Ever have ringing in your ears? Well there is a condition that may explain that ringing and Maximum Hearing in Drumheller will be offering services in April to help you determine if you have tinnitus.
Starting on April 4th, Maximum Hearing in their Drumheller location will be offering Tinnitus Management. Suzanne MacLaren is a Clinical Audiologist that will be coming to Drumheller to help locals manage tinnitus. MacLaren explains what tinnitus is. “Tinnitus is when you experience a sound in your ears, or in your head, and there is no external source for that. It can sound like many things, not necessarily ringing. A lot of people have hissing, buzzing, crickets, some people can have musical tinnitus where you can have songs in your head.”
Tinnitus can happen to anyone according to MacLaren. “Tinnitus can happen to anybody but typically tinnitus is a symptom of hair cell damage. The two most common causes of hair cell damage are aging and noise exposure. So people that have worked in loud occupational situations are more prone to have tinnitus. It can be caused by other things too, high fever illnesses or head injuries, but the two most common are aging and noise exposure.”
Clinical Audiologist Suzanne MacLaren
MacLaren explains that the hair cell damage is similar for those that experience “phantom limb”. “When somebody has a limb amputated, the brain tries to compensate for the lack of input to the brain from the limb. Same thing with the ear. If enough of the hair cells are damaged, the brain reaches the tipping point and tries to compensate for the lack of input by creating electrical input to the ear, creating the sound.”
Before you have a test, per se, MacLaren notes that some self-assessment questions may be presented first. “A lot of information we get, initially, is from self report questionnaires. There are some standardize questionnaires we send out. Typically tinnitus affects people in one of two areas, functionally, or emotionally. Then we always do a hearing test because tinnitus is typically a symptom of hair cell damage, so we want to know if there is an explanation on the audiogram that we can turn to for why the tinnitus might be there.”
To understand more about tinnitus and possibly determine if this is what you may be dealing with, reach out to the team at Maximum Hearing in Drumheller, Three Hills, or Hanna and they will be able to help you. Visit their website for contact information.
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