What are the symptoms and causes of tinnitus? How can it be diagnosed and treated? Get the answers to your questions about this common ear condition.

Understanding Tinnitus: Symptoms and Causes

Tinnitus, a common condition, is the perception of a sound or ringing in the ears without an external source. This can manifest as a constant tone, buzzing, hissing, whistling, roaring, or clicking sound. The condition can be subjective, experienced only by the individual, or objective, where the sound can be heard by others during an examination.

Subjective Tinnitus: Causes and Diagnosis

Subjective tinnitus, the most common type, is typically a constant tone and may be accompanied by some degree of hearing loss. This can be caused by a variety of factors, including:

• History of occupational or recreational exposure to noise: Loud noises can cause damage to the inner ear, leading to tinnitus.
• Progressive hearing loss, often with family history: Certain genetic factors can contribute to age-related or inherited hearing loss, which can be accompanied by tinnitus.
• Barotrauma (ear damage due to sudden pressure change): Sudden changes in air pressure, such as from air travel or deep diving, can cause damage to the ear and result in tinnitus.
• Drugs: Certain medications, particularly aspirin, aminoglycoside antibiotics, certain diuretics, and some chemotherapy drugs, can cause tinnitus as a side effect.
• Eustachian tube dysfunction: Issues with the Eustachian tube, which connects the middle ear to the back of the throat, can lead to tinnitus.
• Infection: Conditions such as otitis media (middle ear infection) can cause tinnitus.
• Meniere’s disease: This inner ear disorder can cause episodes of hearing loss, tinnitus, and vertigo.
• External otitis: Inflammation or infection of the external ear canal can lead to tinnitus.

Diagnosing subjective tinnitus typically involves a doctor’s examination, and in some cases, additional tests such as a hearing test or imaging studies to rule out underlying conditions.

Objective Tinnitus: Causes and Diagnosis

Objective tinnitus, which is less common, is characterized by a pulsatile or intermittent sound that can be heard by the examiner during a physical examination. The causes of objective tinnitus include:

• Arteriovenous (AV) malformations: These abnormal connections between arteries and veins can cause a pulsatile tinnitus in one ear.
• Spasm of muscles in the palate or middle ear: This can create a clicking or mechanical-sounding noise, and may be accompanied by other neurological symptoms.
• Turbulent blood flow in the carotid artery or jugular vein: This can produce a humming or pulsing noise that may be audible during a physical examination.

Diagnosing objective tinnitus often involves imaging tests, such as magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), computed tomography angiography (CTA), or conventional angiography, to identify the underlying vascular abnormality.

Tinnitus and Hearing Loss

Tinnitus is frequently accompanied by some degree of hearing loss, which can range from mild to severe. The relationship between tinnitus and hearing loss is complex, and the two conditions often coexist. Identifying and addressing the underlying cause of the hearing loss can also help manage the associated tinnitus.

Treating Tinnitus

The treatment of tinnitus depends on the underlying cause. In many cases, the goal is to manage the symptoms and provide relief, as there may not be a cure for the underlying condition. Potential treatment options include:

• Addressing any underlying medical conditions, such as hearing loss or Eustachian tube dysfunction
• Discontinuing or adjusting medications that may be causing tinnitus as a side effect
• Using sound therapy or masking devices to help distract from the tinnitus sound
• Cognitive-behavioral therapy to help manage the emotional and psychological impact of tinnitus
• Lifestyle modifications, such as stress management and avoiding loud noises

Seeking Medical Advice

If you are experiencing persistent or bothersome tinnitus, it is important to consult with a healthcare professional, such as an otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat specialist) or an audiologist. They can help diagnose the underlying cause and develop an appropriate treatment plan to manage your symptoms.

Conclusion

Tinnitus is a common and often complex condition that can have a significant impact on an individual’s quality of life. Understanding the symptoms, causes, and available treatment options is the first step in effectively managing this condition. By working closely with a healthcare provider, individuals with tinnitus can find ways to cope with the condition and improve their overall well-being.

Ear Ringing or Buzzing – Ear, Nose, and Throat Disorders

It Might Be More Than Just Noises In Your Head

Do you hear that ringing in your ears and wonder where it comes from? You’re not alone. The Hearing Health Foundation estimates 20 percent of Americans listen to that same annoying sound, or ones similar to it, daily. Only about 16 percent of them will talk to a doctor about the phantom noise even though it disrupts their lives. Ninety percent of people with tinnitus will also have hearing loss and maybe not even realize it. It is an escalating problem in this country, but what exactly is behind all the noise?

What is Tinnitus?

Tinnitus is the medical name for the ringing in your ears. There is no singular source for this sound – it’s actually a symptom of an underlying problem usually associated with loss of hearing.

Tinnitus is more of a sensation than an actual sound, too. That is why no one else hears the noise that is keeping you up at night. There are no sound waves causes this phenomenon, instead, it relates directly to tiny hairs inside the inner ear that produce an electrical signal telling the brain there is a sound. These cells are misfiring, sending random electrical impulses not based on any true noise.

It’s Not Just Ringing Either

It’s usually described as a high-pitched ringing in the ears, but the sounds vary. People with tinnitus report:

• Buzzing
• Roaring
• Clicking
• Hissing

Some say it sounds like you are pressing your ear up against a seashell to hear the waves. The variety of sounds involved with tinnitus makes this condition so much more confusing for those who don’t get medical treatment or a hearing test.

What Causes Tinnitus?

Tinnitus is simply a mechanical breakdown of a critical part of the human ear but what is behind this breakdown? For most people, it’s presbycusis, a form of hearing loss related to aging. Presbycusis is degenerative, so it tends to get worse as the person gets older. Other potential illnesses that present with tinnitus include:

• Loud sounds – It might be a one-time bang or something that is a day to day problem like machinery, earphones or exposure to loud music
• A build up of earwax – Earwax in the ear canal block sound waves interfering with your hearing
• Ear bone growth – This is a genetic problem that changes the bones in the ear

There are other possibilities, although they are rare, such as Ménière’s disease, which refers to increased pressure inside the ear. Jaw problems may be a source of the ringing, as well. For some, the noise is a consequence of a head injury that damaged the nerves in the ear. It might also be a sign of high blood pressure, a rare tumor in the ear or a side effect of a medication.

What Can You Do About Tinnitus?

First, make an appointment for a hearing test and ear examination to figure out the cause of the ringing. Once you treat the underlying hearing loss with something like a hearing aid, the ringing may resolve over time. Tinnitus is usually a sign of hearing loss that may be affecting your life in other ways, too, like isolating you during conversations or leaving you feeling like you are missing things. Once you identify your hearing loss, then getting hearing aids increases real sounds so the phantom ones are less of an issue.

There are other things you can do at home, too, to help deal with what can be an annoying and distracting problem. White noise machines produce environmental sounds that sooth your mind, especially if tinnitus is keeping you awake. You can fall asleep listening to the rain, for example, instead of that buzzing in your head.

You can create your own background noise, too, to deflect some of the tinnitus chaos. A fan blowing in the room might help or a humidifier – anything that produces a soft, but persistent sound to keep the hair cells in the ear busy so they don’t misfire.

It’s important to remember, though, that the ringing is trying to tell you something. Most likely the message is about hearing loss, so it’s worth a trip to the doctor to get a hearing test and find out more about your ear health.

Tinnitus – NHS

Tinnitus is the name for hearing noises that are not caused by sounds coming from the outside world. It is common and not usually a sign of anything serious. It might get better by itself and there are treatments that can help.

Check if you have tinnitus

Tinnitus can sound like:

• ringing
• buzzing
• whooshing
• humming
• hissing
• throbbing
• music or singing

You may hear these sounds in 1 or both ears, or in your head. They may come and go, or you might hear them all the time.

Non-urgent advice: See a GP if:

• you have tinnitus regularly or constantly
• your tinnitus is getting worse
• your tinnitus is bothering you – for example, it’s affecting your sleep or concentration, or is making you feel anxious and depressed
• you have tinnitus that beats in time with your pulse

Urgent advice: Call 999 or go to A&E if you have tinnitus:

• after a head injury
• with sudden hearing loss, weakness in the muscles of your face, or a spinning sensation (vertigo)

What happens at your appointment

The GP will look in your ears to see if your tinnitus is caused by something they can treat, like an ear infection or a build-up of earwax.

They might also check for any hearing loss.

You may be referred to a specialist for further tests and treatment.

Things you can try to help cope with tinnitus

Don’t

• do not have total silence – listening to soft music or sounds (called sound therapy) may distract you from the tinnitus

• do not focus on it, as this can make it worse – hobbies and activities may take your mind off it

The British Tinnitus Association (BTA) has more information about sound therapy, and runs support groups and a free helpline on 0800 018 0527.

RNID also has a free helpline on 0808 808 0123.

Treatments for tinnitus

If the cause of your tinnitus is unknown or cannot be treated, your GP or specialist may refer you for a type of talking therapy.

This could be:

• tinnitus counselling – to help you learn about your tinnitus and find ways of coping with it
• cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) – to change the way you think about your tinnitus and reduce anxiety
• tinnitus retraining therapy – using sound therapy to retrain your brain to tune out and be less aware of the tinnitus

Tinnitus retraining therapy may be available on the NHS for people with severe or persistent tinnitus. It’s unclear if tinnitus retraining therapy works for everyone. It’s widely available privately.

