Tinnitus - do you have ringing in the ears?

There are 2 types of tinnitus
1) objective which a clinician can hear with a stethoscope, can be one or both ears, and is typically pulsatile or heartbeat sounding. This should be evaluated by a professional because it could be a vascular tumor in the middle ear. It could be congenital thinness of bone located between the hearing portion of the inner/middle ear and the normal vascular channels that are located in close proximity (the internal carotid artery and the sigmoid sinus which turns into the internal jugular vein). It can be a venous hum, which is somewhat similar, but can be affected by turning your head and therefore decreasing the bloodflow through the offending vein.

2) Subjective tinnitus is the perception of sound when there is no actual sound. It can present as a variety of sounds including but not limited to "crickets", "wind", "ringing", "roaring", etc. If it is one sided it should definitely be evaluated by a professional because one can get a tumor on a hearing nerve and this is one of the more common presentations of this problem.
More commonly it is on both sides and is as a result of hearing loss. When one has sensorineural hearing loss, the brain for some reason "fills in" the hearing defect with the tinnitus. Clinical audiometers only test up to about 8 kHz, so if you have a "normal" hearing test, one can still have hearing loss above the limits of the testing device.
In the vast majority of patients, one is only left with masking the tinnitus. THis means that by having another noise around, the tinnitus is either not noticable or less noticable. This can be done by a "tinnitus masker" which is worn like a hearing aid and emits a sound to try to "cancel out" the tinnitus. If one does have demonstrable hearing loss on a hearing test, a hearing aid can improve their tinnitus in about 80% of patients while they wear them. THis is still by masking in that they are hearing things they weren't before.
NSAIDS can cause tinnitus, but this is typically very high doses as used for someone with rheumatoid arthritis, etc, instead of your typical 81mg of aspirin per day for cardiac purposes. If caused by NSAIDs then it should resolve after the medication has left your system.
Head trauma can cause tinnitus and unfortunately it is usually irreversible.
There are a number of homeopathic treatments, but none have proven to be consistently efficacious.
There have been some studies showing that tinnitus can be temporarily relieved (a few hours) by intravenous and transtympanic lidocaine. Unfortunatley transtympanic lidocaine can cause severe nausea.
Thiamine deficiency can supposedly cause tinnitus.
If memory doesn't fail me, the rule for industrial exposure to noise in terms of causing noise induced hearing loss and the associated tinnitus is : Ear plugs required for 90db for 8 hours and as the db increased the time limit decreases.
The only way that I can think of that H2O2 would help is for wax impactions.

reflexology and tinnitus is another way to help the problem.

this thread has been dormant for a while, and since I acquired a bout with tinnitus last year, which I recently managed to shake, I thought I would resurrect it, in case my situation if familiar to others.

My ears started ringing last year. At first I didn't know there was a name for the affliction, but good ol' Google helped me realize it was common. My first assumption was that it was because I listen to my rig 5-6 hours a day. The research I did both on the web, and consulting a physician made me realize that wasn't the most likely cause since my listening levels are typically 80-85 db at the loudest.

Indeed it turned out that in my case, the more likely cause was caffein. I like coffee, always have. I like it strong, really strong. I order quad latte's at Starbucks and they make fun of me.

On to the punch line - after putting up with the ringing that kept getting worse (I could hear it over the music, even when it was turned up), I decided to cut back on the coffee. 2 cups in the morning, that's all. It took about 3 weeks of low coffee intake and the ringing has stopped.

BDgregory

Thanks for the input. I too have a starbuck's addiction (super strong coffee) and a ringing left ear. I need to do what you have done and try cutting back on my caffein as the ringing is getting bothersome. Also I have read that alcohol can cause or worsen tinnitus. I enjoy drinking red wine, especially while listening to music. Like you, I also don't listen to my system at high levels but I do play the piano and it is a large grand and can be quite loud even if I play at low levels. So I will try to cut back on coffee and see if the ringing subsides. And again thanks for sharing your experience I think this is a bigger issue than most people realize.

Chuck

All salicylates will aggravate (or induce) tinnitus, not just aspirin. If you have tinnitus stay away from the worst offender--Pepto-Bismol (bismuth salicylate). I found out the time I took it and it kept me up all night listening to my ear sing LOUDLY (and it only knew one note)!