What is the cause of tinnitus and ear congestion?

If you hold your breath on your own and feel tinnitus, you should pay more attention to whether there is any disease in your ears. Our ears are the way we listen to sounds from the outside world, so we must protect the health of our ears. There are many causes of tinnitus, the most common ones are excessive psychological stress, otitis media, middle ear infection, etc. Appropriate examinations are needed to find out the cause.

Differential Diagnosis

1. The nature of tinnitus

Low-pitch tinnitus is mostly acoustic transmission, high-pitch tinnitus is mostly sensory, and high and low pitches existing at the same time or alternating with each other are mostly mixed, with low-pitch tinnitus occurring first, followed by high-pitch or mixed tinnitus, indicating that the lesion starts from the acoustic transmission organs and then extends to the sensory organs.

2. Lateral differentiation of tinnitus

Unilateral tinnitus is mostly caused by lesions of the sound transmission system, while bilateral tinnitus is mostly caused by diseases of the sensory system. However, acoustic neuroma is mostly unilateral tinnitus, while tinnitus caused by hypertension is usually bilateral.

3. Disease situation

After the onset of conductive tinnitus, it rarely changes, so it is often persistent. Some sensory tinnitus are short-lived and often occur or disappear suddenly. When there are long-term lesions in the sound sensory organs, tinnitus is often persistent.

4. The relationship between tinnitus and deafness

Tinnitus and deafness often occur at the same time. About 60% to 70% of tinnitus patients are diagnosed with deafness through audiometry. Therefore, determining the nature of the deafness lesion is helpful in the diagnosis of tinnitus.

5. Causes

Middle ear infection, surgery, poisoning by ototox drugs, craniocerebral trauma, acute or chronic acoustic trauma, excessive smoking and drinking, and mental stress are often the causes of tinnitus.

1. Etiological treatment

If the primary lesion can be found and special treatment can be taken, better results can be achieved regardless of whether the tinnitus is subjective or objective. In subjective tinnitus, for example, in secretory otitis media, the tinnitus often disappears immediately after blowing or tympanocentesis; and in early noise-induced hearing loss, the tinnitus usually gets relieved or disappears after leaving the noisy environment. For example, in many cases of tympanic cavity tumors or cerebellopontine angle tumors, tinnitus is relieved or disappears after the lesions are removed. Objective tinnitus also often disappears after the cause is corrected. For example, abnormal patency of the Eustachian tube can be relieved or disappear after conservative or surgical treatment to relieve its excessive patency. Another example is that arteriovenous fistula or malformation can be relieved by surgical correction. Another example is tinnitus caused by lesions of the vertebral artery communicating branches, which often disappears after the communicating branches and lesions are removed.

2. Drug treatment

1. Improve blood supply to the cochlea: Poor blood supply, such as vasospasm and vascular embolism, are common causes that affect cochlear function. The use of vasodilators can improve blood circulation in the inner ear, thereby treating inner ear diseases and eliminating or alleviating tinnitus.

2. Improve the energy metabolism or neurotrophy of inner ear tissue: Adenosine triphosphate and coenzyme A can activate tissue respiration and improve the circulatory system; both can enhance the oxygen supply to inner ear tissue; Mecobalamin is a coenzyme type B12 that can repair damaged nerve tissue.

3. Anticonvulsants: The effect of this type of drug may be to block the multi-axon system in the brainstem, especially the reticular formation.