If tinnitus is causing you hearing loss, hearing aids may be recommended.

Causes of tinnitus

It’s not always clear what causes tinnitus, but it’s often linked to:

Video: tinnitus (BSL version)

In this video, learn about tinnitus, its possible causes and the effects and how to deal with it.

Media last reviewed: 1 June 2021
Media review due: 1 June 2024

Page last reviewed: 02 October 2020
Next review due: 02 October 2023

Tinnitus symptoms and signs

Illustration explaining the sounds of tinnitus.

Tinnitus can sound like any number of annoying tones, including ringing, buzzing, hissing or whizzing. It can be loud, soft, or any volume in between, and the sound can range from a low-pitched roar to a high-pitched squeal. It may occur nearly constantly or come and go. 

When tinnitus flares up, it can be difficult

to ignore.

Symptoms of tinnitus

What does tinnitus sound like?

Common descriptions of tinnitus symptoms include hearing cicadas, wind, crickets, fluorescent lights, squeals, running engines, grinding steel or dripping tap water. Some people even say it sounds like a motorboat or car engine in their ears.  

It’s important to know that tinnitus can be a symptom itself—it’s linked to many different medical conditions, and even some medications can trigger it. It’s also strongly linked to hearing loss and loud noise exposure.

However, whenever a medical cause can’t be uncovered, tinnitus can be considered a disease in and of itself. In most cases, there is no known cure, though treatments and related alternative relief strategies can help. 

Chronic tinnitus: When it won’t go away

Occasional bouts of brief noise that lasts a few seconds is considered “transient” and something most people experience from time to time. A diagnosis of chronic tinnitus usually means a person reports episodes of tinnitus that last for at least five minutes and occur at least twice a week. 

It’s possible to have tinnitus in just one or both ears, and it can come and go. Tinnitus can get loud enough to interfere with concentration, and sometimes, it can mask natural sounds.  Tinnitus is most commonly experienced by adults, especially those who have hearing loss.

Tinnitus is most commonly experienced by adults who have hearing loss.

In a very large survey of American adults with tinnitus, nearly a third reported having symptoms nearly constantly. About the same number of people noticed tinnitus at bedtime.

Note: If you experience tinnitus and sudden hearing loss, seek prompt treatment. 

The emotional symptoms of tinnitus

Having a constant ringing in your ears is not pleasant, and you may have trouble falling asleep or concentrating at work. The constant annoyance, lack of sleep and inability to live your life as you used to may even cause increased anxiety. Anxiety is especially common if tinnitus is getting in the way of work or causing other stressful situations. Many people who have tinnitus often describe a connection between tinnitus perception and stress. You may even suffer from depression or thoughts of suicide in response to the persistent buzzing or ringing that feels inescapable. Along with treatments, behavioral strategies can make tinnitus more manageable.

Track your tinnitus symptoms

Having a good grasp of the tinnitus sounds you hear, when you hear them and how often you hear them may be able to help your hearing care professional or physician determine the best way to treat your tinnitus. Keeping a symptom diary for a few weeks is a good idea.

A tinnitus evaluation from a hearing healthcare practitioner will begin with a series of questions designed to get a clear description of your symptoms such as:

• How long has this been going on? 
• Is it regular or constant?
• Are the symptoms worse at certain points of the day?
• Which ear is causing the issue? Both?
• How loud is the noise?
• Is the pitch high or low?
• Is the issue extremely bothersome or just a little irritating?
• Are there certain conditions that make the symptoms worse, such as exposure to noise or caffeine intake?
• Does the sound ever change?
• Do you also suspect you might have hearing loss? Tinnitus can be a symptom of hearing loss.

Can tinnitus sound like clicking?

In most cases, no. Most tinnitus sounds like a ringing, hissing or buzzing sound. If you do hear a persistent clicking sound, it’s worth investigating, though. 

For some people, the jarring motion of brisk walking can produce what is called a seismic effect, which causes movement in the small bones and/or contractions in the muscles of the middle ear space. You can experiment to find out if this is the cause by walking slowly and smoothly to see if the clicking is present. Then, try walking quickly and with a lot of motion to see if you hear the clicking. You can also test for the seismic effect by moving your head up and down quickly. 

If you do detect the seismic effect, it is likely nothing that indicates a serious medical condition. However, if it is a constant annoyance, by all means discuss it with your hearing care professional.

Get help from an expert

Find a tinnitus doctor near you by going to our directory of hearing care providers.  Please note that not all hearing clinics treat tinnitus, so you may need to browse several clinic pages to find the right provider.

Before your first appointment, take note of your specific symptoms, when they occur and what environments make them better or worse. This work ahead of time will prepare you for the first questions asked by the practitioner and ensure you get the most out of your evaluation. 

Joy Victory, managing editor, Healthy Hearing

Joy Victory has extensive experience editing consumer health information. Her training in particular has focused on how to best communicate evidence-based medical guidelines and clinical trial results to the public. She strives to make health content accurate, accessible and engaging to the public.
Read more about Joy.

Tinnitus | Causes, Symptoms (Buzzing in Ears) and Treatment

What is tinnitus?

When you can hear sounds inside your head that are created by your hearing system, not your environment, the condition is known as tinnitus. It could be ringing, humming, pulsing or hissing. It is more prominent in quiet areas or at night. It usually has no particular cause but can be treated.

You can’t turn it off or move away from it, so it can be spectacularly annoying.

How bothersome tinnitus is varies vastly between different people or in the same person over time. It may be there a lot of the time, happen occasionally, or fluctuate between the two. It can involve one ear or both.

Tinnitus is a symptom rather than a disease. 

Why do I have it?

There are a number of reasons for tinnitus. The most common situation is that it often comes as an unwanted ‘added extra’ when you develop age-related hearing loss. It may also occur as a consequence of exposure to loud noise, or from working in a noisy place for a long time. Sometimes it is a symptom of other medical conditions, such as Ménière’s disease, ear infections or inner ear conditions. Occasionally it’s caused by a build-up of wax in the ear (although usually this affects your hearing or you are aware of a blocked feeling in your ear rather than tinnitus). Sometimes there is no obvious reason.

Tinnitus symptoms

Tinnitus is an abnormal noise (or noises) that you can hear. However, the noise does not come from outside your ear. The sorts of noises that people hear include:

• Ringing.
• Buzzing.
• Whistles.
• Roaring.
• Humming.
• Machine-type noises.
• A pulse or beat which is at the same rate as your pulse.

Tinnitus can be either constant or come and go. It can vary in loudness and character from time to time. You can hear the noise or noises in one ear, or in both ears, or it may be difficult to pinpoint where the noise seems to come from.

The noise is often more prominent when you are in a quiet place. For example, when you are in bed and trying to get to sleep. It may also be more noticeable when you’re tired.

Some people with tinnitus are also more sensitive to normal everyday sounds. For example, some people with tinnitus find that a radio or TV is painfully loud when it is at a normal volume for most people.

For most people with tinnitus, nobody else can hear the noise. In one very uncommon type of tinnitus (objective tinnitus), the noise can be heard by another person listening very carefully. This is not the usual type of tinnitus and it is rare. It is usually due to a problem with blood or blood vessels, making them pulsate differently to usual.

Pulsatile tinnitus

If you have this condition, the tinnitus sounds like a pulse. It is usually due to a problem with the blood circulation (such as carotid stenosis, a narrowing of the carotid artery as it passes through the neck). This type of tinnitus can sometimes be heard by other people (that is, objective tinnitus). It beats in time with the pulse (synchronous). Sometimes you can develop a pulsatile tinnitus which is not in time with the pulse (non-synchronous). An example is palatal myoclonus, a condition in which the muscles of the palate go into spasm.

How common is tinnitus?

Tinnitus is common and can occur at any age. Most people have an occasional episode of tinnitus after going to a loud concert or disco. For most people, this is temporary and soon goes. As many as 1 in 10 people have persistent tinnitus that is mild and not very troublesome. However, about 1 in 100 people have tinnitus which persists most of the time, and severely affects their quality of life. 

Tinnitus causes

In many people with tinnitus, the cause is not known. Tinnitus often develops at the same time as the hearing loss of older age.

Tinnitus can be caused by age-related hearing loss, or by being exposed to a noise – like working in a loud factory or being in the armed forces. Often no particular cause is found. Very rarely it can be caused by anaemia, a thyroid problem, medications like aspirin, or a problem in your brain.

In many cases

What seems to happen is that signals are sent from the ear down the ear nerve to the hearing part of the brain. The brain interprets these signals as noise. It is not clear why these signals are sent from the ear. The noise may also originate somewhere else in the hearing nerve pathways in the brain.

