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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hey, brain stuff,

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Speaker 1: it's Christian Sager here. Imagine the following sounds ringing, hissing, static, crickets,

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Speaker 1: screeching sirens, whooshing, roaring, pulsing, ocean waves, buzzing, clicking, or

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Speaker 1: a dial tone. What if you heard one of these

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Speaker 1: sounds all the time. Fifty million people in the United

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Speaker 1: States experience this kind of ringing ear to some degree,

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Speaker 1: and of these, sixteen million half to seek medical attention.

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Speaker 1: Two million are so seriously debilitated they can't function on

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Speaker 1: a normal basis. So why do our ears ring? What

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Speaker 1: is causing it? And is there any way to prevent

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Speaker 1: it or remedy it. Well, let's start with the cause.

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Speaker 1: Usually it's loud noises that are the leading cause. At concerts,

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Speaker 1: for instance, or sporting events or jobs with extreme noise

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Speaker 1: like firefighting. Anything louder than a shouting match can damage

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Speaker 1: the hair cells in our inner ears, basically anything over

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Speaker 1: nine decibels. When sound hits these cells, they convert the

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Speaker 1: vibrations into electrical currents that auditory nerves then carry to

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Speaker 1: our brain. These hair cells reside in the inner ear

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Speaker 1: inside the cochlea, which is the size of a p

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Speaker 1: bundles of hair like extensions called stereocilia, those rest on

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Speaker 1: top of them. Vibrations deflect off the stereocilia, causing them

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Speaker 1: to move according to force and pitch. How they move

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Speaker 1: then triggers the electrochemical current that sends information through the

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Speaker 1: nerves and to our brain. But there are other causes

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Speaker 1: for ringing ear, and it's basically practically everything, but I'll

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Speaker 1: give you the list here. Infection, allergies, higher low blood pressure, diabetes,

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Speaker 1: thyroid problems, TMJ, lime disease, Minnaire's disease, fibromyalgia, perforated ear, drums,

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Speaker 1: circulation problems, and even menopause. All of those things can

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Speaker 1: cause ringing ear, and some medication can cause it to

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Speaker 1: particularly aspirin and common antibiotics. Some of these medications are

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Speaker 1: auto toxic, meaning that they're harmful to the ear. Another

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Speaker 1: cause could be nerve damage. Sometimes there's tumors of the

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Speaker 1: hearing or balance nerve that can cause this. There's also

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Speaker 1: neurological disorders or head trauma that caused five to ten

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Speaker 1: of tonitis, for example, a skull fracture or a closed

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Speaker 1: head injury, maybe whiplash or multiple sclerosis. All of these

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Speaker 1: can count as head trauma that could lead to ringing ear.

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Speaker 1: And then finally we've got good old ear wax or

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Speaker 1: really any blockage in your hearing pathways or degeneration of

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Speaker 1: those hair cells I mentioned earlier from aging. So then

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Speaker 1: what is tonitis? We hear this term thrown around a

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Speaker 1: lot with ringing ear. Tonitas is the medical term for

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Speaker 1: the perception of sound in one or both ears or

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Speaker 1: in the head when no external sound is present. It

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Speaker 1: is often referred to as ringing in the ears, although

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Speaker 1: some people hear hissing, roaring, whistling, chirping, or clicking. In particular,

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Speaker 1: I hear the dial tone sound for instance. Tonitas can

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Speaker 1: be intermittent or constant, with single or multiple tones, and

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Speaker 1: it's perceived volume can range from subtle to shattering. But

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Speaker 1: if hair cells are repeatedly damaged, they can become permanently

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Speaker 1: turned on, making your brain believe that it's receiving sound

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Speaker 1: vibrations and your brain perceives sound then when no external

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Speaker 1: sound exists. This affects of US soldiers returning from a

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Speaker 1: rack in Afghanistan, but its origin is still unknown. So

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Speaker 1: there's one theory that damaged hair selves move randomly, sending

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Speaker 1: your brain electrochemical messages when there aren't any actual sounds.

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Speaker 1: Since you can regrow the tips of stereocilia, the ringing

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Speaker 1: is often temporary, but this could occur along our auditory

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Speaker 1: pathways or be a breakdown in our brains noise filtering system.

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Speaker 1: This muffles the sound of our own neurons firing, So

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Speaker 1: maybe tonightus is the sound of our own nervous system working.

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Speaker 1: So you're probably wondering, well, how do I prevent this

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Speaker 1: from happening to me? Well, when you're exposed to sound

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Speaker 1: levels of over eighty five decibels, you should probably wear

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Speaker 1: ear plugs or any other kind of hearing protection, and

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Speaker 1: you should avoid the following things that are just going

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Speaker 1: to make it worse. Stress, lack of sleeve, caffeine and aspirin. Yep.

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Speaker 1: And what are the remedies. There's a bunch that people list.

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Speaker 1: Ginko apparently decreases inflammation. A hundred and twenty milligrams a

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Speaker 1: day in divided doss will help. You could also take

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Speaker 1: b complex vitamins magnesium, calcium or zinc, or you know,

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Speaker 1: you could just take a multi vitamin. There's also cranial

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Speaker 1: sacral therapy and acupuncture that's known to help. Surgery is

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Speaker 1: sometimes a possibility, especially if there's a tumor involved, and

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Speaker 1: hearing aids may actually mask tenitis. Some people use masking

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Speaker 1: devices to block the sound, and there's a company called

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Speaker 1: Neuromonics that claims to have a treatment with a device

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Speaker 1: that eases symptoms and trains your brain to block the noise.

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Speaker 1: The only problem is it's only five thousand dollars. There's

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Speaker 1: also tenitis retraining therapy, which uses low level broadband noises

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Speaker 1: along with counseling to get you used to the unwanted

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Speaker 1: sound and find Antidepressants and anti anxiety medication can sometimes help.

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Speaker 1: Also biofeedback and hypnosis, or when in doubt, turn to

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Speaker 1: good old exercise. It can improve the circulation to help

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Speaker 1: your tonitus. Check out the brain stuff channel on YouTube,

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Speaker 1: and for more on this and thousands of other topics,

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Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com.