Meniere's Disease and Tinnitus Symptoms

Tinnitus and Ménière's disease are closely related. While tinnitus will most often be a condition in its own right, with its own causes, it is in fact sometimes a symptom of Ménière's disease.

Lets begin by describing the symptoms of both of these conditions.

Tinnitus Symptoms

The symptoms of tinnitus can include hearing high or low pitched sounds or tones in one ear, or in both ears at the same time. These sounds are often described by tinnitus sufferers as being like bells ringing, or perhaps like a loud buzzing.

Sometimes people describe their symptoms as like the sound of rushing water or a banging noise.

Other symptoms of tinnitus can include hearing degradation over time and also high levels of stress and anxiety, especially if the tinnitus becomes so frequent and loud that a person feels constantly distracted, isolated and avoids social encounters etc.

Symptoms of Ménière's Disease

Here are the main symptoms experienced by sufferers of Ménière's Disease

Aural Fullness: This can be best described as the feeling you get in your ears when on a plane ride and the plane is either ascending or descending. It's the feeling of pressure in your ears. However, in this case it can't be relieved by chewing.

Tinnitus: The symptoms of tinnitus as described above are often experienced,especially buzzing sounds and unfortunately the tinnitus is continuous and not intermittent.

Hearing Loss: Hearing loss is another symptom. It most often will start with a degradation in hearing in one ear, often in the lower frequencies of sound, and then move to the other ear.

It can keep fluctuating between both ears or eventually occur in both at the same time. The hearing loss gets progressively worse and can become permanent.

Vertigo: Possibly the worst symptom of Ménière's Disease can be vertigo. Sufferers can experience extreme bouts of rotational vertigo or dizziness lasting up to 24 hours or more. These spells of vertigo can come and go for weeks at a time.

These attacks are unpredictable and naturally vertigo can totally incapacitate a person as they may feel like they are constantly spinning and losing their balance. Sometimes a person will be so badly affected they will actually fall suddenly, which is known as a 'drop attack'.

Vertigo itself will then have its own symptoms such as nausea, sweating and vomiting.

Migraine: People with Ménière's Disease often experience migraine headaches as well.

Diagnosing Ménière's Disease and Tinnitus

The important distinction for someone who has tinnitus is whether they have tinnitus by itself or because they actually have Ménière's disease. The reason this is so important is that naturally the treatments are different for both conditions.

If a person has Ménière's disease the diagnosis can be slower because its symptoms don't always occur at the same time. For example you may only suffer from tinnitus but then at a later stage vertigo may start to appear or migraines etc.

In other cases you may first start experiencing vertigo, then later hearing loss and tinnitus, or perhaps all at the same time. It varies from person to person.

The first thing a person who is having these symptoms should do is visit their doctor. They will perform various tests or refer you to a specialist who will help in diagnosis and then offer the appropriate treatment options.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Leonard_James

Tinnitus Relief and Preventive Measures at Work

Developing tinnitus is very common in certain workplaces where there is just too much noise. There are many industries that expose workers or employees to noise pollution without regard to the effect of that noise on the human ear. This explains why so many workers are looking for quick tinnitus relief; construction workers, miners, traffic officers, factory workers, aircraft technicians and many others are succumbing to the effects of noise at work. It's hard enough to meet the demands of your job, but dealing with excessive noise at the work will take its toll on your health.

As experts say, prevention is the best tinnitus relief. Tinnitus is ringing in the ears that a person develops after being constantly exposed to loud noises. Prevention is the best way to reduce the symptoms of tinnitus and will help lessen the intensity of ringing noises.

Here are some preventive measures for tinnitus relief at work:

1. Wear protective gear for your ears. The best way to protect your ears from very loud noises is to wear snug fitting headphones or ear pieces with foam head bands and additional foam cushioning along the external areas of the ear; even simple ear plugs can make a huge difference. This protective equipment is sure to prevent loud noises and even loud vibrations from reaching the inner ear, which can greatly reduce the chances damage due to exposure to prolonged loud noises.

2. Wear helmets or hard hats to protect your head. Trauma to the head at work can be prevented or greatly reduced with the proper use of a hard hat. Trauma to the head, neck and the area around the ear may all cause severe damage to the delicate structures of the ear which is a cause of tinnitus.

