Causes Of Ear Ringing

Since 1992 the private sounds inside the heads of millions of people in the UK have been joined by a chorus of publicly heard voices demanding that tinnitus be taken more seriously. Sufferers have rallied behind what has been hailed as a manifesto for change, the Tinnitus Charter 2000, whose sheer novelty is likely to win it a place in the history of the struggle against tinnitus. Incredibly there had never before been a similar document setting out the extent and nature of the condition and explicitly listing what should be done for relief and cure. It seeks 'a better deal for the 4 million people in the UK who suffer persistent internal head noises, through improved medical attention to secure management of the disorder and increased medical research funding towards an ultimate cure'.

 

The document adds: 'Generations of tinnitus sufferers have been neglected by society. The burden adults and children continue to bear is little understood by the rest of the population and the provision of public resource, for both treatment in the National Health Service and the work of researchers, is scandalously low. An aim of Tinnitus Charter 2000 is to break this debilitating circle of private ignorance and public neglect by the end of the century. To achieve this, some immediate action needs to be taken.'

 

The Charter, welcomed by lay and medical people, calls upon the Government, the medical and social professions, community leaders and interested members of the public to support, in intention and implementation, the following nine requests:

1. Greater funding of the Medical Research Council to extend current tinnitus research.
2. The creation of more tinnitus-only clinics throughout the UK.
3. Greater acceptance of severe tinnitus as a handicap, in granting of unemployment, disability and other welfare benefits.
4. Free and universal provision of ear-worn tinnitus maskers to sufferers capable of finding relief from them.
5. A higher priority place for tinnitus in the allocation of individual hospital budgets.
6. Training of GPs and other doctors to include greater emphasis on tinnitus management.
7. Stricter control of excessive noise, which is known to cause tinnitus, in workplaces.
8. Maximum sound levels to be placed in discotheques, to protect young people.
9. Health education programmes to warn of excessive noise, and makers and retailers of home discos and audio equipment to endorse the warning.

 

Charter 2000 has received wide support in both Houses of Parliament, with numerous MPs and peers pledging their active help in pursuing its aims. Trade union organisations see it as a public expression of many of their own members' dissatisfaction at the difficulties they face in receiving adequate compensation for tinnitus brought on by dangerously noisy workplaces. Ex-servicemen's organisations have used it to support their call for compensation to be paid for tinnitus arising from duties in the armed forces. It has also helped to place the subject more prominently in the media, with some national journals publishing what is believed to be their first coverage of tinnitus.

 

In other respects it has so far done little to dent the solid wall of ignorance, and even hostility, from which tinnitus has suffered for so long. Though it has been properly briefed in recent years, with statistics available from the Institute of Hearing Research, the Government has shown little signs of doing anything positive about tinnitus, or even understanding its magnitude. 'It is not known how many people have tinnitus,' a Health Minister told a questioner in the House of Commons in January 1995. 'The number of tinnitus only clinics are not available centrally. However, there are facilities for the treatment of tinnitus at all the National Health Service ear, nose and throat departments. As with all patient groups, responsibility for the provision of services for people with tinnitus rests with the health authorities who have to assess needs and priorities against resources. We have no plans to review these provisions.'

 

The outlook for tinnitus thus remains bleak in areas where politics and medicine merge. There are no signs that ministers favour any national initiatives to help fight it. They excuse the inaction by defending the autonomy enjoyed by the area health authorities, who must locally decide if money and personnel should be diverted to treating the condition. Where national action would be appropriate there has also been a disappointing response to the campaign for a fair deal for tinnitus sufferers and for measures to prevent the spread of the condition. War veterans still find it hard to get compensation: anyone unable to work is unlikely to obtain financial help, which is more readily available to those with visible disabilities; and anti-noise laws for the workplace still do not cover places of entertainment.

 

Lack of sympathy is also encountered in the music and entertainment industries. Whenever the subject of pop concerts and discos and their potential to give tinnitus to young people is aired publicly, some promoters and disco owners have bluntly challenged the argument, saying there is no evidence to prove that loud sounds enjoyed by young people ever cause permanent noises in the head. Suppliers of home stereo equipment are just as unfriendly to the Tinnitus Charter, continuing to advertise the 'head blasting' and 'mind blowing' qualities of some amplifiers and loud speakers.

