Hear ringing in your ears? Don’t be so quick to dismiss it as ‘all in your head’ – KSL.com
Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
For those living with tinnitus, it almost seems impossible to remember life without all the noise in your ears (or head). At first, this might not seem like a serious problem; in fact, it may remind you of when you went to a concert and came home, and your ears would ring for a couple of days. But, now that you are getting older, that tinnitus is most certainly a sign that there is significant damage to your heari…….
Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
For those living with tinnitus, it almost seems impossible to remember life without all the noise in your ears (or head). At first, this might not seem like a serious problem; in fact, it may remind you of when you went to a concert and came home, and your ears would ring for a couple of days. But, now that you are getting older, that tinnitus is most certainly a sign that there is significant damage to your hearing system.
Diagnosing and treating tinnitus is a complex process, so complex that most people are told there is nothing that can be done about it. But Dr. Keith Darrow and his team of hearing healthcare specialists at Excellence In Audiology can help to reduce the tinnitus in nearly 80% of patients they work with. Darrow said, “The challenge with tinnitus is making the proper diagnosis and then developing the correct, custom treatment plan. No two people with tinnitus are alike, and therefore our treatment plans are tailored to meet each patient’s tinnitus and hearing needs”.
Steve R., a resident of Utah, and one of Darrow’s many patients, knows from personal experience the stress, anxiety, lack of sleep and inability to focus on his work that came with his tinnitus. Several years back, Steve first noticed his tinnitus only at night, or when the house was really quiet, but over time, he started to notice it more and more, and eventually it would get in the way of his ability to hear others. He describes what finally brought him to Darrow’s clinics, “I was sick of the ringing in my head. I was losing sleep, was not productive at work, and I was becoming less tolerable to be around at home. I was so desperate that I tried the magic pills, but nothing seemed to work.”
Steve, his wife and his two daughters knew something had to change or things would only get worse for all of them. Once they made the family decision for Steve to seek treatment at their local Excellence In Audiology certified clinic, they instantly knew he was in good hands. Steve and his family met with Darrow’s team for nearly an hour to talk about his experiences, how his tinnitus was impacting him at work and at home and how it was impacting everybody around him. They also discussed Steve’s goals for treatment.
Once Steve got through all of the testing, the diagnosis was clear. Steve, like over 90% of people with tinnitus, had been suffering with damage to his hearing system and this was the root cause of his ringing. As Darrow explains, “Damage to the ears, be it from age, noise or even medications, can compromise the neural connections from ear to brain and cause a …….
