression
- Meniere’s Disease
- Inner ear infections
- Excessive earwax build-up
- Exposure to loud sound for sustained time periods
- Hearing impairment associated with aging
- Trauma to the neck or head
- Acoustic neuroma where a benign tumor forms on the cranial nerve running from the inner ear to the brain
- The ear bone has changed
- Numerous medications
- Injuries that affect nerves of the ear
- Inner ear cell damage and irritation of the delicate hairs used to transport sound, causing random transmissions of sound to your brain
- Bruxism, generally known as teeth grinding caused by temporomandibular joint problems, or TMJ disorder
Is it possible that my parents could have passed down the ringing in my ears?
In general, tinnitus isn’t a hereditary condition. But the symptoms can be influenced by your genes. You can, as an example, inherit a tendency for your ear bone to change. Irregular bone growth can trigger these changes and can be passed down through genetics. Here are a few other conditions you may have inherited that can result in tinnitus:
- Being predisposed to depression or anxiety
- Being prone to inner ear infections or wax build-up
- Certain diseases
You can’t directly inherit tinnitus, but there are conditions that become breeding grounds for tinnitus which you may have inherited.
If your family has a history of tinnitus, you should definitely come in for an assessment.