In some cases

Sometimes the tinnitus is caused by another condition. For example:

• Tinnitus often develops at the same time as the hearing loss of older age.
• Ménière’s disease. In this condition you develop attacks of dizziness (vertigo), hearing loss and tinnitus. It is due to a problem of the cochlea – a snail-shaped chamber filled with fluid, in the inner ear.
• Exposure to very loud noise. Some people develop persistent tinnitus after being subjected to loud noise for a long time. For example, after years of working in a loud factory. Sometimes permanent tinnitus persists after a one-off loud noise experience. For example, following a rock concert.
• As an uncommon side-effect of some medicines. For example, aspirin, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and quinine.
• Following an ear or head injury.
• Wax blocking the ear.
• Some other ear disorders such as otosclerosis.
• Some uncommon diseases of blood vessels, brain or nerves can cause tinnitus. In these situations you are likely to have other symptoms or signs such as nerve weakness, etc. However, rarely, tinnitus may be the first symptom to develop.
• Tinnitus can sometimes be a feature of a lack of iron in the body (anaemia), thyroid disease or diabetes.
• An ear infection. The tinnitus tends to clear when the infection clears.
• Psychological factors may have a role to play. For example, mild tinnitus that is not bothersome may become more bothersome if you become depressed, anxious or stressed.

Tinnitus in one ear

A tumour called an acoustic neuroma occasionally causes tinnitus; this is usually persistent and in one ear only. If you get the noise only in one ear, it is particularly important that you consult a doctor, so this can be ruled out.

How is tinnitus diagnosed?

• There is no definitive test for tinnitus: the diagnosis is based on what you experience.
• Your doctor may organise a hearing test.
• Occasionally a specialist ear doctor may do a brain scan.

Tinnitus tests

When you go to see the doctor, first they will have some questions to help them understand your tinnitus better, and to help them find the cause of it, if there is one. The doctor will usually examine your ears and the nerves around your face and ears.

A hearing test is usually done. In the common type of hearing test, sounds of varying frequency are played to you through headphones. You press a button when you hear a sound. This results in a graph being produced which shows if you have any hearing loss and, if so, which type of hearing loss. Along with the hearing test, you will often have tympanometry, which is a test of the eardrum and the bones of the middle of your ear. A probe is placed in your ear (which feels much like when the doctor looks inside your ear), a tone is produced and the pressures changed in your ear. The response is then measured.

An underlying ear problem can usually be ruled out by this examination and hearing test.

Further tests such as a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the inside of your ear, and sometimes your head and neck, are done in a few cases, although this is not necessary for most people with tinnitus.  In some cases, a blood test may be done. This might be to test to check that you don’t have a problem with your thyroid gland, anaemia or diabetes if any of these are suspected.

Tinnitus treatment

In most cases there is no easy cure. Some people are helped by understanding the problem and knowing that they do not have a serious underlying condition. You may be offered a session with a healthcare professional where your condition is discussed (tinnitus support).

There are no good medications for tinnitus but many things can help (see below).

Is there a tinnitus cure?

In a small number of cases there is an underlying cause which may be corrected. For example, if a side-effect of a medicine that you are taking is causing tinnitus then a change of medication may cure the problem. If earwax or an ear infection is the cause then again, once this is cleared, the tinnitus settles.

Antidepressant medicines called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have helped people in whom the tinnitus causes anxiety and/or depression. SSRIs have been tried for tinnitus in people without anxiety and depression but studies suggest they are not effective.

In most cases there is no easy cure. Some people are helped by understanding the problem and knowing that they do not have a serious underlying condition. With time, the tinnitus may become less of a problem as you adjust to it. In addition, the following often help.

Alternative sounds

If possible, avoid being in quiet or silent rooms. You are more likely to focus on the tinnitus and be distressed by it if there is nothing else to listen to. Other more pleasant sounds can be distracting and help to make the tinnitus less noticeable. This is sometimes called sound therapy. For example, listen to the radio, TV, or stereo. Perhaps leave a window open so outside sounds are more evident. Some people wear a sound generator, although research studies suggest they are not very helpful. It looks similar to a hearing aid but makes a pleasant sound which helps to mask the unpleasant tinnitus noise. Some people use CD or MP3 players to listen to pleasant sounds. 

Bedtime

Tinnitus is often most noticeable when you are quiet and trying to get off to sleep. If you play a radio or stereo it can help to mask the tinnitus noise until you drop off to sleep. (One with a timer is best so it switches itself off when you are asleep.) Some people connect a radio or stereo to special pillow speakers which go under the pillow. This enables them to listen to the music or radio without anyone else being disturbed. Some specially designed pillows have speakers actually inside the pillow itself which you connect to your radio or stereo.

If you find getting off to sleep a problem, see the separate leaflet called Insomnia (Poor Sleep) for more details.

Hearing aids

If you have any deafness, even just a slight hearing loss, a hearing aid may help. The aid boosts normal sounds which you may not otherwise hear. These may override the tinnitus noise.

Stress anxiety and depression

Some people become anxious or stressed by tinnitus. This can make things worse. You may benefit from learning ways to relax and to combat stress. There are other leaflets in this series which offer advice on easing stress and anxiety. If you become particularly anxious or become depressed it is best to see a doctor for advice on treatment.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a brain-training psychological therapy which may also help you deal with the effect tinnitus has on you.

Are there specialist tinnitus clinics?

Some ear departments have specialist tinnitus clinics. These offer such things as counselling, advice on sound therapy, relaxation techniques and other advice on ways to cope with living with tinnitus.

Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) has been used in the past, but recent research suggests it is not very helpful. It has largely been replaced by CBT. 

What is the outlook?

Many people with tinnitus improve, with or without any treatment. Between 2 and 5 out of every 10 people with tinnitus improve within five years. Even if it does not go completely, it can become less severe or less frequent. How troublesome tinnitus is tends to go up and down.

For some people, tinnitus is just a little annoying. On the other end of the scale, for others it can really reduce their enjoyment of life. It may:

What Is Head Noise? | Tinnitus Causes and Treatments

What Is Tinnitus and How Can I Get Rid of It?

Tinnitus, also called head noise, is a ringing, buzzing, whooshing, or clicking noise that only the sufferer can hear. Potential causes can vary widely, and commonly include hearing loss, high blood pressure, and chronic medical conditions. As many as 50 million Americans are suffering from some degree of tinnitus, many of whom will have difficulty concentrating or sleeping as a result of the condition.

Are There Different Kinds of Tinnitus?

In addition to the many different noises a tinnitus sufferer may perceive, there are also different types of tinnitus to help classify the condition. The three different categories of tinnitus include:

• Subjective. Over 95 percent of cases of tinnitus are subjective, meaning the noise can only be heard by the patient. People with subjective tinnitus do not actually “hear” these noises, but the brain believes it is hearing a noise because there is a problem with the way it processes sound.
• Objective. In extremely rare cases, others may be able to hear another person’s head noise. This is called objective tinnitus, and is typically due to sounds from processes that occur within the body (such as blood flow circulating through a patient’s ears).
• Pulsatile. Patients with pulsatile tinnitus hear sounds that are in rhythm with their pulse. These tinnitus sufferers are essentially listening to their own heartbeats, a condition that is often due to restricted blood flow in the body. Pregnancy, elevated blood pressure, neuropathy, and other circulatory problems can all result in pulsatile tinnitus.

Is There a Cure?

Although there is currently no cure for tinnitus, there are many effective treatments that can reduce distraction and stress experienced by patients. Hearing aids amplify environmental sounds, allowing patients to hear actual noises and ignore the perceived sounds of tinnitus. Sound maskers and white noise machines can also be used to “drown out” head noise, helping patients maintain concentration at work or sleep soundly.

While your tinnitus may seem like a small annoyance, untreated tinnitus can lead to dementia and loss of independence in older adults. Let our hearing care providers evaluate your condition and get you on the road to recovery today! Use our quick contact form to make an appointment at our office nearest you.

Tinnitus symptoms & treatments – Illnesses & conditions

There’s not usually a quick fix for tinnitus, but it will often improve gradually over time. A number of treatments are available to help you cope.

If your tinnitus is caused by an underlying health condition, treating the condition will help stop or reduce the sounds you hear.

For example, if your tinnitus is caused by an earwax build-up, eardrops or ear irrigation may be used. Ear irrigation involves using a pressurised flow of water to remove the earwax.

Read more about how an earwax build-up is treated.

However, in many cases a cause for tinnitus can’t be found, so treatments will be used to help you manage the problem on a daily basis. These are described below.

Correcting hearing loss

Any degree of hearing loss you have should be addressed because straining to listen can make tinnitus worse.

Correcting even fairly minor hearing loss means the parts of the brain involved in hearing don’t have to work as hard and therefore don’t pay as much attention to the tinnitus.

A specialist will test your hearing and recommend appropriate treatment. This could involve having a hearing aid fitted, and occasionally surgery.

Improving your hearing will also mean sounds you wouldn’t otherwise hear will now be audible, which may help override the sounds of your tinnitus.

Read more about treating hearing loss.

Sound therapy

Tinnitus is often most noticeable in quiet environments. The aim of “sound therapy” or “sound enrichment” is to fill any silence with neutral sounds to distract you from the sound of tinnitus.

This may involve simple measures such as opening a window to hear noises coming from outside, leaving a radio or television on, or listening to sounds on a portable music player.

You can get specially-designed sound generators that look similar to a radio. These produce quiet natural sounds, such as leaves rustling in the wind and waves lapping on the shore. White noise generators are similar devices that produce a continuous “shushing” sound at a level that’s comfortable and soothing.

