Are you experiencing ringing in your ears that’s driving you crazy? Find out what causes tinnitus and whether you may have inherited it.
Tinnitus, what exactly is it?
Tinnitus is the term referring to a person’s perception of a ringing, droning, or buzzing in the ear with no external noises present to explain this experience. The word tinnitus translates to “ringing like a bell.”
How will tinnitus impact my everyday living?
Tinnitus can disrupt personal connections in many aggravating ways. It’s normally a sign 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 hinder your ability to focus.
Tinnitus is always disruptive regardless of how it’s manifesting. influence your sleep and even cause anxiety and depression.
What causes tinnitus?
Tinnitus can be enduring or it can come and go. Temporary types of tinnitus are normally caused by extended exposure to loud noises, such as a rock concert. Tinnitus has been documented to manifest with several different medical issues.
Here are a few conditions that generally accompany tinnitus:
- Exposure to loud noise for prolonged time periods
- Different medications
- Head or neck traumas
- Infection of the inner ear
- Hearing loss associated with aging
- Inner ear cell damage and irritation of the fragile hairs used to conduct sound, causing arbitrary transmissions of sound to your brain
- Teeth grinding (bruxism) caused by a TMJ disorder
- Meniere’s Disease
- Acoustic neuroma where a benign tumor grows on the cranial nerve running from the inner ear to the brain
- Injuries that affect nerves of the ear
- Depression or anxiety
- Changes in the composition of the ear bone
- Excessive earwax build-up
Is it possible that my parents could have passed down the ringing in my ears?
In general, tinnitus isn’t an inherited condition. However, your genetics can play a part in this symptom. You can, for instance, inherit a tendency for your ear bone to change. These changes are caused by irregular bone growth that can be handed down through family lines. A few of the other conditions that can lead to ringing in the ear could be inherited from your parents, including:
- Predisposition to anxiety or depression
- Specific diseases
- Being prone to inner ear infections or wax build-up
The ringing in your ear is not directly inheritable, but you might have been genetically susceptible to the disorders that are breeding grounds for tinnitus.
If your family has a history of tinnitus, you should definitely come in for an evaluation.