3. Use safe and high quality equipment. All tools and equipment used in an industry must be quality tested for safety since intense noise and vibrations may lead to tinnitus and even damage to the internal structures of the ear. Always address any safety concerns of any equipment or procedure to your superior before doing your work. Safety measures and rules must be posted and explained to all employees and workers beforehand to reduce the possibilities of workplace accidents and the development of health issues such as tinnitus.

4. Workers who have suffered from tinnitus or hearing damage due to noise pollution in the workplace should be transferred to another department or area of the company where his qualifications suit him. It should be remembered that when tinnitus is overlooked, it can lead to hearing loss and permanent damage to nerves in the ear. Any worker who experiences tinnitus at an early stage should be consulted right away before damage to hearing is irreversible.

Employees must also use common sense to protect themselves from the effects of loud noises and vibrations. Remember that early detection of tinnitus could help prevent hearing loss and damage to the delicate nerves in the ear.

Tinnitus can be treated at home with simple natural remedies developed by a doctor who suffered from tinnitus himself for years. Every person who used this remedy got significant relief.

Get relief from tinnitus in as little as 7 days>> http://besttinnitusremedies.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Demetrius

Tinnitus Herbal Treatments

Tinnitus herbal treatments have been used for quite some time and are very effective; Europe is where they are used most and the results speak for themselves. Whether you suffer from mild or severe tinnitus these herbal treatments do help with relief and in many cases help get rid of tinnitus for good. What I am going to do is list a few different herbs that are commonly used and have shown lasting effects.

Ginkgo Biloba

This is the most commonly known herb and what it does is help increase blood flow to the head, it has shown results from a few weeks to a few months since taking it. The recommended portion size is:

40mg of the dried herb 3 times a day, so have it with your meals.

Black Cohosh root

This is a great herb to take for people who suffer from pulsatile tinnitus or who use the Tinnitus retraining therapy treatment because it calms the nervous system by nourishing blood cells and also improves blood flow in the head. There are strong recommendations to take this herb with Ginkgo Biloba as they have shown improved results together. The recommended portion size is:

20 - 40 mg in liquid form per day or you can get it in capsule form where the recommended portioning is 2 capsules of the crushed root 2 - 3 times a day.

Avena Sativa

This regulates cholesterol, blood flow and is known as a nerve tonic. It is a great herb to use when it comes to treating the symptom of hypertension or Atherosclerosis (cholesterol build up on artery walls) in pulsatile tinnitus.

I will finish off by showing you some more common herbs that you have probably heard of and that have shown great results also.

Zinc

A common cause of tinnitus is zinc deficiency and by eating spinach or other zinc supplements you can help your condition.

Rosemary

This helps with circulation and blood flow through the body if taken regularly.

Chinese remedies

There are many Chinese herbal remedies that do show amazing results, I recommend asking a Chinese herbalist for more details about this.

For more information and more tinnitus herbal treatments I recommend having a look at the Tinnitus Treatment website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Wiwa

Hearing Loss from Loud Blasts May Be Treatable

Long-term hearing loss from loud explosions, such as blasts from roadside bombs, may not be as irreversible as previously thought, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Using a mouse model, the study found that loud blasts actually cause hair-cell and nerve-cell damage, rather than structural damage, to the cochlea, which is the auditory portion of the inner ear. This could be good news for the millions of soldiers and civilians who, after surviving these often devastating bombs, suffer long-term hearing damage.

"It means we could potentially try to reduce this damage," said John Oghalai, MD, associate professor of otolaryngology and senior author of the study, published July 1 in PLOS ONE. If the cochlea, an extremely delicate structure, had been shredded and ripped apart by a large blast, as earlier studies have asserted, the damage would be irreversible. (Researchers presume that the damage seen in these previous studies may have been due to the use of older, less sophisticated imaging techniques.)

"The most common issue we see veterans for is hearing loss," said Oghalai, a scientist and clinician who treats patients at Stanford Hospital & Clinics and directs the hearing center at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

The increasingly common use of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, around the world provided the impetus for the new study, which was primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. Among veterans with service-connected disabilities, tinnitus -- a constant ringing in the ears -- is the most prevalent condition. Hearing loss is the second-most-prevalent condition. But the results of the study would prove true for anyone who is exposed to loud blasts from other sources, such as jet engines, air bags or gunfire.