Also available are pillows containing built-in speakers to help distract you from tinnitus when you go to sleep, and small sound-generator devices that fit in your ear like a hearing aid. Some hearing aids have built-in sound generators for people with tinnitus.

Counselling

Understanding tinnitus plays an important part in learning how to cope with the condition and manage it more effectively.

Tinnitus counseling is a type of therapy where you work with a healthcare professional to help you learn more about your tinnitus and find ways of coping with it. It’s usually carried out by hearing therapists, audiologists (hearing disorder specialists) or doctors.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is often used to treat mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression. It’s based on the idea that your thoughts affect the way you behave. Treatment aims to retrain the way you think to change your behaviour.

This technique can be effectively applied to tinnitus. For example, if your knowledge about tinnitus is limited, you may have certain ideas about it that make you feel anxious and depressed. This can make your tinnitus worse.

Changing the way you think about your tinnitus and what you do about it can help reduce your anxiety and enable you to accept the noises, which after a while may become less noticeable.

Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT)

Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) is a special type of therapy that aims to help retrain the way your brain responds to tinnitus so you start to tune the sound out and become less aware of it. The therapy involves a combination of more intensive sound therapy and long-term counselling.

TRT is widely available privately and may be available on the NHS for people with very severe or persistent tinnitus. It should only be carried out by someone specially trained in the technique.

Self-help

Some people find self-help techniques useful for managing their tinnitus. These techniques include:

• relaxation – stress can make your tinnitus worse, so relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and yoga may help
• listening to music – calming music and sounds may help you relax and fall asleep at bedtime
• sleep hygiene – if tinnitus is affecting your sleep, sleep hygiene measures such as sticking to a regular sleep pattern and avoiding caffeine or alcohol shortly before going to bed may help
• hobbies and activities – having a hobby or regularly participating in any activity you find enjoyable may help distract you from tinnitus
• support groups – sharing your experiences with others who have tinnitus may help you cope better

Action on Hearing Loss provide further details about support and activities in your local area. Their free information line telephone number is 0808 808 0123.

You may also find the British Tinnitus Association a useful source of information. You can call their confidential helpline free of charge on 0800 018 0527.

90,000 Noise in the head of the elderly, causes, treatment

Noise in the head of an elderly person is not only a consequence of age-related changes, but also a sign of a disease that can be dangerous to the patient’s life. The presence of hissing sounds in the ears is very uncomfortable, causing headaches and impairing general well-being.

To eliminate the unpleasant symptom, it is necessary to establish the cause of the buzzing in the head. Only a qualified doctor can differentiate the disease by conducting a complete examination of the patient.The importance of correct therapeutic actions is beyond doubt, the noise hum will become stronger, accompanying symptoms will begin to appear brighter, and the disease will pass into a severe stage.

Why makes noise in the head of older people

Noise can appear as a result of professional activity or due to acquired pathologies. The intensity depends on the duration of the disease and the severity. Noise in the head of older people is more likely to join for several reasons, which over the years are superimposed one on one.

Causes of noise with age:

1. Employees of organizations whose activities involve being in rooms with constant loud noises can get an occupational ailment called hearing loss. Changes in the structure of the ear are irreversible and cannot be treated; only support with a hearing aid is possible.
2. Sulfur plug can cause hissing sounds.
3. Diseases of the cardiovascular system:
   • High blood pressure is accompanied by noise phenomena that warn of an impending hypertensive crisis;
   • The emergence of atherosclerosis in violation of lipid and protein metabolism changes the structure of the walls of blood vessels, which provokes the appearance of a hum;
   • Hypoxia of the cerebral vessels, a pre-stroke condition, causes a disturbance of cerebral circulation, leading to the appearance of a buzzing;
   • Destructive changes in the spinal column in the cervical spine compresses the artery.
4. Neurological problems:
   • A mental illness called senile dementia with vascular changes;
   • Tumor-like growth in the ear cavity.
5. Inflammatory processes in the middle ear, covering the eardrum or Eustachian tube with impaired free flow of fluid and bony growths that close the ear canal.
6. Cochleitis is a serious illness that causes a lot of trouble for a sick person, including the appearance of this symptom.
7. Otosclerosis – when the growth of bone tissue, which interferes with the outflow of fluid in the middle ear.
8. Older people take a large number of pharmaceuticals that can cause side effects.
9. Endocrine pathologies have a history of extraneous sounds: diabetes mellitus, hyperthyroidism.
10. Neoplasms in the brain have a crushing effect on important centers in the brain.
11. Injuries to the skull of a traumatic nature.

What is the noise in the head

A specific symptom is felt by one in five people over fifty-five years old. In medical terminology, noise in the head is referred to as tinnitus. The causes of noise in the head of older people affect the degree and nature of the noise. Tinnitus can be different: hissing, ringing, gurgling, whistling.

The noise can last for different times:

• If the duration of the noise sensation does not exceed three months, it is called acute;
• Hissing sounds that last more than 90 days, but less than one year – mild tinnitus;
• Chronic course accompanies the patient for more than one year.

Sounds in the head can be heard at different volume levels:

• At the first degree, an elderly person feels an extraneous hiss, but not much, there is addiction and special discomfort is not felt;
• The second degree is characterized by a pronounced sound, insomnia appears due to the nocturnal manifestation of the symptom;
• The buzzing is regular, the sound in the head is loud and annoying;
• The fourth degree is the most severe, a person experiences severe suffering, the phase of sleep and wakefulness is disturbed, the general state is suppressed.

The sensation of constant noise in the head can lead to the development of a mental state that negatively affects the quality of life. A compensated state is observed with mild manifestations, when a person is able to independently adapt to this symptom.

Severe degrees of development deplorably affect the patient’s condition: chronic fatigue, headache, sleep disturbance. Mental disorders with tearfulness and irritability often appear.Only a doctor can help such patients.

Therapeutic measures

Treatment of noise in the head is complex, including the use of pharmaceuticals and traditional medicine recipes. The choice of the drug, dosage and treatment regimen should be dealt with by the attending physician.

Drug therapy

Medical treatment consists in eliminating not only the symptom, but also the pathology itself. After an accurate diagnosis is made, it will be clear how to treat the disease.One of the most popular remedies: Vinpocetine, which helps to strengthen the structure of the blood vessels in the brain and normalize blood circulation.

Vitamins of group B will help to provide optimal nutrition of brain tissues. Nootropil and Rumalon will have a calming and analgesic effect. Taking drugs with Omega-3 has a beneficial effect on blood vessels and normalizes blood pressure.

Treatment of each specific disease is carried out with appropriate drugs, since the rumble in the ears will not disappear without eliminating the pathology.

Physiotherapy procedures

Additional ways to get rid of pathology give a positive effect:

• Exposure to ultrasound;
• Heating by means of infrared rays;
• Ultraviolet irradiation;
• Thermal exposure to a mercury-quartz lamp;
• Treatment with electric current of high frequency (diametry).

All procedures are carried out under the supervision of a doctor, strictly following the instructions and recommendations.

Alternative treatments

1. Orthopedic products, which improve the blood supply of the brain with oxygen and nutrients, help in getting rid of a negative symptom. Such devices include:
   • Orthopedic pillows and mattresses to promote correct body position for optimal rest at night;
   • The Shants collar provides unloading of the cervical vertebrae during work.
2. The use of medicinal leeches helps to normalize blood pressure and reduce vascular wall tension.
3. Acupuncture and acupuncture massage, which can be done at home, will relieve:
   • Press the nasolabial fold with the second finger for ten seconds;
   • Apply pressure to the point between the eyebrows for five seconds, bring to seven repetitions with short breaks;
   • Massage the outer edge of the auricle.

The hum in the head will decrease or disappear altogether only with complex treatment.It is important to remember that no matter what method of treatment is chosen by a person, each action must be coordinated with the doctor who is seeing the patient.

I hear a ringing – where is it from? Why there is noise in the head | Healthy life | Health

Reason: severe stress

With emotional experiences, severe fear, anxiety in a person, the temporal muscles are strained. Constant tightness of these muscles can lead to squeezing of the vessels of the ear canal, which causes a sensation of noise, ringing, hum in the ears.

What to do?

Acupressure will help – a light massage of active points with your fingertips. It should be carried out in a circular motion with light pressure.

Press the point located in the fossa above the upper lip with your index finger for 7 seconds. Then, with medium effort, press the point at the end of the root of the nose, near the eyebrows – also for 7 seconds. Repeat these techniques several times a day.

For 7 seconds, apply vigorous pressure with your ring finger to the place where the earlobe meets the face.Then another 7 seconds – just in front of the uvula (there, if you touch, you will feel a small fossa). And in conclusion, another 7 seconds – at the beginning of the upper part of the cartilage of the auricle (there you should also feel the fossa). There is usually a pleasant warmth after exercise, which indicates improved circulation.

Cause: sulfuric plug in the ear

It is formed, as a rule, only on one side and, in addition to a hum in the head, can cause dizziness and a slight violation of the coordination of movements.

What to do?

Consult an otolaryngologist who, using a special syringe, will flush the ear canal and process the ear to restore its damaged integument.

Cause: osteochondrosis

In this condition, nerves associated with the auditory brain can be compressed. This often happens during sleep if you have taken an uncomfortable position. The result is an unpleasant, high, continuous hum of varying intensity in the head. It can sound like a working refrigerator or the hum of cars during a traffic jam.

