Can damaged ear bones cause tinnitus?

July 11th, 2010 |

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Tinnitus is defined as the perception of noise in the absence of external stimulation. It can occur due to a whole lot of factors.

Our middle ear is an air-filled space that contains a chain of three tiny bones, known as the ossicular chain. The 3 bones or ossicles are known as the malleus, incus and stapes. The malleus, which is the first bone of the chain, is attached to the rear part of the ear drum at one end and to the incus on the other end. The incus is attached to the stapes, which is located in the oval window of the inner ear.

The middle ear is linked with the back of the throat and the nose through the Eustachian tube. The function of this tube is to maintain an equal air pressure between the middle ear and the air that surrounds us. The ossicular chain and the eardrum vibrate in response to sound waves that enter into the ear.

Conductive hearing loss can occur when certain mechanical difficulties hinder the transmission of sound waves towards the cochlea.

This may happen if the ossicles get damaged due to the following reasons:

• Trauma caused to the ear drum through external sources.
• Constant infections can gradually dissolve either one or all three of the bones that constitute the ossicles.
• Hereditary reasons.

The reduction of the hearing capacity that follows an acoustic trauma is known as a threshold shift. This implies that the lowest sound that an individual can hear has been changed. This threshold shift can be either temporary or permanent. A hearing loss is often accompanied by tinnitus, which is a ringing sound in the ears in the absence of any external sound.

A French study shows that only one out of the 23 tinnitus patients who had participated in the survey did not suffer from a hearing loss.
Studies also show that there is a relation between the degree of the hearing loss and the frequencies of the low hearing. As described by the participants, the frequency of the tinnitus noise was directly proportional to the measured frequencies of the hearing loss. The loudness of the tinnitus noise was also equivalent to the degree of hearing loss.

On the basis of these studies, we can conclude that damaged ear bones can trigger tinnitus.

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