A ringing in your ears or a continuous ringing: tinnitus is a problem for many people. And not just a problem for the ‘festival generation’, people who are at the front of a concert every week without earplugs. It can affect anyone, says clinical physicist-audiologist Thijs Thielemans.
About one and a half to two million people in the Netherlands currently suffer from tinnitus. For a small part of those people the complaints are so bad that they seek help for it. Such as for Tom Parijs from Den Bosch, who previously told Omroep Brabant. He hears the sound of a fighter jet in one ear and a shrill beep in his other ear, ever since he visited a hardcore festival in Eindhoven. Tom is despairing and now wants to go to South Korea for treatment.
From the many reactions that came to that story, it appeared that Tom is not the only one with the problem. And the clinical physicist-audiologist can confirm that. “And the causes of tinnitus are very diverse,” says Thielemans.
Sometimes a medical cause can be found. For example, an ear infection or an earwax plug that is against the eardrum. These are causes that can often be remedied. And sometimes patients are able to link the tinnitus to a specific event: such as an accident with whiplash complaints or it occurs after sudden noise.
“Sometimes it recovers, sometimes it doesn’t.”
Most of us will have experienced something like this. “If you’ve been to a party or out, that you feel the buzz or hear a beep. Then your hearing has already had a significant impact,” says Thielemans. “Sometimes it recovers and sometimes it doesn’t.”
But for many other people it is always guesswork, Thielemans knows. “They never find out what caused their tinnitus. They wake up one day with a noise, a beep or a buzz in their ears. And it won’t go away.”
A lot of research is being done into the origin of tinnitus and what you can do about it. “People are now convinced that it has to do with the signals that go to your brain. That your auditory nerves spontaneously show activity, without sound being present. Tinnitus is therefore also called phantom sound.”
“People keep looking for a cause, they are distraught.”
And that can literally drive you crazy. Especially if that sound is there all the time, says Thielemans. “There is a group of people for whom this evokes a stress response. They panic: ‘if this is it, I can no longer live’.” And then you end up on a psychological level. “People keep looking to find a cause. People are distraught and then they go shopping. Go abroad for treatment.” Just like Tom. Something Thielemans would never advise as a scientist himself. “A lot of treatments are proposed that are not or insufficiently proven.”
But he certainly understands. “Sometimes they win something with it. In many cases they don’t. But I understand the desperation. I can imagine that people get upset if they never experience peace again. People who think: ‘how should I continue, it doesn’t have to be like this anymore “They get depressed feelings, there are plenty of examples of that. Then people take everything.”
There is therefore no guarantee that you will never suffer from tinnitus. However, you can at least protect your hearing if you go to a concert, for example. “But actually the sound should just be softer,” says Thielemans.
ALSO READ: Tom’s ringing in the ears is so bad that he even drafted a euthanasia statement