If the hum in the head is associated with osteochondrosis, it should decrease or disappear altogether when assuming an upright position.

What to do?

Be attentive to the conditions of your sleep. The pillow should fit you exactly, not too high or too low.

After waking up, it is good to do some exercises for the cervical spine. Rotate your head, stretch your ear to your shoulder, push an imaginary ball under your chin towards your chest.

Cause: cerebral arteriosclerosis

Usually, the sensation of hum or noise in the head associated with atherosclerosis is similar to the sound of the sea, that is, it has a low tonality and rhythmic structure. Sometimes this noise increases after sleeping in an uncomfortable position.

What to do?

It is necessary to undergo an examination by a neurologist as soon as possible, to do an MRI or Doppler ultrasonography of the vessels of the brain. If the diagnosis is confirmed, you should limit the consumption of animal fats that cause the deposition of atherosclerotic plaques on the walls of blood vessels.They are found in butter, meat, sausages, complex sweets, sour cream, cream. Also, the doctor will prescribe drugs that lower cholesterol levels and improve the condition of the vascular wall, vasodilators and other drugs.

Cause: vegetative-vascular dystonia

In this condition, the regulation of the tone of the blood vessels is impaired, and the pressure often decreases. This can cause mild, uniform or pulsating tinnitus, dizziness, and poor coordination.

What to do?

See your doctor to confirm the diagnosis. If it’s in vascular dystonia, move more: walk, swim, dance, take bike rides. Cool douches and general strengthening massage are also useful. Make sure you get enough sleep. It is necessary that there is an influx of fresh air into the bedroom at night. Give up bad habits.

It is important to learn how to relieve stress. For example, before going to bed, you can, lying on your back, imagine how all the muscles of the body, from the toes and hands to the muscles of the face, relax in turn, a feeling of pleasant warmth appears in them.It is also helpful to take a few deep breaths and slow exhalations.

Cause: cochlear neuritis

This is damage to the auditory nerve, which threatens deafness. The sensations during the disease are rather sharp – a high ringing, a squeak in the ear, more often on one side (but maybe on two sides), a distinct hearing loss. Sometimes this is accompanied by dizziness, nausea.

What to do?

Urgently consult an otolaryngologist who will prescribe a course of medications.If you apply within a week, or preferably three days, the onset of deafness can be avoided, if the delay is over, the chances are small.

90,000 Seven things to know about your voice

October 15, 2018

Photo author, Getty Images

Each voice is unique. We hear ours every day, but how much do we know about how it works?

Our voice is amazingly versatile. With it, you can chat, sing or call for help. We use this tool every day, but what do we know about how it works?

The BBC Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry has studied the structure of the voice and made several discoveries for itself.

1. You have accent since birth

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

Chinese babies cry differently than French or Icelandic

Children subconsciously imitate their parents’ accent while still in the womb.

As scientists have found out, having studied the crying of French and German babies, the notes they make when crying correspond to the tonal features of their native language.

They proved that children from different countries cry in different ways.

2. The voice begins with a “hum”

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

As these 19th century engravings show, scientists have long been interested in the structure of the vocal apparatus

Your voice originates in the chest when passing air from the lungs through the larynx.

Two folds of muscle tissue – the vocal cords – vibrate as air passes through them, making a strange buzzing sound.

It is this sound, passing through other “manipulators” – lips, jaw, tongue and soft tissues in the throat – and becomes your voice.

3. Why the voice breaks

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

Entering puberty, children lose the ability to easily strike high notes

Male voices break during puberty, when the vocal folds grow and thicken. A portion of the vocal apparatus moves down in the throat and becomes visible through the skin to form the Adam’s apple.

The distance between the ligaments and the mouth increases. The longer the trumpet, the lower the sound it makes, so the man’s voice becomes lower.

Women go through similar changes, albeit not as strong, when they go through menopause. In some cases, the female voice may also become lower.

4. You imitate those you like

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

The next time you speak to someone you like, notice how your voice changes

The more you like someone, the more you will try to imitate that person’s intonation.

For example, if a man likes a woman, often in a conversation with her he will unconsciously raise his voice a little.

5. When the ligaments age

Photo author, Getty Images

Caption,

As you age, your voice can change beyond recognition

As you age, like other muscles, your vocal cords become weaker. Air passes through them even when they are closed, so the voice takes on a hoarse sound.

This also means that a person loses the ability to speak in long phrases – they simply do not have enough breath.

In addition, as the muscles weaken, the voice may become higher.

6. Voice keeps youth longer

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

You will always sound younger than you look

The good news is that the voice ages more slowly than its native speaker.

When trying to guess the age of a person by voice, people, according to statistics, are almost always mistaken, underestimating the age of the speaker by several years.

7.How to keep your voice healthy

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

Singing is often good for your voice

Like the whole body, the vocal apparatus needs regular training.

To keep your ligaments in shape, try the following exercises:

• Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Fold your arms over your head. Breathe in through your nose, lean back slightly, and slowly leaning forward, pronounce the sounds “ah-eh-oo”, while exhaling.
• Take a deep breath and exhale through your mouth as if you were gargling with water. At the same time, turn your head to the left without lowering your gaze. Repeat turning your head the other way.
• Inhale deeply and exhale slowly with a hum. The mouth is closed. Tap the wings of your nose with your fingers.
• Bring your chin to your chest and exhale slowly, mooing on a low note.

If you do these exercises regularly, your voice will remain healthy and strong.However, you will achieve the same result, for example, by joining the choir.

Reviews & Questions HyperX Cloud Alpha S Gaming Headset (HX-HSCAS-BL)

30 August 2020, 22:49
Maxim “MeIsMuzim” Zalevsky

| Noise via USB sound

For some reason, at the moment when the sound only appears or disappears, an electric buzz is heard, but only if I am sitting via USB.I checked it on different computers – the result is the same. I tried to change slots, I updated the firmware.
I have no idea what this is connected with. I sit on the aux: |

If there are suggestions how to solve the problem, I will be grateful.

0

0

30 August 2020, 22:58
Hyperx Support

Good day!
Thank you for choosing our company’s products.

Quite an unusual effect, not reported before. Please write to [email protected] – we will try to sort it out as soon as possible.

0

0

14 March 2020, 20:34
Anton “Nukello” Yakimenko

| Audio card

Do I need to change the wire when using a different audio card? Will the sound go through it or will the one on the wire be used?

0

0

15 March 2020, 14:36
Hyperx Support

The audio cable can be connected to any signal source – either to the complete controller or to any other.

0

0

90,000 Auditory hallucinations

In 1973, Science magazine published an article that made a splash. The article was titled: “How does a healthy person feel in a psychiatric hospital.”It described how people who were healthy in all respects, who had no history of any mental disorders, for the sake of an experiment, turned to doctors with complaints that they could hear voices. They told the doctors that for the most part they could not make out what these voices were saying, but sometimes they could distinguish words such as “emptiness”, “hollow” or “knocking.” Apart from this complaint, people behaved absolutely adequately, they could recall their actual biography and list the real events that happened in their lives.Nevertheless, all of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia (with the exception of one “patient” who “got off” with “manic-depressive psychosis”). All these “patients” were hospitalized for up to two months. All were prescribed antipsychotic drug therapy. (True, these people did not swallow their prescribed pills.) After being admitted to the hospital, these “patients” continued to behave completely normal, telling the staff that their “voices” had disappeared and that they were doing fine. They even kept a diary of their experiences, not hiding it from the staff (regarding one of these pseudo-patients, the records of the nurses on duty said that “the patient keeps a diary of his behavior”).However, none of the impostors were exposed by psychiatrists. The result of this experiment, planned by Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan (who himself was one of the pseudo-patients), shows, among other things, that a single symptom – “voices” – may be sufficient to establish a categorical diagnosis of schizophrenia, even in the absence of other symptoms and abnormalities in behavior. Psychiatrists, like the rest of society, have become subject to the general misconception that “voices” are always a sign of insanity, that they only appear in the context of severe mental disorders.

By the way, this opinion was confirmed relatively recently, which becomes clear after reading the early works on the study of schizophrenia. In the 70s, powerful antipsychotic drugs and tranquilizers appeared, supplanting all other methods of treatment. And a thorough questioning of the patient gave way to a comparison of his complaints with the criteria of a reference book on mental disorders, which speeds up and facilitates the establishment of a diagnosis.

Eigen Bleuler, who ran the huge Burghölzli psychiatric hospital in Zurich from 1898 to 1927, was sympathetic and caring for the hundreds of schizophrenics in his care.He was well aware that their “voices”, no matter how strange and ridiculous they may seem, were closely related to the mental status and delusional ideas of the patients. The voices, Bleuler wrote, “embody all their aspirations and fears … all their perverted relationships with the world around them … and above all … with its pathological or hostile forces,” with which these patients are possessed. He described all this very vividly in the great monograph “Early Dementia, or Schizophrenia”, published in 1911:

“The voices not only say something to the patient, they seem to pass an electric current through him; beat the patient, paralyze, deprive the ability to think.Very often these voices are embodied in specific people or in some other, sometimes very bizarre, ways. For example, one patient believed that his voices “sat” over each of his ears. One voice is slightly larger than the second, but both of them are not larger than a walnut, but look like a big ugly mouth.

