A Hidden Cause of Tinnitus?

Hey guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona, and in this video I'm talking about how ear wax can cause tinnitus and what you can do to prevent it coming up. Three of the most common things that audiologists see on a daily basis is hearing loss, tinnitus, and excessive ear wax. Hearing loss is no surprise. There are approximately 40 million people in the United States alone who have hearing loss and 1.5 billion. Yes, that's right, Billion people worldwide who have hearing loss when the tiny little microscopic hair cell structures inside of your cochlea, which is your hearing organ, sustained damage due to things like genetics, chemical exposure, noise exposure, head trauma, or even age. It results in something called sensorineural hearing loss. Now, if your hearing loss is caused by something like a blockage due to fluid ear wax or a perforated eardrum, it's called a conductive hearing loss because the conductive pathway of sound through your entire ear system is obstructed. Now, just like hearing loss, tinnitus is also extremely common. Now, I don't care how you say it, whether you say tinnitus or tinnitus, it is basically a phantom perception of sound that you perceive in your head or in your ears. Even though there is no external sound present, a lot of times people perceive it as being a ringing or buzzing sound, or sometimes it even sounds like cicadas or running water. In the United States, approximately 25 million Americans have tinnitus, and 90% of those individuals also have hearing loss. The reason why so many individuals with tinnitus also have hearing loss is because tinnitus is often caused by the lack of auditory information that's able to make it from the ears up to the brain. When this happens, the human brain can trigger a phantom sound to replace the missing sound, but perhaps even more common than we see hearing loss in tinnitus, we see a heck of a lot of excessive earwax build up. Remember how I said that 40 million Americans have hearing loss and 25 million Americans have tinnitus? Well, 100% of people produce earwax. Earwax is a combination of three different things. It's dead skin cells, it is hair, and it is waxy secretions from the skin inside of the ear canals. Now, in a lot of people, this earwax will migrate naturally out of their ear canals so it doesn't become an issue, and then other people that earwax gets stuck inside of their ears. In fact, nearly 12 million Americans seek out medical care every single year for excessive ear wax buildup, and 8 million of those individuals require professional ear wax removal. But here's the thing, excessive ear wax inside of your ear canal can create up to a 30 decibel hearing loss across the entire frequency range of your hearing, which is equivalent to basically wearing an ear plug inside of your ear all day long. This means that sound is not able to make it from your ears up to your brain due to that plug of ear wax. And remember what I said about lack of sound, making it from your ears to your brain. You know what that can cause? That's right. That can cause tinnitus. Now, if your tinnitus is caused by a sensorineural hearing loss, then the best way for you to get rid of the tinnitus is to actually treat your hearing loss with hearing aids. However, if you have a conductive hearing loss that is created by excessive ear wax buildup inside of your ears, then you need to get rid of that earwax to make the tinnitus go away. But before I explain the best ways to remove your earwax, to get rid of your tinnitus, do me a huge favor and click the like button. It really helps out my channel because it gets these videos in front of a bigger audience. And while you're at it, if you have not yet hit that subscribe button with notification bell, go ahead and do that as well, because that ensures that you never miss one of my newly released videos and I publish a ton of new videos every single week. That being said, it's greatly appreciated. Now, back to the video. One of the best ways to remove your own ear wax at home is to use the Wax Blaster MD ear cleaning kit that now includes a free bottle of Earwax MD from Eosera today's video sponsor. There are a lots of different ear cleaning kits on the market, but not all of them are created equal. The Wax Blaster kit from Eosera includes an ergonomic spray bottle that can easily be operated with one hand, an ear base into catch the ear wax being flushed out of your ears, and Earwax MD earwax removal drops. Earwax MD is actually the same eardrops that I use inside of my clinic to professionally remove stubborn cases of earwax buildup. In a clinical trial, earwax MD was able to successfully remove impacted ear wax in 86% of ears with one to two 15 minute treatments. Earwax MD is so effective at breaking down earwax because it uses glycolic acid to hydrate the dead skin cells inside of the earwax, as well as sodium and potassium bicarbonate that breaks down the fatty acids that bind earwax. Together, the combination of these active ingredients breaks down the earwax better than any product that I've ever tested. In fact, here is a side-by-side comparison of a leading 6.5% carbimide peroxide airdrop solution versus Earwax MD. As you can see, the Earwax MD solution breaks down the earwax significantly more compared to the earwax inside of the peroxide solution that doesn't appear to change at all. Once the ear Wax MD has done its job to break down the ear wax, you use the Wax Blaster MD to safely flush that earwax out of your ear canals. And you can even repeat this process several times to make sure that your ear canals are squeaky clean. Now, if your ear wax impaction is too significant for at-home irrigation, or you have a perforation in your eardrum, then the next best thing that you can do is go into a hearing care professional To have the ear wax professionally removed, you do wanna make sure that you're going into an audiologist who specializes in professional ear wax removal to make sure that it is done safely. You will also want to see an audiologist if you are successful at removing your ear wax, but the tinnitus remains. This could be the sign of a more serious medical condition, like an Acoustic Neuroma or Vestibular Schwannoma that is growing on your auditory nerve that is preventing the flow of sound from your ear up to your brain, causing the tinnitus. Fortunately, most people don't even realize that their tinnitus could be simply caused by earwax, build up inside of their ears, and just by simply getting rid of the ear racks, the tinnitus can go away. So if you happen to have an annoying ringing or buzzing sound inside of your head or your ears, it could be as simple as just getting rid of your earwax to make it go away.