What is Tinnitus?
Tinnitus is the phantom sensation of hearing sounds that aren't actually there. These sounds come in many forms; some people may hear a buzzing - others may hear musical melodies.
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To understand Tinnitus, we must first understand what happens inside the ear when a sound is produced.
Lucy Dearn, an NHS audiologist and Tinnitus sufferer, explains how the ear interprets sound around us.
“Sound is funnelled into the ear and moves down the canal towards the eardrum. The sound travels through the inner ear and displaces fluid in the cochlear.
“Special nerves then take these tiny electrical signals from the cochlear and into the brain. It’s the brain’s job to put it all together, creating what we perceive as sound.”
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Tinnitus occurs when these structures in the ear are damaged in some way - or if there is a change in a person's mental state, such as excess stress.
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Lucy explains how the brain responds to this change in their inner ears.
“The brain tries to make up for the loss of clear information coming in, so it tries to get more information from the ear. The extra information is the tinnitus, as the brain is filling in what it thinks should be there.”
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Tinnitus is a different experience for each person who lives with it, which makes it such a notoriously difficult condition to study. Some people's tinnitus may cause them little to no stress. For others, however, the condition can have a serious effect on their day to day lives.
Below are some examples of the various sounds people with tinnitus report. Click on the icons below to listen.