The main content of “voices” is, as a rule, threats and curses. Day and night, these threats and curses are heard from everywhere – from the walls, from above and below, from far and near. For example, when a patient starts eating, he hears: “You stole every sip …” If the patient drops something, he may hear: “So that this thing chops off your leg!”

Sometimes voices say conflicting things. Often they can be hostile to the patient, and then change their attitude to the opposite. In this case, two different opinions can be expressed by votes belonging to different people. For example, the daughter’s voice may say, “He will be burned alive,” and the mother’s voice may argue, “No, he will not be burned.” The patient often hears not only the voices of accusers, but also the voices of defenders and patrons.

Voices are often heard in a specific part of the body.For example, a polyp in the nose can be a place where a person’s voice can be heard. If the patient has any kind of bowel disease, then a voice may sound from the abdomen. If the patient suffers from sexual disorders, then the voice may sound from the penis or bladder. Sometimes obscenities can be heard from the nose … A patient with a real or imaginary pregnancy can hear the voices of children talking in her womb …

Sometimes inanimate objects begin to speak. Lemonade can speak; the patient can hear the glass of milk pronounce his name clearly.Sometimes furniture begins to speak as well ”.

Bleuler goes on to write, “Nearly all schizophrenics hospitalized in an asylum hear voices,” but he immediately stipulates that the opposite is not true, that although almost all schizophrenics hear voices, auditory hallucinations alone are not an indispensable diagnostic sign of schizophrenia. But in the public mind, hallucinatory voices are almost always synonymous with schizophrenia, and this is a big mistake, because most people who hear “voices” do not suffer from schizophrenia.

Many people report their votes. At the same time, they emphasize that these voices are not addressed to them. For example, Nancy K. wrote to me:
“I regularly have hallucinations during which I hear someone talking. This happens most often when I fall asleep. It seems to me that these conversations are absolutely real, they are being conducted by real people at the very moment when I hear them. But I can never figure out exactly where the conversation is taking place. I hear spouses quarreling or something else.The voices are unfamiliar to me; I cannot recognize any specific people I know by their voices. Sometimes it seems to me that I am a radio receiver tuned to the wave of some other world. (True, this world is inhabited by people who speak American English.) These auditory phenomena I can only regard as hallucinations. I never participate in these conversations, no one addresses me. I’m just a listener. ”

Psychiatrists of the 19th century knew about the existence of hallucinations in mentally healthy people, and as neurology developed, specialists sought to understand their causes.In the 1880s, the Society for Psychical Research was established in England. The purpose of the society was to collect and research reports of ghosts or hallucinations, especially among the abandoned, lonely and disadvantaged people. Many prominent scientists – physicists, physiologists and psychologists collaborated with the society (William James was an active member of the American branch of the society). Telepathy, clairvoyance, communication with the dead and the nature of the spiritual world became the subject of their systematic study.

In the course of these studies, it turned out that hallucinations are often found among mentally healthy people.In the “International statistics of hallucinations arising in the waking state of consciousness”, published in 1894, reports were presented on the frequency and nature of hallucinations experienced by healthy people in a normal environment (the researchers carefully excluded from consideration the reports of people suffering from obvious mental or somatic disorders ). Seventeen thousand subjects were asked the same question by mail:

“Did you experience, being in a state of absolute wakefulness, a clear feeling that you clearly see any living being or an inanimate object, that this being or object touches your body, or did you hear a voice, despite the fact that you clearly did you realize that this feeling was not caused by some real external reasons? ”

About 10 percent of the correspondents answered in the affirmative, and about a third of them wrote that they heard voices.As John Watkins observed in his book Hearing Voices, hallucinatory voices, “whose content was religious or supernatural, represented a significant, but still a minority, of all auditory hallucinations, which in the vast majority of cases were quite mundane.”

Probably the most common auditory hallucination is the sensation of being called by name — either a familiar or unfamiliar voice pronounces the name. In the book “Psychopathology of Everyday Life” Z.Freud remarked on this:

“At the time when I lived alone in a strange city – I was then a very young man – I often heard how close and beloved voices suddenly pronounced my name distinctly. Then I began to write down the moments of these hallucinations and find out what was happening at that time in my home. Nothing remarkable happened there in those moments. ”

The voices sometimes heard by people with schizophrenia are usually accusatory, threatening, caustic or annoying.In contrast, the voices heard by “healthy” people are usually unremarkable, as Daniel Smith writes in Muses, Mad Men, and Prophets: Auditory Hallucinations and the Limits of Mental Health. Smith’s father and grandfather heard voices, but reacted to them in very different ways. Father began to hear voices at the age of thirteen:
“There was nothing remarkable in these voices, there was no disturbing content in them. Most often, these were simple commands. For example, a voice could order to move a glass from one edge of a table to another, or use a certain turnstile in the subway.But obedience to the voices of the inner life made the father’s life completely unbearable. ”

On the contrary, Smith’s grandfather did not pay much attention to hallucinations and even played with them. For example, he described how he tried to use voices when betting on horse races. (“This tactic didn’t work. The voices said all sorts of things: one said that this horse would win, and the other said that another could win.”) The voices were more useful when my grandfather was playing cards with friends. Neither grandfather nor Smith’s father had any particular belief in supernatural things; nor did they suffer from any obvious mental illness.They just heard unremarkable voices connected only with their daily life – as, indeed, millions of other people.

Smith’s father and grandfather rarely spoke of their voices. They listened to them in secret, in silence, probably feeling that if they started talking about them, they might be considered crazy, or at least not quite “normal”. However, research in recent years confirms that it is not uncommon to hear voices, and that most of these “hearers” are not schizophrenic at all, as were neither Smith’s father and grandfather.

One of the important points is the attitude of people towards their voices. Some are tormented by these voices, like Smith’s father, while others take them calmly and treat them with humor, like, for example, Smith’s grandfather. Behind this personal relationship to audible voices is a public relationship that can be diametrically opposed at different times in different cultures.

Auditory hallucinations are common in all cultures. At all times and in all countries, people heard voices and often attached great importance to them – the gods in ancient Greek myths often speak with mortals, just like the one God in monotheistic religions.In this respect, voices were considered more important, because a voice can give an explanation or give an unambiguous order, which cannot be done with the help of visual images alone.

Until the 18th century, voices – as well as visions – were attributed to supernatural forces: gods or demons, angels or jinn. There is no doubt that sometimes these voices and visions appeared in people suffering from psychosis or hysteria, but in most cases people did not see anything pathological in the voices.If the voices were harmless and deeply personal, they were considered just a certain property inherent in the given person.

From about the middle of the 18th century, philosophers and scientists of the Enlightenment began to adhere to a secular philosophy; auditory and visual hallucinations began to be viewed as physiological manifestations of excessive activity in certain areas of the brain.

But the romantic idea of ​​the “inspiration” of voices and visual images also survived. This idea was especially popular among artists.Artists and writers who looked at themselves as interpreters, secretaries dictation from the Voice, and sometimes, like Rilke, had to wait for years for the Voice to sound.

All human existence is permeated with conversations between man and himself; the great Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky believed that “inner speech” is an indispensable prerequisite for any conscious activity. “For example, I talk to myself most of the day: I scold (“ Idiot, where are you doing your glasses this time? ”), Encourage (“ You can do it! ”), Complain (“ Why is someone else’s car standing in my place ? “) And, less often, I congratulate myself on the success (” You managed to do it! “).These voices do not sound from outside. I will never confuse them with the voice of, for example, God.

But when I once found myself in great danger, trying to descend a mountain with a badly injured leg, I heard an inner voice, not like my usual inner muttering. Then it cost me incredible efforts to cross a wide stream with a tightly bandaged dislocated knee. I hesitantly stopped in front of an obstacle, just numb, realizing that I could not overcome this water obstacle.I experienced a terrible weakness, a seductive thought occurred to me: what if you have a rest? Get some sleep, gain strength. But then an imperious, commanding voice sounded in my ears: “You have no right to stop – not here, not anywhere else! You must go. Get up, pick up the right pace and go. ” This kind voice, the voice of Life, strengthened my resolve, gave me strength. I stopped trembling and did not hesitate to continue on my way. ”

Joe Simpson, who was climbing in the Andes, fell off an icy ledge and fell into a crevice, breaking his leg.He began to fight for his life, which he wrote about in the book “Touching the void.” It was the voice he heard that helped him then overcome all difficulties and get out of a plight:

“There was only snow and silence around. Above your head, an abyss of lifeless blue sky. I was left alone with this snow and sky, before the only choice – to get out of here at any cost. No dark forces acted against me. A voice in my head said that I would do it. A voice broke through the confusion that seized me.It sounded distinct, cold and determined.

