Are you experiencing ringing in your ears that’s driving you mad? Learn whether your tinnitus is inherited or what the cause might be.
Tinnitus, what exactly is it?
Tinnitus is the name referring to a person’s perception of a ringing, droning, or buzzing in the ear with no external noises present to explain this sensation. The direct translation of the term tinnitus is”ringing like a bell”.”
How will tinnitus affect my daily living?
Tinnitus can disrupt personal connections in several annoying ways. It’s usually a sign that you have damaged hearing or some root health condition and not a disease in and of itself. Your concentration can be significantly disrupted when you begin to hear tinnitus in one or both ears.
Regardless of the way in which you’re experiencing tinnitus, it is always bothersome. Tinnitus can affect your sleep and even trigger anxiety and depression.
What causes tinnitus?
Tinnitus can be persistent or temporary. Lengthy exposure to loud noise, such as a rock concert, is normally the cause of temporary tinnitus. Tinnitus has been known to manifest with a few different medical conditions.
Here are several situations that typically go along with tinnitus:
- Bruxism, more commonly referred to as teeth grinding caused by temporomandibular joint issues, or TMJ disorder
- Inner ear infections
- Buildup of excessive earwax
- Head or neck traumas
- Age-related hearing loss
- Changes in the composition of the ear bone
- A benign tumor, called acoustic neuroma, grows on cranial nerve
- Exposure to loud noise for sustained periods of time
- Depression or anxiety
- Meniere’s Disease
- Several medications
- Inner ear cell damage and irritation of the sensitive hairs used to transport sound, causing arbitrary transmissions of sound to your brain
- Injuries that impact nerves of the ear
Is it possible that my parents could have passed down the ringing in my ears?
Tinnitus isn’t directly hereditary. However, your genetics can play a role in this symptom. You can, as an example, inherit a tendency for your ear bone to change. Irregular bone growth can trigger these changes and can be handed down through genetics. A few of the other conditions that can lead to ringing in the ear may be inherited from your parents, including:
- Predisposition to anxiety or depression
- Being prone to inner ear infections or wax build-up
- Specific diseases
You can’t directly inherit tinnitus, but there are conditions that become breeding grounds for tinnitus which you may have inherited.
If you have a history of tinnitus in your family, it’s truly in your best interest to schedule an appointment with us so we can assess your hearing.