Imagine hearing a sound every day, every hour, every minute, and every second. No, not about the eternal cases of COVID infections. A sound that doesn’t have any meaning whatsoever but never goes away. Tinnitus is its name, and ringing for long periods in our years is its game. Scientists even teach us that almost any person has a certain level of tinnitus.
If you’re sure that you don’t have any level of tinnitus, lay down and relax in a silent place. Listen carefully, and you may immediately start to realize the sound of a barely audible little buzz that sticks in your mind. Otherwise, it’s completely silent in the room – not even a mosquito flying, not a needle falling, nothing. Just you and your mind. That’s tinnitus.
Tinnitus sometimes means business
Not everybody is that lucky to need a very quiet place in order to notice the little noise from their heads. A lot of times, tinnitus goes berserk, annoying a person until the point that it causes sleep problems, concentration difficulties, anxiety, and even severe mental issues.
According to NPR.com, the cases of annoying levels of tinnitus could have been increasing during the ongoing pandemic. Some studies have shown that there might be a link between the COVID pandemic and the worsening of tinnitus for people who started to develop the condition before the outbreak of the coronavirus.
The British Tinnitus Association revealed that there’s a surge in the number of people opting for its services, and that includes a 256% increase in the total number of online chats amid the ongoing pandemic.
Luckily enough, there are some ways to treat tinnitus: using hearing aids, behavioural therapy, sound-masking devices, sound machines, and more.
Could the COVID-19 disease lead to tinnitus? While there’s no proof for such a scenario, we can only keep an eye on the latest studies revealed by experts to find out.