My consciousness split into two halves, which played heads and tails among themselves. But the voice was clear, crisp, and guiding. The voice was always right, I listened to him and followed his orders, obeyed decisions. The second half of my consciousness was in a real panic – I dreamed of terrible pictures; insane hope gave way to utter despair. I was daydreaming, but I only listened to the voice. I had to get out onto the glacier … A voice firmly and distinctly told me what to do and how, and I obeyed it, while in the other half of the split consciousness, crazy abstract ideas flashed, replacing each other.The voice and the utmost attention drove me forward, when the intolerable glitter of the glacier plunged me into a state of slumber. It was three and a half hours before sunset. I stubbornly moved forward, but soon it dawned on me that I was doing it slowly and terribly awkward. I was not at all embarrassed that I was crawling like a snail. The voice guided me, and I knew I could rely on it. ”

People hear such voices quite often when they find themselves in a situation that threatens mortal danger. Freud, in his book On Aphasia, writes about two cases when he heard voices:

“In my entire life, I twice found myself in positions that threatened my life, and both times the awareness of the danger came suddenly, like some kind of insight.Both times I felt like it was the end. An inner voice babbled something incoherent, and I moved my lips, making inarticulate sounds. But in view of the extreme danger, both times I heard a voice from outside, which loudly shouted clear commands in my ear. I not only heard these words, I saw them written on a piece of paper that hung in front of me in the air. ”

The threat to life can come from within, and although we do not know how often the voices prevented suicide attempts, I think that this has happened and is not so rare.An acquaintance of mine named Liz felt completely crushed and depressed after a failed love story. She was already ready to swallow a handful of sleeping pills and drink a glass of whiskey when she suddenly heard someone’s voice sternly told her: “No, you shouldn’t do this,” and then added: “Remember, it won’t be long before you you will no longer feel as unhappy as you do now. ” A male voice sounded from outside, and Liz did not know who it belonged to. She quietly asked, “Who said that?” There was no answer, but a “grainy” (as Liz described her) figure of a young man dressed in an 18th century suit suddenly appeared on the chair in front of Liz.The luminous figure sat on the chair for a few seconds, and then disappeared, disappearing into thin air. Liz felt a sense of incredible relief, a wave of quiet joy swept over her. Liz understood that the voice most likely came from some part of her own brain, but nevertheless she still playfully talks about that young man as her guardian angel.

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain why people hear voices, and there may be different reasons for different circumstances.Most likely, the accusing and threatening voices heard by psychotic patients are inherently different from the voices that sometimes – in an empty house – call out to a person by name; and these voices, in turn, differ from the voices that help us in times of extreme danger.

Auditory hallucinations may be due to abnormal activation of the primary auditory cortex; this disorder requires research not only in patients with psychosis, but also among mentally healthy people.Until now, most of the research in this area has been carried out specifically on patients with schizophrenia.

Some scientists suggest that auditory hallucinations result from the loss of the ability to recognize internal speech production as one’s own. (Another option: against the background of the generation of internal speech, the areas of the auditory cortex are simultaneously activated, and what we normally perceive as an internal monologue acquires a “real” voice.)

It is possible that there is a physiological barrier or an inhibition mechanism in the brain that normally prevents us from perceiving the inner voice as a voice from the outside.Perhaps, for those who constantly hear “voices”, this barrier is either damaged or not well developed. Perhaps this question can be reformulated and asked this way: why do most of us not hear any voices? In his acclaimed 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness Is Associated with the Destruction of Two-Chamber Thinking, Julian Janes argued that relatively recently (by historical standards), all people heard voices. These voices were born in the right hemisphere, but the left hemisphere recognized them as external voices.People who heard these voices took them for the “voice of God.” About a thousand years BC, with the development of modern consciousness, voices were internalized, and now we recognize them as our “inner voice”.

There are scientists who believe that auditory hallucinations can occur due to increased attention to the thought flow that accompanies the flow of verbal thinking. It is clear that “hearing voices” and “auditory hallucinations” are terms behind which phenomena of different origins are hidden.

Auditory hallucinations in many cases are meaningful – a person hears a voice that says something meaningful, even if sometimes trivial and pompous, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, the content of auditory hallucinations turns out to be strange inarticulate sounds. Probably the most common auditory hallucination is what is almost always diagnosed as tinnitus. This almost incessant sound – buzzing or ringing – occurs with hearing loss and sometimes becomes simply unbearable for the patient.

The perception of noises – buzzing, mumbling, chirping, banging, grinding, ringing, muffled unintelligible voices – is often associated with hearing impairment; these sounds are amplified in the presence of conditions such as delirium, dementia, poisoning, or psychological stress. Doctors, for example, during strenuous shifts, when it is not possible to carve out a single minute for sleep, may experience a variety of hallucinations of any modality. One young neurologist wrote to me that one day, after a heavy thirty-hour watch, he began to hear the sounds of heart monitors and alarms from ventilators.Upon returning home, he constantly “heard” phone calls for several hours.

Along with voices and other imaginary noises, people often hear musical phrases or even whole songs, but many in their hallucinations “hear” only music or individual musical phrases. Musical hallucinations can occur after strokes, with brain tumors, cerebral artery aneurysms, as well as with severe infectious diseases, degenerative diseases of the central nervous system, and toxic or metabolic disorders.Such hallucinations usually disappear after the general condition of the patient improves.

It is difficult to identify the cause of a musical hallucination, but in elderly and old patients, with whom I mostly have to deal, musical hallucinations almost always occur with hearing loss or complete deafness. In this case, hallucinations persist after fitting a hearing aid or after installing a cochlear implant. The hearing returns, but the hallucinations persist. Here is what Diana G. wrote to me about it.:
“As far back as I can remember, I have always been haunted by tinnitus. It was a high pitched sound that pestered me seven days a week for twenty-four hours a day. The sound was exactly like the chirping of cicadas on Long Island. In the last year, I have also had musical hallucinations. I hear Bing Crosby singing with the White Christmas Orchestra all the time. The song is repeated over and over. At first I thought I was hearing singing on the radio. Then I excluded all external sources – the music sounded in my head, and I could not turn it off or turn down the volume of my own free will.But then, having acquired some skill, I learned to change words and tempo and even switch to other music. Since then, I hear music almost every day, more often in the evenings and sometimes so loud that it prevents me from communicating with real people. I always hear only familiar melodies – hymns, music that I played when I learned to play the piano, and songs of my youth. I always hear songs with words …

Moreover, one more sound has recently been added to this cacophony – I think I can hear a radio or TV working in the next room.I hear voices, intonation, pauses, but I can’t make out the words.

Diana has been suffering from hearing impairment since childhood, which steadily progressed with age. The unusualness of her case is that her hallucinations contain both music and speech.

Despite the fact that individual musical hallucinations vary widely – from quiet, unobtrusive music to the deafening sound of a giant orchestra – in all these hallucinations one constant key element can be distinguished.Firstly – and this is the most important thing – hallucinatory music is always perceived as sounding from somewhere outside, and this is how it differs from internal representations or obsessive melodies that annoyingly sound from time to time in the ears of each of us. People with musical hallucinations often look for an external source of music – radio, a neighbor’s TV, or a street band – and only after they fail do they begin to realize that the music is playing in their heads. Many people say it is like a tape recorder or iPod sounding in the brain.Music does not lend itself to conscious control, sounds autonomously and appears to be an integral part of the patient’s “I”.

This obsessive, uncontrollable sound in the head evokes amazement and sometimes fear – fear of insanity or fear that phantom music may be a symptom of a brain tumor, stroke, or dementia. This fear often prevents the patient from admitting that he had hallucinations, and, apparently, for this reason, musical hallucinations were previously considered an exceptional rarity.Only now it turns out that this is far from the case.

Musical hallucinations can interfere with the perception of real sounds, and in this they are similar to tinnitus. Hallucinations can be so loud that the patient ceases to hear the speech addressed to him. No inner imagination can generate sounds that interfere with real perception.

Musical hallucinations often appear suddenly, without any obvious triggers. However, they can accompany tinnitus or occur against the background of some kind of external noise – for example, the roar of an aircraft taking off or the hum of a lawn mower, the sound of real-life music, or some other stimulus that awakens associations with certain melodies or musical styles.One patient told me that once, upon entering a French bakery, she distinctly heard “Alouette, gentille alouette”.

In some patients, hallucinatory music sounds in the ears continuously, in others, these hallucinations occur periodically. This music is almost always familiar, but not always pleasant. One of my patients in his hallucinations constantly heard Nazi marches, which terribly frightened him. Musical hallucinations can be vocal and instrumental, classical and pop, but, as a rule, this is music that the patient heard in childhood or adolescence.Sometimes, however, it happens as one patient, a gifted musician, wrote to me: “I hear completely meaningless musical phrases and melodies.”

Hallucinatory music can be stunningly real – usually the patient distinguishes every note, catches the sound of every instrument in the orchestra. Such accuracy and detail of hallucinations are especially surprising in that they can occur in people who, in their normal state, are not able to retain even a simple melody in their memory, and not just to memorize a complex chorale or instrumental piece.(Apparently, here you can draw an analogy with the incredible brightness of visual hallucinations.) Sometimes the patient gets stuck on any one phrase, literally on a few notes – as if a cracked plate had stuck. One of my patients heard part of the hymn “Come, faithful” nineteen and a half times for ten minutes (her husband timed it), and she was terribly tormented that she could not finish listening to the hymn to the end. Hallucinatory music can increase gradually and also gradually subside, but it can sound suddenly from the middle of a bar, and then also suddenly stop (patients say: as if they turned on and then turned off the radio).Some patients sing along with their hallucinations, others ignore them, but this does not change anything – musical hallucinations live their own lives regardless of how the patients themselves relate to them. Hallucinatory music can sound, despite the fact that the patient at this moment can listen and even play some other music. For example, the violinist Gordon B. could have musical hallucinations during a concert when he was playing a completely different piece.

