Are you experiencing ringing in your ears that’s driving you crazy? 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 called tinnitus. The word tinnitus translates to “ringing like a bell.”
How will tinnitus affect my daily living?
Tinnitus can be aggravating and can disrupt intimate interactions. It’s normally an indication that you have damaged hearing or some root health condition and not a disease in and of itself. Your concentration can be seriously disrupted when you begin to hear tinnitus in one or both ears.
Tinnitus is always troublesome regardless of how it’s manifesting. influence your sleep and even trigger anxiety and depression.
What causes tinnitus?
Tinnitus can be persistent or temporary. Short term varieties of tinnitus are normally caused by prolonged exposure to loud sounds, such as a rock concert. There are a few medical issues that tend to go hand-in-hand with tinnitus.
Here are several conditions that typically go along with tinnitus:
- Sustained exposure to loud sound
- Head or neck traumas
- Different medications
- Inner ear cell damage and irritation of the delicate hairs used to transport sound, causing arbitrary transmissions of sound to your brain
- Age-related hearing loss
- Bruxism, more commonly known as teeth grinding caused by temporomandibular joint problems, or TMJ disorder
- Changes in the structure of the ear bone
- Meniere’s Disease
- Anxiety or depression
- Acoustic neuroma where a benign tumor grows on the cranial nerve going from the inner ear to the brain
- Excessive earwax build-up
- Infection of the inner ear
- Injuries that affect nerves of the ear
Could I have inherited this tinnitus from my parents?
In general, tinnitus isn’t a hereditary condition. However, your genes can play a role in this symptom. For instance, ear bone changes that can lead to tinnitus can be inherited. Abnormal bone growth can trigger these changes and can be passed down through genes. Here are some other conditions you might have inherited that can trigger tinnitus:
- Being prone to inner ear infections or wax build-up
- Certain diseases
- Being predisposed to depression or anxiety
The ringing in your ear isn’t directly inheritable, but you may have been genetically predisposed to the conditions that are breeding grounds for tinnitus.
If your family has a history of tinnitus, you should certainly come in for an assessment.
