How Does a Head Injury Cause Tinnitus?

Dear Dr. Nagler-

From your experience of dealing with hundreds of Tinnitus patients, some by noise and some by other causes such as head injury i'm wondering from your expert opinion how a head injury causes Tinnitus?

Whether it be head injury, chin injury, minor or mild concussion i'm curious for the underlying reasons?

Also from your experience is noise induced tinnitus different from head trauma induced?

Thanks for your expert feedback, insight and opinion.

 

Hi @martin12 -

Thank you for your interesting question.

The truth is ... I do not have an opinion regarding how head injury causes tinnitus. There are a number of postulated mechanisms, but I find none of them compelling enough to hand my hat on it.

Now there I have an opinion. To me, once the handful of curable causes of tinnitus has been addressed and ruled out and once the very very rare causes of tinnitus that are a threat to health have similarly been ruled out, then the only thing that matters is how your tinnitus affects your life. And in that regard whether your tinnitus was caused by head trauma or by noise is totally irrelevant.

Well, I'm not sure how "expert" it is, but you are most welcome nonetheless.

Dr. Stephen Nagler