Why the ringing?
By. Hope LaGrange
How do we hear?
Before I can even explain why we hear ringing you have to understand how we hear. When a sound enters the ear, it causes pressure fluctuations within the inner ear. The inner ear is filled with fluids, fluids which help facilitate the transfer of these vibrations.They travel down a tube and to outer hair cells. The mammalian cochlea of sensory hair cell; the outer and inner hair cells. These cells are what detects then converts vibrations or movement into electrical signals. Because of the outer hair cells, our hearing sensitivity is increased by 40-60 decibels.
What causes the ringing?
When the outer hair cells put energy back into the vibration, it’s called positive feedback. The process is meant to amplify very quiet sounds more so than loud ones but sometimes the sounds are to loud for the other hair cells to handle making the ringing accur. When the ringin begins your nerves relize it so they begin using a mechanism to bring or stop the ringing this process 30 seconds and about a minute to fully stop the ringing.
Symptoms sometimes can lead to hearing loss but mostly a slight reduction in hearing sensitivity and a feeling of fullness in the ear. To avoid or treat the ringing try to stay away from loud sounds or use ear plugs to make it not as loud.