Somatic Tinnitus, an Independent Form of Tinnitus — or Not?

I often wonder whether my observations, with beeping when pressing on different parts of the head, beeping with certain head turns or pushing the lower jaw to the right, have not always existed. Already existed, before I got my bizarre hissing tinnitus on my left ear, probably because of a noise damage.

I am convinced that the importance of the somatic influence of tinnitus also needs to be clarified for this forum.

However, somatic tinnitus is an important issue.

Regards,
Tinniger

 

@Tinniger Agreed, somatic influence of tinnitus does has importance, but it can't be totally flow charted and fully discussed within one article or several articles without leaving holes. The neck, face, and jaw has many interactions to tinnitus.

Many there have posted valuable articles on a certain aspect and I posted the ones where I see value on certain aspects. Many articles will differ in opinion, so speaking of myself in the last six months, I have posted 20 or so links that I feel are important to many aspects of physical tinnitus.

Some articles differ on using hot and cold. It depends on the area of condition and how long that area has been a problem. Then it still may be trial and error because of the nature of physical nerves that may have damage.

One thing that's agree upon is that radiological testing should be done. A simple X Ray of neck to start with. Everyone should have a lung X Ray every five years so why get a neck X Ray.

 

Nobody seems to be interested in somatic tinnitus!

 

@Tinniger So true. Dizziness, eye redness/soreness, headaches, clenching of teeth and facial disorder can connect with the sternocleidomastoid with relation to the masseter that causes T. Facial disorders can be caused from many things. Other neck muscles. C1 - C2 connection to TMD/TMJ. Many physical things to consider such as posture, arthritis, disc space, cervical veins, arteries, nerves and the list goes on.

 

It's a lot easier to try hearing aids and pop a benzo than to try to figure out " if " your noise is somatic caused. It may not even be somatic caused but rather hearing loss. I need results sooner rather than later.

https://www.hear-it.org/tinnitus-causes-changes-brain

 

@just1morething Only from research: The amount of hearing is a key consideration. Some with hearing loss, but more without hearing loss from noise exposure can have tension issues or injury that causes muscle spasms that also can have an effect on loudness and pitch.

Research states that there must be cause valuation made if it's one ear, both, moves around, becomes centralized or increases/decreases with certain physical actions and emotional tension. It can also include bad posture and arthritis for older people. Sometimes it will include facial which can be complicated.

Without hearing loss being a main factor, physical tinnitus can have a summary with few pages if infection, facial, serious trauma/injury with domino effects, disease or degenerative conditions are not severe.

For myself, after reading thousands of physical tinnitus articles in the last year, I have only found a few articles that I feel digs beyond the cause mechanisms or just a condition like a sore neck. You have posted some and others as well. They go into exact areas with percentages. For what's it's worth, we should try to post some summary doctrine from research. Summary that does describe the exact areas with percentages of physical tinnitus cause that have some treatments. I will post some myself, but I'm just not smart enough to draw complete conclusions to difficult tinnitus matters.

From Chapter 4 Cervical Spine Trauma
Spasm of the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius. The spinal accessory nerve allows the trapezius and sternocleidomastoid to control movement. Masseter. C1 and C2 nerves. All very important.

The axis and C5-C6 is the least involved. The vertebral arch 50%. Vertebral body 30% and IVD 30%. Anterior ligaments 2%. Posterior ligaments 16%.

Facial disorder involvement 50% from other studies.

@Markku Maybe we can incorporate some percentages of major physical tinnitus into the study that you would like to conduct.

 

Dr. Robert Aaron Levine's Tinnitus...

 

What I meant to say was "pop goes the weasel" not "pop a benzo". I get that mixed up all the time. Happens.

 

Me either. I have difficulty even figuring out "pop goes the weasel" nursery rhyme. I'm baffled. I'm only a human bean.

