Tinnitus is usually caused by an underlying condition, such as age-related hearing loss, an ear injury, or a circulatory system problem. For many people, tinnitus improves with treatment for the underlying cause or with other treatments that reduce or mask noise, making tinnitus less noticeable. People might be led to believe that differences in individual attitudes toward tinnitus can simply be explained by people who have different types of tinnitus. Subjective tinnitus is the much most common type of tinnitus and accounts for approximately 99% of tinnitus experiences.
Somatic tinnitus is a type of subjective tinnitus in which the frequency or intensity is altered by body movements such as clenching the jaw, turning the eyes, or applying pressure to the head and neck. This type of tinnitus is not only heard by the person experiencing it, but it can also be detected by another person, such as a doctor with a stethoscope. Among older people with hearing loss, there are less common forms of tinnitus, such as those involving familiar musical melodies or voices without comprehensible speech, and are thought to represent a central type of tinnitus involving reverberatory activity within neural loops and a high level of processing in the auditory cortex. The tinnitus experience is different for everyone, so it's no surprise that the causes and types of tinnitus vary considerably from person to person.
Regardless of the type of tinnitus you may experience, living with it can be a frustrating symptom.
