Why does impacted ear wax cause tinnitus?
Many people seem to notice their tinnitus arise or heighten in line with an ear wax blockage. This often promotes the question “Does the presence of ear wax cause tinnitus?” In this article, we explore this very question.
Tinnitus may be described as the phantom perception of sound heard within the ears or head. Characteristics of the tinnitus sound can vary between and even within persons. Most typically, it may sound like a “ringing”, “buzzing” or “whistling”. It can be constant or brief, loud or quiet.
Quite often patients with occluding ear wax may notice tinnitus.
This can appear out of the blue or may be perceived as a heightening of pre-existing tinnitus. The most likely mechanism for this lies in the physical blockage. Whilst the auditory system is complex, the initial entering of sound waves via the ear canal is a pretty basic first step along the way to hearing sound. If the ear canal is blocked with sticky wax, sound wave energy is reduced and hearing is dulled. In this instance, a “conductive hearing loss” has been created. Everyday sounds, conversation and background noise will be reduced.
However, by contrast, internal sounds (i.e. the tinnitus) can be heightened through a loss of ambient masking. So strictly speaking the tinnitus isn’t created by the ear wax blockage. It is already likely to be present just less noticeable or masked by everyday sounds.
Although there are a number of tinnitus models it is typically associated with “neural noise” higher up in our auditory brain pathways. In the case of ear wax and tinnitus then… the new is positive; remove the wax blockage and hearing should improve. Access to everyday sounds return and the tinnitus fades or even disappears completely with the return of ambient masking.
We’re experts in ear wax removal, we use a state-of-the-art ENT operating microscope to illuminate and visualise your ears in ultra high definition (the true gold standard for ear examination). We are then able to gently remove the ear wax using microsuction. Unlike syringing, this is a safe and dry method which does NOT require the pre-application of oil drops or wax softeners, which are often only necessary in a small minority of hard wax cases.
Talk to Dr. Jeff about your tinnitus
Simply book a comprehensive hearing assessment where we will thoroughly assess your hearing health and tinnitus symptoms, before making any clinical recommendations.
