"If we get to know the reason as to why somebody has noise been
produced, then we will be able to give solution to the patient to a
great extent. So our effort in the clinic when a person comes and tells us that they have noise in the ear. patient is to evaluate whether they have simple problems like in infection in the ear or fluid accumulation in the ear or wax accumulation in the ear. All these things can simply be solved and they will have immediate relief supposing it is the middle ear which is got affected there is fluid in the middle ear or the bone in the middle ear as become thick and got stuck is not moving as well as it should, then that can be diagnosed with certain audiological test and in those patients on doing surgery is a majority of them the problem can be solved, but we cannot assure that every person in whom we do surgery in them the tinnitus will vanish. Now third is in inner ear problems, now in inner problems again we need to know what are the different types of inner ear problems which can cause tinnitus. Largely in area problems can present with hearing loss, when these people have hearing loss they need to be amplified in the sense we need to provide them with which day will be able to hear normal ambient sound in the environment. Once they start hearing those sounds their perception of this extra noise in the ear comes down significantly. Lastly is to try and rule out whether there is a brain tumour. Now we don’t rule out a brain tumour in every patient with who has tinnitus, but the patient who comes to us with one sided tinnitus and says the tinnitus has progressing Plus or minus, that is he develops some amount of giddiness or whether hearing loss all on one side, then we are a bit concerned. We need to rule out a tumour called as vestibular schwannoma which can occur on the nerve of the hearing and hence most ENT specialist will be recommended that the patient undergoes an MRI of the inner ear with contrast. Now once this is done we will be able to rule out whether they have a tumour. The effort here is to try to rule out something which can be life threaten. Now in all these conditions some people will have relief once we give them treatment surgically or non-surgical but some may not be able to benefit with either surgery or not. It the sense we remove the tumour but the noise may persist. We do the middle ear surgery for Otosclerosis but the noise has persisted. We do give hearing aid, so long as they use Hearing aid the will be fine but once the Hearing Aid is removed and I go to sleep then they will again persist to have noise. So what we can do as clinician is to reassure them that these are not life threatening problems and other than the tumour which is in the brain, all other conditions are not life threatening problems. How we can help them cope up with their daily life and help them lead a normal life and probably encourage them into what is called as tinnitus rehabilitation therapy TRP and encourage them to learn certain techniques of yoga, which will help them concentrate in a way that they will be able to get their minds of the tinnitus. I personally I haven't found too much of a benefit with medication so I don't have to give medication for patient to have tinnitus I largely depend on meditation techniques, yogic techniques as well as tinnitus rehabilitation therapy rather than medication."
6 окт 2024
