Are you going mad with that tinnitus in your ears? Learn 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 daily living?
Tinnitus can be aggravating and can disrupt intimate interactions. It’s normally a sign that you have damaged hearing or some underlying health condition and not a disease in and of itself. Your ability to stay focused can be seriously interrupted when you begin to hear tinnitus in one or both ears.
Tinnitus is always troublesome regardless of how it’s manifesting. impact your sleep and even cause anxiety and depression.
What causes tinnitus?
Tinnitus can be constant or temporary. Temporary varieties of tinnitus are usually brought on by prolonged exposure to loud sounds, like a rock concert. There are a number of medical conditions that tend to go hand-in-hand with tinnitus.
Here are several situations that generally accompany tinnitus:
- Hearing loss related to aging
- Inner ear cell damage and irritation of the delicate hairs used to transport sound, causing random transmissions of sound to your brain
- Inner ear infections
- Injuries that impact nerves of the ear
- Teeth grinding (bruxism) caused by a TMJ disorder
- Exposure to loud sound for extended periods of time
- Buildup of excessive earwax
- Anxiety or depression
- Acoustic neuroma where a benign tumor forms on the cranial nerve running from the inner ear to the brain
- Head or neck traumas
- Meniere’s Disease
- Numerous medications
- Changes in the composition of the ear bone
Could I have inherited this tinnitus from my parents?
In general, tinnitus isn’t a hereditary condition. However, your genetics can play a part in this condition. You can, as an example, inherit a tendency for your ear bone to change. Abnormal bone growth can trigger these changes and can be passed down through genes. A few of the other conditions that can cause ringing in the ear may be inherited from your parents, including:
- Predisposition to anxiety or depression
- Being prone to inner ear infections or wax build-up
- Specific diseases
You can’t directly inherit tinnitus, but there are disorders 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.