Experienced Tinnitus Specialists in Ventura, CA
Does the constant ringing, buzzing, or humming in your ears make it nearly impossible to relax, fall asleep, or stay focused on an important task? For approximately 12.5 million Americans, the ringing in their ears never goes away, threatening their quality of life and interrupting their lifestyle.
Though 50 million Americans experience some type of tinnitus symptoms every year, making it one of the nation’s most common health complaints, most people experience temporary tinnitus that goes away within an hour or two after being in a noisy stadium, attending a loud concert or nightclub, discharging a firearm without hearing protection, or hearing an explosion.
Tinnitus does not cause hearing loss, but it might be a symptom related to damage to your ears that leads to a loss of hearing. Is the tinnitus management program at Nelson Audiology, Inc. right for you?
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Does my tinnitus frustrate me in a quiet room?
- Does my tinnitus keep me awake at night?
- Is it hard to focus on tasks because my tinnitus overwhelms me?
If you answered yes to these questions and your tinnitus is getting worse, there is a tinnitus specialist near you in Ventura, CA, who is eager to help you find relief.
What Is Tinnitus?
Tinnitus symptoms occur when sounds that don’t really exist are generated somewhere along the auditory pathway or within the auditory processing center of the brain. Scientists, doctors of audiology, and other research professionals label tinnitus as a neurological disorder similar to “phantom limb” experienced by some amputees.
Despite their ability to describe it, researchers have never discovered a definitive cause for the condition, which varies from one person to the next. Some “hear” a continuous tone while others experience a pulsating sound, which can be described in terms like ringing, whirring, clicking, buzzing, or whooshing.
Two types of tinnitus, subjective and objective, have been identified. In cases of subjective tinnitus, only the person experiencing the symptoms can hear it, while someone else, with the aid of a stethoscope, can hear the sounds of objective tinnitus.
While objective tinnitus can be a symptom of treatable vascular or vestibular issues, most healthcare and hearing care professionals struggle to find an effective intervention for subjective tinnitus.
Frequently Asked Questions About Tinnitus
What causes tinnitus?
While the exact cause of tinnitus has eluded audiologists, doctors, and researchers, several conditions that accompany or produce tinnitus symptoms include:
- Hearing loss
- Exposure to loud noise (Noise Induced Hearing Loss, or NIHL)
- Head and neck injuries
- Ototoxic drugs
- Meniere’s disease
- Acoustic neuroma
- Hyper/hypothyroidism
- Abnormal growth of bone in the ear
- Tumor on the cranial nerve
- Stress
- Depression
- High blood pressure
- Impacted earwax
How do you diagnose tinnitus?
Diagnosing tinnitus involves an interview regarding your case history and medical history by a tinnitus specialist, who will use a questionnaire to help determine the loudness and pitch of your tinnitus and conduct a Tinnitus Handicap Inventory to evaluate how the condition impacts your lifestyle.
It is also necessary to rule out or confirm hearing loss as a contributing cause with a comprehensive hearing assessment. Additional testing by an ENT specialist may be required to help identify vascular or vestibular conditions that produce tinnitus symptoms.
What happens if you don't treat tinnitus?
Temporary tinnitus usually goes away by itself, as does ringing in the ears produced by some ototoxic drugs. However, ongoing or chronic tinnitus tends to worsen if it is left untreated.
Can my tinnitus be cured?
Other than tinnitus symptoms that are the result of specific treatable medical conditions, most tinnitus cases have no defined cause, which means there is no permanent cure.
Can you provide relief for my tinnitus symptoms?
There are plenty of products on the market that claim to be a natural cure for tinnitus, but they are backed by little to no viable research. However, there are proven therapeutic techniques and tinnitus treatment technologies that do provide relief for tinnitus, like hearing aids, sound masking, and tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT).
How do hearing aids help with tinnitus?
The primary reason for prescribing hearing aids is not for tinnitus treatment. However, because tinnitus is sometimes associated with hearing loss, hearing aids often decrease the intensity of tinnitus, making it more manageable. An additional bonus provided by many of today’s digital hearing aids is access to sound-masking applications that further assist with tinnitus management.
What Happens During a Tinnitus Assessment?
The groundwork for your tinnitus management program is developed during your tinnitus assessment, which is designed to zero in on your unique type of tinnitus and its intensity by ruling out various medical causes and hearing loss.
Your tinnitus evaluation will include:
- An interview about your condition, medications you’re taking or medical conditions you might have, recent or ongoing exposure to loud noise, and other factors known to be concurrent with tinnitus
- Ruling out (or confirming) hearing loss as a contributing factor through a comprehensive hearing evaluation performed by your audiologist
- Evaluating the loudness and pitch of your symptoms
- Completing a Tinnitus Handicap Inventory to tell us how tinnitus affects your daily life and lifestyle
- A discussion between you and your tinnitus specialist about the appropriate treatment options that might best address your specific case
Additional tests by an ENT specialist might be called for in order to rule out suspected vestibular or vascular medical conditions that are known to produce tinnitus symptoms.
How Our Hearing Experts Treat Tinnitus
Our trusted tinnitus doctors in Ventura, CA, understand your struggle and are ready to provide customized solutions to help you overcome your specific tinnitus challenges. Some days, tinnitus symptoms may be mild, while on other days it’s nearly impossible to concentrate, relax, and/or fall asleep.
Using the information we gathered during your tinnitus assessment, our tinnitus professionals will develop a tinnitus management program that meets your specific needs and objectives. The proven tinnitus treatment technologies and therapeutic techniques we use vary from case to case, but can include:
Hearing Aids—dual benefits of treating hearing loss and providing sound masking
Sound Maskers and Tinnitus Treatment Technologies—help decrease sound awareness
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT)—teaches you how to cope with the condition
While hearing aids for those with hearing loss and sound masking meet the needs of some, a more extensive, holistic therapeutic approach that involves sound masking and tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) is the most effective means to decrease the impact of tinnitus on the lifestyles of others.
TRT, often referred to as habituation therapy, involves teaching your brain to perceive the phantom sounds of tinnitus in a different way. This form of therapy also helps address additional emotional challenges, like depression, stress, or anger, that exacerbate your condition by applying various coping skills often associated with a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approach.
Our objective as tinnitus doctors is to help you improve your quality of life and your overall well-being by helping you manage health problems, ototoxic medications, and lifestyle choices that may contribute to your symptoms while providing the necessary technologies available to assist.
Schedule a Nelson Audiology, Inc. Tinnitus Assessment
Our tinnitus specialists in Ventura, CA, are aware that the symptoms of each individual are unique and affect people in different ways, which is why our personalized approach to tinnitus management includes the best solutions to meet your specific needs and improve your quality of life.
Are you struggling to stay focused on a task, finding it hard to relax, or having trouble falling asleep because of the ringing in your ears? The first step to finding relief is to schedule a tinnitus assessment at one of our Nelson Audiology, Inc. locations in Ventura or Ojai, CA, by submitting the adjacent form.
"*" indicates required fields
What Our Delighted Patients Say
Our Experts Answer
Navigating the Noises: Exploring the Shift from Tinnitus to Middle Ear Myoclonus