 

Campaigners have been dismayed at the widespread ignorance among people whose job it is to understand medical problems. Some doctors writing advice columns in magazines and newspapers play down the seriousness of tinnitus, describing it as 'just a ringing in the ear' and 'something that can be a bit annoying' but can be forgotten.

 

A medical pundit on a morning TV programme attracted hundreds of letters and phone calls from viewers, mostly sufferers themselves, when he implied that it was nothing more than a temporary problem caused by the build-up of wax in the ear. Medical journalists who can write with accuracy and fluency about obscure ailments affecting a tiny number of people struggle to describe this unpleasant condition experienced to some extent by one in ten of their readers.

 

Neglect of tinnitus in public health provision and ignorance of it among the public at large seem to feed on each other. If people knew more about it, there would be more pressure on the NHS to do more. If the Government were to highlight it in the publicity which pours from the Department of Health, public ignorance would evaporate.

 

Meanwhile any attention is largely eclipsed by the drama and medico-glamour of such developments as replacement surgery and pharmaceutical advances against the killer diseases. Invisible sounds which cannot be measured or understood, and which lacked a campaigning voice until the early 1990s, must form the basis of a powerful argument for public awareness and action. The ordinary person needs to know about tinnitus to appreciate what his fellow citizens have to bear. The policy- and decision-makers should know enough to begin to cure the chronic neglect of tinnitus.

 

There are some grounds for hope. The word TINNITUS is now on more people's lips than before, as it creeps from shadows. This is partly due to the burgeoning realisation that people can play a bigger role in securing and maintaining their own health. Awareness of the dangers of loud sounds, and consequently of tinnitus, is in an unexpected way riding in the wake of the layman's increased opinions about unconnected topics like dieting and skin cancer. There is a fashion for, perhaps an abiding switch to, good health, and tinnitus can benefit from this.

 

Should tinnitus ever become a fashionable topic enjoying greater media exposure, sufferers – including public figures – will be inclined to talk more openly about it. They can put away their shyness, shame or other causes of their reluctance to speak out and join what campaigners for a cure are now calling their crusade for silence.

 

One person who long ago decided to speak out is Lord Ashley of Stoke, better known as Jack Ashley ME who has conducted justly famed campaigns on behalf of the disabled. After an unsuccessful operation to cure slight deafness he lost his hearing in the 1960s and acquired loud and permanent tinnitus. He was encouraged to stay in the House of Commons where he remained until 1992, winning world notoriety as a totally deaf member of a national legislature.

 

He is now prominent in the Tinnitus Campaign and speaks articulately of the sheer awfulness of his noises. 'If hearts can be transplanted, why not a cure for tinnitus?' he often asks. When his sounds shattered his life Lord Ashley was thought to have a future as a government minister. He is warmly admired and respected in both Houses of Parliament and his advocacy is contributing to whittling away the indifference to tinnitus among the legislators.

 

It is in another law-making assembly that real progress may well be made. As the European Union goes ahead with harmonisation of so many laws, the European Parliament is being asked to recognise the nature of tinnitus and consider multi-national action in the field of health and social welfare. British MEPs have already been fully briefed on the subject and a petition will be presented to the Parliament before the next Euro elections. Increased power being given to Euro MPs partly involves health and social services.

There is, therefore, a real possibility that member states of the EU will be expected in future years to deal with tinnitus on a par with other medical conditions, in the provision of treatment and social benefits. Environmental directives could also place limits on permitted decibel levels in places of public entertainment. European Union countries together have millions of citizens whose normal life is badly affected, to the point of not being able to follow the career of their choice or work at all. No one has attempted to evaluate the economic cost to the national economy of any country.

 

When the calculations are made for Europe as a whole, the case for action on economic grounds will be overwhelming, quite apart from the humanitarian argument. To find out more, you can check out Causes Of Ear Ringing.

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