 

Found this:

April 21, 2017 at 9:56 pm

William –

I strongly recommend you do some research to help you understand what tinnitus is and what it is not. Although hearing loss and/or trauma to your ear(s) can be responsible for what you’re experiencing, tinnitus actually occurs in your brain, specifically in the audio cortex. Generally, your brain is expecting input from your cochlea over the entire range of frequencies humans can hear (20-20,000 Hz). The cochlea (a small seashell shaped organ in your middle ear) has tiny little hairs called “cilia”. The cilia are small at the entrance and get progressively bigger as you spiral in to the cochlea. The smaller, more fragile hairs vibrate in response to high frequencies; the bigger hairs to low frequencies. When these hairs vibrate, they send their signal thru the auditory nerve to the brain, where it is processed by the audio cortex. As we age (and/or are exposed to loud sounds or trauma at any age) , the smaller fragile hairs tend to get damaged and stop sending impulses, leaving the larger, lower-frequency hairs as your primary source of auditory stimulus. Think of the hairs in your ears like a field of hay swaying in the breeze, Aging and acoustic trauma can make that hayfield look like a 747 did a belly landing in it. So the celia hairs that are healthy and functioning are sending signals to the audio cortex, and the cortex is assuming that all of the celia are working as they should. So when they become damaged or wear out and stop sending their impulses, the audio cortex MAY decide to take drastic action. What do you do when you’re driving and the signal from the radio station starts to fade? You turn the volume up (increase sensitivity). That’s what your brain is doing for the frequencies it expects but isn’t receiving. It does this by growing more receptor neurons at the location in the cortex where the missing frequencies should be (think of the cortex as being like a piano). Two bad things can result when the amount of neurons at any given frequency location becomes excessive – self oscillation ( the cells create the expected frequency all on their own, similar to feedback created by a microphone jammed into a speaker cabinet) which (I believe) is the ringing we experience, and/or hyperacusis (sensitivity to loud sounds). It seems logical that hyperacusis would accompany tinnitus. If neurons build up at certain frequency points, then these will affect the frequencies just above and just below the point of loss. If the cilia are sending impulses at those frequencies and the cortex has ramped up the sensitivity near those frequencies, they’re going to be perceived as exponentially louder than they should be – to the point of pain. In my case, these frequencies sound distorted, compressed and seem to drown out everything else that is occurring acoustically. You probably know by now there is no cure for this if your brain has decided to react this way short of restoring the missing stimulus and hoping the excess neurons will deactivate themselves. And – until we discover a way to regrow flattened cilia, that’s probably not going to happen. Someday research will figure something out for us that will if not totally stop the ringing, at least turn it down.


Unsure what you can do but use hearing aids to help with lost signals. I have nasty static sound today 5-5-18. Maybe Clonazepam and hearing aids? Not good.

 

@Greg Sacramento, @Tinniger - So it could be head and neck muscles and/or hearing nerves according to Dr. Levine. I was starting to give up on neck muscles as a cause. I'm still going to try hearing aids as my noise is severe and I need relief. Clonazepam and diazepam could relax the neck muscles as well as enhancing the GABA receptors.

https://sites.google.com/site/doctorlevinestinnitussite/

 

@just1morething @Tinniger Give me an update on any trigger points and include anything facial.

There's about 3000 physical possibilities that narrow down to about 300 primary causes and then down to 150 probable causes. If there's more than one trigger point, but less than five, then it's not difficult to find rhythm and reason. If your c spine itself hurts, then trigger point therapy is less dangerous than deep massage and exercising the neck side to side. If certain facial conditions are included, then it's not difficult to spot the problems, but therapy will take time. The same for any structure change within the c spine or arthritis of the c spine.

 

A question for everyone suffering from somatic tinnitus:

Do you also have "normal" tinnitus, which can be somatically influenced?

Or do you primarily only have tinnitus when you have somatic influence?

 

Okay, I guess my question was confusing, maybe a language problem. I wanted to differentiate between somatic influence on tinnitus and somatic trigger of tinnitus. Thus the question clarify whether the tinnitus is caused somatically or whether the tinnitus of non-somatic origin is only modified somatically...

 

? No one understands me?

 

I read the definiton: Somatic tinnitus is a condition in which the sensory system in the body can cause, worsen or influence tinnitus.

But: Causing tinnitus and affecting tinnitus are two completely different matters.

What of both is true?

 

I had no tinnitus at all before my neck injury. To answer your question in your first post, yes, somatic tinnitus is definitely an independent form of tinnitus.