You Know when you’re viewing an action movie and the hero has a thunderous explosion nearby and their ears begin to ring? Well, guess what: that probably means our hero suffered at least a minor traumatic brain injury!
To be sure, brain injuries aren’t the part that most action movies focus on. But that high-pitched ringing is something known as tinnitus. Usually, hearing loss is the topic of a tinnitus conversation, but traumatic brain injuries can also cause this condition.
After all, one of the most prevalent traumatic brain injuries is a concussion. And there are quite a few reasons concussions can happen (car crashes, sporting accidents, and falls, for example). How something like a concussion causes tinnitus can be, well, complicated. But here’s the good news: even if you sustain a brain injury that causes tinnitus, you can normally treat and manage your condition.
Concussions, exactly what are they?
A concussion is a particular type of traumatic brain injury (TBI). One way to think about it is that your brain is protected by sitting snuggly in your skull. The brain will begin to move around inside your skull when something shakes your head violently. But because there’s so little extra space in there, your brain could literally smash into the inside of your skull.
This causes harm to your brain! Multiple sides of your skull can be impacted by your brain. And when this happens, you experience a concussion. When you visualize this, it makes it easy to see how a concussion is quite literally brain damage. Symptoms of concussions include the following:
- Headaches
- Ringing in the ears
- Blurry vision or dizziness
- Loss of memory and confusion
- A slow or delayed response to questions
- Slurred speech
- Nausea and vomiting
This list is not complete, but you get the point. Several weeks to a few months is the normal duration of concussion symptoms. When someone gets a single concussion, they will typically make a full recovery. But, repetitive or multiple concussions are a bigger problem (generally speaking, it’s the best idea to avoid these).
How do concussions trigger tinnitus?
Is it actually feasible that a concussion could affect your hearing?
It’s an interesting question: what is the connection between tinnitus and concussions? After all, concussions are not the only brain traumas that can trigger tinnitus symptoms. Even mild brain injuries can result in that ringing in your ears. Here are a few ways that might occur:
- Damage to your hearing: For members of the armed forces, TBIs and concussions are often a result of distance to an explosion. Irreversible hearing loss can be caused when the stereocilia in your ears are injured by the incredibly noisy shock wave of an explosion. Tinnitus isn’t necessarily caused by a concussion, but they definitely do share some root causes.
- Disruption of communication: In some cases, the portion of your brain that controls hearing can become harmed by a concussion. When this happens, the messages that get sent from your ear can’t be correctly processed, and tinnitus may happen as a result.
- Interruption of the Ossicular Chain: There are three bones in your ear that help send sounds to your brain. These bones can be pushed out of place by a significant concussive, impactive event. This can interrupt your ability to hear and result in tinnitus.
- Nerve damage: A concussion may also cause injury to the nerve that is responsible for transferring the sounds you hear to your brain.
- Meniere’s Syndrome: The development of a condition known as Meniere’s Syndrome can be a consequence of a TBI. When pressure accumulates in the inner ear this condition can occur. Significant hearing loss and tinnitus can become a problem over time as a result of Menier’s disease.
- A “labyrinthine” concussion: This kind of concussion occurs when the inner ear is injured due to your TBI. Tinnitus and hearing loss, due to inflammation, can be the consequence of this damage.
It’s significant to emphasize that every traumatic brain injury and concussion is a little different. Personalized care and instructions, from us, will be given to every patient. You should certainly give us a call for an assessment if you think you may have suffered a traumatic brain injury.
How do you deal with tinnitus from a concussion?
Usually, it will be a temporary challenge if tinnitus is the result of a concussion. How long can tinnitus linger after a concussion? Well, it might last weeks or possibly months. But, it’s likely that your tinnitus is irreversible if it lasts more than a year. In these circumstances, the treatment approach changes to managing your symptoms over the long term.
This can be accomplished by:
- Masking device: This device is a lot like a hearing aid, but instead of helping you hear things louder, it produces a particular noise in your ear. Your particular tinnitus symptoms dictate what sound the device will generate helping you disregard the tinnitus sounds and be better able to pay attention to voices and other external sounds.
- Hearing aid: Sometimes, tinnitus becomes prominent because the rest of the world takes a back seat (as is the situation with non-TBI-caused hearing loss, everything else gets quieter, so your tinnitus sounds louder). A hearing aid can help raise the volume of everything else, assuring that your tinnitus fades into the background.
- Therapy: Sometimes, patients can learn to ignore the sound by undertaking cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). You acknowledge that the noise is present, and then disregard it. It will require some therapy, practice, and time though.
Achieving the desired result will, in some situations, require added therapies. Getting rid of the tinnitus will frequently require treatment to the underlying concussion. Depending on the nature of your concussion, there may be a number of possible courses of action. As a result, a precise diagnosis is extremely important in this regard.
Talk to us about what the ideal treatment plan might look like for you.
TBI-caused tinnitus can be managed
A concussion can be a significant and traumatic event in your life. It’s never a good day when you get concussed! And if your ears are ringing, you may ask yourself, why do I have ringing in my ears after a car accident?
It could be days later or instantly after the crash that tinnitus symptoms surface. But you can successfully control tinnitus after a crash and that’s important to keep in mind. Schedule a consultation with us today.
