Tinnitus is quite common in US.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – Experts from the University of California conducted a study to establish how many Americans suffer from chronic tinnitus.
This hearing disorder manifests through a persistent and annoying roaring or ringing in the head or ears. Based on the results, they discovered that one in ten Americans experience this health condition because they are often exposed to a lot of noise.
In other words, around 10 percent of Americans 18 years and older confessed that they had suffered a sensation of noise or ringing in their ears in the past year including whistling, whooshing, beating, buzzing, and roaring.
According to Dr. Harrison Lin, lead author of the study and a throat, nose, and ear specialist at the University of California, Irvine, other previous surveys have established that the tinnitus rates are even higher among the general population.
These rates ranged between eight to 25.3 percent of Americans suffering from chronic tinnitus. Scientists stressed that tinnitus could have severe consequences on people’s life quality because it usually affects concentration, sleep, hearing, emotions, and thought processing.
This hearing disorder first caught the attention of the specialists in 2007 during the National Health Interview Survey conduct by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These people were asked about severity, duration, frequency of the symptoms and if they had previously reported to their doctors about this problem.
Experts tried to establish if these people had received any treatment to reduce the symptoms. At the end of the latest study, researchers came to the conclusion that 27 percent of the participants with tinnitus had lived with those symptoms for over 15 years, whereas 56 percent of them had experienced ringing in their years for more than five years.
Also, 36 percent of these people confessed that the tinnitus symptoms were constant. Experts recommend people to try using a white-noise machine at bedtime or turn on a fan. White-noise machines are devices that can play various nature sounds including birds, ocean waves, and waterfalls.
Another possible remedy might consist of a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is a type of psychotherapy that increases the patient’s tolerance to constant tinnitus noises. CBT purpose is to convert negative emotions related to tinnitus into more constructive and positive emotions.
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