Are you going crazy with that tinnitus in your ears? Discover whether your tinnitus is inherited or what the cause might be.
Tinnitus, what exactly is it?
A ringing, buzzing, or droning in the ears with no external cause of the sound is a condition called tinnitus. The term tinnitus translates to “ringing like a bell.”
How will tinnitus impact my day to day living?
Tinnitus can disrupt personal connections in several frustrating ways. It’s usually an indication that you have damaged hearing or some root health condition and not a disease in and of itself. You might hear tinnitus in one ear or both ears and it can hinder your ability to concentrate.
Tinnitus is always troublesome regardless of how it’s manifesting. influence your sleep and even trigger anxiety and depression.
What are the causes of tinnitus?
Tinnitus can be enduring or it can come and go. Short term varieties of tinnitus are normally brought on by prolonged exposure to loud sounds, such as a rock concert. Tinnitus has been documented to co-occur with several different medical conditions.
A few of the conditions that might play host to tinnitus include:
- Bruxism, more commonly referred to as teeth grinding caused by temporomandibular joint issues, or TMJ disorder
- Different medications
- Injuries that impact nerves of the ear
- Hearing loss associated with aging
- Inner ear cell damage and irritation of the delicate hairs used to conduct sound, causing arbitrary transmissions of sound to your brain
- A benign tumor, called acoustic neuroma, forms on cranial nerve
- Prolonged exposure to loud sound
- Changes in the composition of the ear bone
- Trauma to the neck or head
- Meniere’s Disease
- Infection of the inner ear
- Depression or anxiety
- Accumulation of excessive earwax
Could I have inherited this ringing in my ears from my parents?
Tinnitus isn’t directly hereditary. However, your genetics can play a role in this condition. You can, for instance, inherit a tendency for your ear bone to change. These changes are related to abnormal bone growth that can be passed down through family lines. A few of the other conditions that can produce ringing in the ear could be inherited from your parents, including:
- Certain diseases
- Predisposition to anxiety or depression
- Being prone to inner ear infections or wax build-up
You can’t directly inherit tinnitus, but there are conditions that become breeding grounds for tinnitus which you could have inherited.
If your family has a history of tinnitus, you should certainly come in for an evaluation.