More than 60 percent of wounded-in-action service members have eardrum injuries, tinnitus or hearing loss, or some combination of these, the study says. Twenty-eight percent of all military personnel experience some degree of hearing loss post-deployment. The most devastating effect of blast injury to the ear is permanent hearing loss due to trauma to the cochlea. But exactly how this damage is caused has not been well understood.

The ears are extremely fragile instruments. Sound waves enter the ear, causing the eardrums to vibrate. These vibrations get sent to the cochlea in the inner ear, where fluid carries them to rows of hair cells, which in turn stimulate auditory nerve fibers. These impulses are then sent to the brain via the auditory nerve, where they get interpreted as sounds.

Permanent hearing loss from loud noise begins at about 85 decibels, typical of a hair dryer or a food blender. IEDs have noise levels approaching 170 decibels.

Damage to the eardrum is known to be common after large blasts, but this is easily detected during a clinical exam and usually can heal itself -- or is surgically repairable -- and is thus not typically the cause of long-term hearing loss.

In order to determine exactly what is causing the permanent hearing loss, Stanford researchers created a mouse model to study the effects of noise blasts on the ear.

After exposing anesthetized mice to loud blasts, researchers examined the inner workings of the mouse ear from the eardrum to the cochlea. The ears were examined from day one through three months. A micro-CT scanner was used to image the workings of the ear after dissection.

"When we looked inside the cochlea, we saw the hair-cell loss and auditory-nerve-cell loss," Oghalai said.

"With one loud blast, you lose a huge number of these cells. What's nice is that the hair cells and nerve cells are not immediately gone. The theory now is that if the ear could be treated with certain medications right after the blast, that might limit the damage."

Previous studies on larger animals had found that the cochlea was torn apart and shredded after exposure to a loud blast. Stanford scientists did not find this in the mouse model and speculate that the use of older research techniques may have caused the damage.

"We found that the blast trauma is similar to what we see from more lower noise exposure over time," said Oghalai. "We lose the sensory hair cells that convert sound vibrations into electrical signals, and also the auditory nerve cells."

Much of the resulting hearing loss after such blast damage to the ear is actually caused by the body's immune response to the injured cells, Oghalai said. The creation of scar tissue to help heal the injury is a particular problem in the ear because the organ needs to vibrate to allow the hearing mechanism to work. Scar tissue damages that ability.

"There is going to be a window where we could stop whatever the body's inflammatory response would be right after the blast," Oghalai said. "We might be able to stop the damage. This will determine future research."

In addition to the Department of Defense, the study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grants K08DC006671 and P30DC010363) and Chosun University in South Korea.

The first author of the study, Sung-Il Cho, MD, assistant professor at Chosun University, was working at Stanford during the study. Other Stanford authors were graduate students Simon Gao, Jongmin Baek and David Jacobs; senior research scientist Anping Xia, MD, PhD; research technician Rosalie Wang; research associate Felipe Salles, PhD; computer programmer Patrick Raphael; and research coordinator Homer Abaya.

Source sciencedaily :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130701172108.htm

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How to Jump over Tinnitus?

You will notice in my blog that I talk positively about my experience with Tinnitus this is true, I try to maximize my experience so as to give what really worked for me, but let me talk a little about my bad experience and how I did to jump over my Tinnitus.

Those days when you feel a strange sensation in your head, it's insupportable, and I still had this feeling from time to time.

There are some days when I really go very bad with my tinnitus especially at the beginning of my experience, the ringing caused me an instant stress, I tried to do anything you can imagine to get rid of tinnitus especially sport, I go jogging, play football, and my last experience with sport was swimming, I will for sure talk about sport and tinnitus in my future posts so as you can have an idea and choose the sport that suit you compared with your age and interests.

So when it go really down for me I just pray for god and avoid loneliness, I try to contact my friends so as not to stay isolated I feel that communication is a way to derive your attention from focusing on Tinnitus, when you are a Tinnitus sufferer please avoid total silence go hang out with your friends do your passion, here you see me blogging  because I enjoy what I do, just do it and don't think about what comes next if you sure you can do it go for it. So let me continue I was talking about these days when it goes down for me. Beside sport I read books this was another passion for me to derive my attention from Tinnitus.

Just focus on your day don't think of tomorrow ask yourself what I did today? Have I profited from my journey or just spent it in thinking on my Tinnitus and how will be my future in one or two years?.