Musical hallucinations tend to expand and vary.It can start with a familiar old song. After a few days or weeks, another song may join it, then a third, and so on, until a whole repertoire of musical hallucinations is created. At the same time, the repertoire itself often changes – some songs drop out, and new ones appear instead. It is impossible to stop or start a hallucination with an effort of will, although sometimes some patients manage to replace one hallucinatory piece of music with another. For example, one patient, who said that he had a whole “musical box” in his head, discovered that he could arbitrarily change the records in it, provided that the pieces coincided in rhythm and style.True, this person could not turn off his “music box” at all.

Prolonged exposure to absolute silence or monotonous noise can also cause auditory hallucinations. One of my patients complained that such hallucinations occur when he retires to meditate, or during long sea voyages. Jessica K., a young woman with no hearing impairment, wrote to me that her hallucinations occur against a background of monotonous noise:

“When I hear noise for a long time — for example, the sound of running water or the hum of an air conditioner — I begin to hear music or voices, among other things.I can hear them very clearly, so distinctly that at first I walked around the house to find an unplugged receiver. True, if I hear a song or conversation (and it always sounds as if it is a radio, and not real people speak), then I can never make out the words. I never hear them, unless they are organically built into the noise and if there are no other extraneous sounds. ”

Musical hallucinations are rare in children, but once I saw a boy named Michael.His musical hallucinations began at the age of five or six. Music sounds in his ears continuously, overwhelms him and often interferes with concentrating on something else. Much more often, musical hallucinations occur in adulthood – in contrast to the “voices”, which, as a rule, arise in early childhood and accompany the patient for the rest of his life.

Some people who suffer from musical hallucinations find them painful, while the majority resign themselves and get used to living with them.Some patients even enjoy such hallucinations. These patients find that musical hallucinations enliven and enrich their lives. Ivy L., a very lively and eloquent elderly lady, eighty-five years old, suffered from visual hallucinations for a time after she became blind from macular degeneration, and then, as her hearing decreased, began to experience musical and simple auditory hallucinations. Mrs. L. wrote to me:

“In 2008, my doctor prescribed paroxetine for me to treat what she called depression, which I thought was just anguish.It was then, after my husband’s death, that I moved from St. Louis to Massachusetts. A week after I started taking paroxetine – I was watching the Olympics on TV at that time – I suddenly heard quiet slow music accompanying the swimmers’ competitions. I turned off the TV, but the music remained, and since then it has not stopped for a minute. I do not hear her only in my sleep.

When I complained about these hallucinations to the doctor, she prescribed Zyprexa for me, saying that it would probably help. As a result, at night I began to “see” a dark brown bubble above me in place of the ceiling.The doctor changed her medicine, and I began to see some kind of transparent tropical plants in the bathroom. I stopped taking my medication and the visual hallucinations disappeared. But the music remained.

It cannot be said that I “remember” these songs. Music plays in the house as loudly and distinctly as if played on a CD or played in a concert hall. In larger rooms, such as a supermarket, the music becomes louder. I cannot make out the words and cannot understand who is performing these songs.I have never heard voices, but once I distinctly heard someone call my name. It happened while I was dozing.

There were times when I heard the sounds of door and phone calls, the buzzer of an alarm clock – although during these moments nothing broke the silence. Now all these hallucinations are gone. In addition to music, nowadays I sometimes hear the chirping of grasshoppers, the chirping of sparrows, and sometimes it seems to me that a large truck is roaring under the windows at idle speed.

During all these experiences, I am fully aware of their unreality.I deal with financial accounts, drive a car, do household chores. These auditory and visual impairments do not prevent me from maintaining coherent conversations with other people. At this time, my memory is also all right, although sometimes I can forget where I put some piece of paper.

I can “enter” the melody I think about. Music can turn on in response to an accidentally heard musical phrase, but I cannot stop the hallucination that has begun. I can’t stop the piano in the wardrobe, or the clarinet on the ceiling, or the endlessly playing God Bless America hymn.When I wake up, “Good night, Irene” invariably sounds in my ears. But I live with these hallucinations and have adapted to them. ”

Studies using positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging have shown that, as in the perception of real music, musical hallucinations are caused by the activation of vast neural networks covering many areas of the brain – auditory regions, motor cortex, visual cortex , basal ganglia, cerebellum, hippocampus and amygdala.(Listening to music or playing musical instruments requires more brain regions than any other activity, which is why music therapy helps with a wide variety of disorders.) This musical neural network can be activated directly, as in cases of Jacksonian epilepsy, at high temperatures and delirium, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, musical hallucinations occur with the weakening of the normally existing inhibitory mechanisms. The most common case is hearing deprivation in the presence of deafness.Thus, the musical hallucinations of the elderly, deaf patients are by their nature similar to the hallucinations in Charles Bonnet syndrome.

But, despite the fact that physiologically musical hallucinations of the deaf and visual hallucinations in Charles Bonnet syndrome are very similar, they are still very different from each other phenomenologically, and this once again emphasizes the significant difference between our visual world and the musical world. This difference is manifested in the ways in which we perceive, remember and imagine visual and musical images.We do not have at our disposal a visual world that has been created in advance according to a specific model, assembled into a single structure: we have to – to the best of our ability – to recreate it every time. The construction of the visual world involves analysis and synthesis at many functional levels of the brain, from the perception of lines and angles and ending with giving them a certain orientation in the occipital cortex. At the highest level – in the area of ​​the inferior temporal cortex – real scenes, objects, animals, plants, letters and faces are analyzed and recognized.Complex visual hallucination requires the coordinated interaction of all these elements for their assembly, correction and reassembly.

Musical hallucinations are not like that. Of course, in the perception of music, separate functional systems play a role that is responsible for the perception of pitch, timbre, rhythm, etc., but the musical neural networks of the brain work all together and simultaneously, and the elements – melodic circuit, rhythm or tempo – cannot change significantly without losing the recognizability of the music.We always evaluate a piece of music as a whole. Whatever the processes of the initial perception and memorization of music, if a piece of music is deposited in memory, then it remains in it not as a conglomeration of various elements, but as a procedure for its performance. Music is played, played by the mind and the brain every time we remember it. The same thing happens when music in the head arises spontaneously – whether in the form of an obsessive melody or hallucination.

duyabildi% c4% 9fim – translation into Russian

Noise when recording video on iPhone

Good time, everyone! The iPhone camera takes great photos and records great videos, and it is deservedly the most popular in the world.However, a small percentage of users experience extraneous noise during video recording (we are talking about sound, of course). Most often this is not a marriage and you just need to understand the reason for their occurrence. Perhaps this article will save you from raiding a service center or a store shouting “What did you sell me?” 🙂

Let’s quickly go over the main signs and reasons why extraneous sounds are heard when playing a video recorded on an iPhone and, most importantly, how to remove them (preferably once and for all)?

Let’s not put the matter on the back burner … let’s get started!

And here is what can affect the sound recording:

1. Films and covers! It happens that some films (often) and cases (rarely) that cover the back (iPhone 5 and older) or the side top (relevant for iPhone 4 and 4S) of the device are made a little incorrectly and do not take into account the design features of the phone.Thus, they cover the microphone intended for audio recording. This means that during video recording, there is either no sound at all, or it is quiet and with extraneous noise. We remove all accessories and check again.
2. Microphone is clogged or clogged. Needs to be gently cleaned with a brush or brush. We perform all actions very carefully so as not to make unnecessary holes in the protective-decorative nets.
3. Where and how you record your video is important. If this happens in complete silence, then the so-called background noise, or rather even some hiss, is possible.The fact is that the microphone tries to “hear” the slightest sound and its sensitivity is greatly increased in silence, in fact, it “makes noise”. Try to say something, he will “focus” on your voice and the hiss will disappear.
4. Perhaps the reasons lie in the rattling of some elements inside the iPhone and it is their sounds that are superimposed on the video.

Have you checked everything?

Are you still filming video with noise?

OK. Let’s move on to “heavy artillery”!

We are implementing the “standard set of Apple technical support tips”:

1. Resetting the device.
2. Install the latest firmware.
3. Without restoring the iPhone from a backup, but setting it up like a new one, we try to record a video again.

If the problem persists and interferes very strongly, then

Most likely, the situation is not very good 🙁

It’s time to visit the service center:

• Best of all – official.
• Ideal – under warranty.

The microphone is probably broken / damaged (although, it happens that the problem is not in it, but in completely different hardware).

Here it is necessary to understand (in the literal and figurative sense of the word) and it is worth entrusting this matter to professionals. And, I repeat, it is very advisable to contact not a “handicraft” service in the nearest market, but an official workshop – this will be much safer.

P.S. Put “likes” and click on the buttons of social networks – all “unnecessary” sounds during video filming will disappear once and for all! Let’s argue? 🙂

P.S.S. Tell us in the comments how you dealt with this problem – many users will thank you! Or do you still (have) any questions? Feel free to write – what I can, I will help!

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