My ears are ringing, and this problem had bugged me before, most especially during a certain period when the ringing was very loud. I consulted a lot of experts, who told me a lot about this ear malady, which I cannot call a disease or a disorder because these terms are inappropriate. 

The first thing that patients like me asks is, “Where did I get this?” People ask how they got the condition. There is a wide range of causes, and from my own experience and conversations with doctors and other patients, I have known a lot of things that might interest you.

The most common cause is noise-induced hearing loss, which is accompanied by tinnitus. Four out of five ear specialists I went to link my tinnitus to noise, “…because you are a disco club owner,” they would say. Of course, anybody who has gone to pubs and clubs at night would know how noisy these inns get. 

In the first three years of my ordeal, I wore a hearing aid. A hearing aid makes external sound louder, muffling the internal noise perception. Thus, a hearing aid works by letting you hear better. 

But not all patients can be given hearing aids. If your tinnitus is not associated with hearing loss, then hearing aids might only make your condition a little worse. There are masking devices that work by emitting background noise that drowns tinnitus. 

More and more people are coming to clinics saying, “My ears are ringing.” Ear specialists would order a scan to check the ear canal and the eardrums. Some people who experience tinnitus have impacted earwax or perforated eardrum. “That’s why, be careful not to push anything into your ears, especially if they are sharp and pointed,” said an attending otolaryngologist at a clinic I went to during at least a dozen times. 

Masking devices are the usual recommendation. “Right now, science hasn’t found anything yet that stops ear noises altogether,” one of the ENT specialists pointed out to me and another patient, “That’s why we could only work to make you feel better, to allow you to momentarily forget you have these ugly noise in your heads,” he continued. 

The matter with masking devices is that once you stop wearing them, tinnitus comes back instantly. However, they greatly aid people sleep better. I use to play a soothing music at low volume at night to keep me relaxed. 

Meditation, hypnosis, cognitive behavior therapy, retraining therapy, and natural remedies are other treatment options for my-ears-are-ringing complaints.