Are you hearing a high pitched ringing or hissing sound in your ear for a few seconds at time? Does it quickly go away to come back another time, again for a few seconds? You could have a condition called Tinnitus. More specifically, you might have a condition called ‘Fleeting’ Tinnitus. In the medical world, this condition is referred to as SBUTT (Sudden Brief Unilateral Tapering Tinnitus). What does this all mean? What can you do about it? This sudden and random ringing usually occurs once a month, if it is SBUTT, according to this study here. Now, let’s learn more about this random ringing that affects you from time to time.
What could be causing random brief ear ringing and what can you do about it?
Tinnitus is an idiopathic condition. Meaning that the cause can often not be determined.
What is Your Tinnitus Handicap Score?
Calculate your THI Score in about 2-3 Minutes
Potential Causes of Random Ringing In Your Ears
Inner Ear Dysfunction
Your inner ear is a complex structure that helps you hear and also maintains balance. To function well, it needs a variety of nutrients in specific proportions. These nutrients include calcium (1), several vitamins (C (2), B2 (3), B6, (4) B12 (2)), Choline Bitartrate (5), Niacin (6) . A deficiency in any, some or all of these micro-nutrients can lead to inner ear dysfunction, which can then cause Tinnitus.
What can you do?
How Severe is Your Tinnitus?
Find out by using this THI (Tinnitus Handicap Inventory) Scoring Calculator
Follow a clean diet that will help your blood pressure. By simply optimizing your blood pressure, your Tinnitus can reduce or even resolve. To begin with, avoid foods that make your Tinnitus worse.
Hearing Loss Caused by Loud noise exposure or Aging
Have you noticed a pattern as to when you get a random ringing in your ears? Does it come on after you have listened to loud music? Or, does it maybe come on after you have used earphones or headphones? Most people can tolerate fairly loud music without having their ears affected. But, if you are like any of the 50 million Americans who suffer from Tinnitus, it probably means that your ears are sensitive.
Studies have shown that many “leisure environments” like concert venues, nightclubs, sports stadiums and even busy restaurants all have noise levels that can trigger Tinnitus (7).
Your ear’s cochlea has about 15,000 to 25,000 hair like cells. These hair cells bend and sway in response to sounds they hear. But, when the volume is excessive, they begin to die or remain bent out of shape for a long time. The movement of these hair cells are what are converted as auditory neurological signals for the brain to process as the sounds you hear. When these hair cells begin to die or become damaged, you slowly begin to lose your hearing. Most people who have hearing loss would have had deteriorating hearing for a long time. But, they notice it only when it is a bit too late.
When there’s hearing loss, your brain begins to compensate for the lack of signals from these damaged or dead hair cells, inventing a ringing, hissing or crackling sound that you hear for a few seconds, now and then.
Natural aging can also cause hearing loss that can then cause the brief ringing that comes and goes.
What can you do?
STOP using headphones or earphones that project sounds right into your ear canal. Even while using an external speaker, turn down the volume to play it safe for your ears. Also, protect your ears against loud environmental sounds. Wear Tinnitus ear plugs that can normalize loud sounds to protect your ears. Avoid environments such as loud concerts, clubs or events with blaring music.
If you are aged and have significant hearing loss, using hearing aids can restore some of your hearing. With a resumption of normal or close to normal auditory signal processing, you brain might stop inventing the ringing that you hear from time to time.
Ear Wax Problems
Sometimes, the temporary ringing that you hear now and then might be because of ear wax problems. For some people, ear wax accumulates more than normal. Sometimes, it even becomes impacted or hardened. Medically, this is called Cerumen impaction and it is a known cause of Tinnitus (8). This can then essentially act like a ear plug that blocks out sounds from reaching your ear drum.
Your brain again begins to invent sounds to make up for the lack of auditory inputs.
What can you do?
Don’t immediately go ear digging your ears with that Q-tip. That can cause damage to your ears too. Please read this post we wrote about how ear wax caused Tinnitus should be treated.
Jaw or TMJ Problems
Your jaw or the Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) is connected to your ear. Trauma, misalignment or overworking of your jaw can therefore affect how your ears function. People who clench their jaw or grind their teeth can also experience a ringing that comes and goes.
What can you do?
Try these Tinnitus jaw exercises to see if you can relieve the tension in your jaw. If your jaw problems are more severe, it is advisable that you see a doctor who can diagnose and treat it. Many have even sought the help of a chiropractor for their jaw and accompanying Tinnitus problems. Evidence suggests that manipulation of the TMJ can potentially provide Tinnitus relief (9).
Medications
Medication that you might be taking regularly might be ototoxic. Oto = ears. Toxic = bad. When a medicine is ototoxic, it means that it can adversely affect your ears, as a potential side effect (10). A surprisingly large number of commonly taken medications are ototoxic. These include non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs like Aspirin (11), some antibiotics, anti-malarial pills, diuretic pills and almost all antidepressants. Chemotherapy medicine can also be ototoxic.
What can you do?
Talk to your doctor about ototoxicity. See if you can get them to recommend drugs that are non-ototoxic or at least less ototoxic than the drugs you are taking now. For example, if you are taking an antidepressant like Paxil, you are much better of switching to a brand like Zoloft that is far less ototoxic. You can read about the best antidepressants for Tinnitus here.
Allergies, Sinusitis and Nasal Polyps
How can sinuses have anything to do with a ringing in your ears? It can happen because of Eustachian tube dysfunction. Your eustachian tube connects your sinuses to your ear. It’s function is to help normalize and stabilize the pressure in your ear canal. It is estimated that up to 1% of the general population suffers from Eustachian tube dysfunction (12), with Tinnitus being one of the symptoms, aside from compromised hearing, otalgia, balance issues and autophony.
When you have sinusitis, nasal polyps or even just a cold or allergy, your Eustachian tube doesn’t work well. This causes pressure in your ears to increase or feel full. This can damage your ears’ delicate structures and then result in you hearing a ringing in your ears that you hear for a few seconds at a time.
What can you do?
Read these posts to learn about what you can do for Tinnitus caused by allergies, sinusitis or nasal polyps.
Head or Neck Tumors (Acoustic neuromas)
Sometimes, benign (non-cancerous) tumors can press on the auditory nerve that runs from your ears to your brain. This can cause a condition called pulsatile Tinnitus. With such a case of Tinnitus, the ringing will often be rhythmic, matching your heart beat.
What can you do?
See a ENT specialist or doctor who will use imaging diagnostics to come up with a treatment plan for you, mostly involving surgery (13).
Other Causes
Anything that can make Tinnitus worse for people suffering from Tinnitus can also cause Tinnitus to randomly ring in your ears for a few seconds at a time. Please read this post we wrote about what makes Tinnitus worse. Triggers include alcohol, marijuana, smoking, high blood pressure and even stress and anxiety.
What can you do?
Avoid or limit your exposure to the triggers mentioned in the above post.
Please also read this post about why Tinnitus comes and goes. If the random ringing in your ear comes and goes in just one ear, you can learn more about the meaning of ringing in your right or left ear here.
