People who hear a constant humming might be experiencing tinnitus, a condition that requires medical treatment, a doctor said.
Taichung’s Kuang Tien General Hospital Ear Nose and Throat Department chair Lai Jen-tsung (賴仁淙) cited the case of one of his patients, Siao Ling (小玲), a 59-year-old retired teacher from Chiayi, who spent a considerable amount of money on ineffective traditional remedies before going to the hospital.
Siao Ling said she started experiencing tinnitus symptoms during a hiking trip three years ago. The humming started when she was descending a mountain.
The condition has severely affected her quality of life, she said.
Unable to engage in her hobbies, she said tinnitus drove her to depression. She saw a qigong master who said she was hearing things because her ears were being attacked by “137 ghosts” and their negative energy.
After the treatments were ineffective, a friend convinced her to seek medical help, she said.
Lai said that tinnitus is a medical condition with a variety of causes and is triggered when problems arise in any of the brain’s three neurological systems governing sleep, emotions and autonomic functions, which are intimately tied to the functions of the cerebrum and auditory pathways.
Common causes for tinnitus include hearing damage, viral infections, Meniere’s disease, acoustic neuroma and aging, as well as Eustachian tube blockage, sleep disorders and autonomic dysfunctions, Lai said.
Hearing tests are a standard part of tinnitus diagnosis and treatment, because about eight out of 10 people with tinnitus have undiagnosed hearing loss that they were not aware of, and an accurate tinnitus diagnosis includes hearing tests, Lai said.
About 70 percent of tinnitus sufferers develop insomnia and other sleep disorders. Sleep deprivation puts stress on the body, including the auditory system, which can exacerbate tinnitus, causing a vicious cycle in which the condition becomes increasingly more severe, he said.
Lai said he used tinnitus retraining therapy in combination with hormone therapy to treat Siao Ling.
Tinnitus retraining therapy introduces patients to discontinuous noises, such as the sound of water droplets or a waterfall, which alleviates tinnitus by modifying conditioned responses, assisting the brain to develop a habit of automatically filtering and ignoring tinnitus, he said.
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