Pulsatile Tinnitus

Ever have that experience wherein you stay awake almost all night just because you can hear a constant beating sound inside your ear? Well, what you are experiencing is commonly called as pulsatile tinnitus.

What is tinnitus? Tinnitus is a hearing disorder. People having such disorder claim that they often find themselves hearing different kinds of sounds that happen internally. Sounds can vary from a ringing to a buzzing and sometimes to that of a beating sound. All of these characteristics seem to describe subjective tinnitus. This is where the sound that a patient hears can only be heard by him and him alone. Other people surrounding him, no matter how close they stand could never hear such sounds. This kind of tinnitus is due to the malfunction of the auditory nerve further deep down in the inner ear.

There is however another kind of tinnitus. Objective tinnitus, rather a much more rare case, is the kind of tinnitus wherein the sounds that the patient hears can also be heard by an examiner. Such sounds can be heard with the use of technology or other medical tools. These medical tool can be used to measure the sound of tinnitus to find out what causes the ringing sensation.

Let us discuss further pulsatile tinnitus which obviously falls under subjective tinnitus. From the name itself, it mentions of the root word pulse. From that alone, it would give you an idea where the sound comes from. The beating or pumping sound is actually the sound of your heart or the flow and rush of blood through your veins.

This kind of tinnitus is being caused by an increase or sudden decrease of blood flow in the large arteries and veins in the neck, lower part of the skull and the smaller blood vessels found inside the ear.

Doctors have concluded that treatment for pulsatile tinnitus is related to its specific cause. Like for example, if the cause of increased blood flow is due to high blood pressure, then the tinnitus can be treated with medication that reduces and control the blood pressure to normal levels.

Having the chance to identify the root cause or causes of pulsatile tinnitus will eventually lead us to specific remedies that does not only treat tinnitus but the causes of the throbbing in ears as well.