Tinnitus is an illness that can be pretty difficult to diagnose. Its symptoms are common to several regular illness and there is a tendency to just ignore them. Symptoms of tinnitus if ignored can lead up to hearing loss in some cases. One of the most common of Tinnitus symptoms is hearing sounds within the ear. These can be a ringing, buzzing, tingling, roaring or even hissing sounds. Since they are all sounds that you literally hear in your head, there are referred to as tinnitus aurium or tinnitus cranii.
Again, these sounds that you hear can vary in terms of pitch some of them may be high and others much lower. You can even hear a change in tone from single to multi-tonal. Patients of tinnitus have also spoken of how it can be constant noise or in fits and bursts and with steady pauses in between. Tinnitus is largely of two types objective and subjective. Objective tinnitus is where you can hear the sound emanating from the ears on close quarters or with a stethoscope. This is a relatively rare form of the illness and is largely associated with muscle or vascular based disorders. They are also known as pulsatile tinnitus since the sounds are often in rhythm with the patient's heart.
Subjective tinnitus is where the patient is the only one who can hear the sounds and this is what forms a large percentage of the cases. Subjective tinnitus is found in almost all patients suffering from some form or the other of ear trouble especially those suffering from hearing loss due to damage to a central nerve or hair cell. Since tinnitus is subjective, how a person reacts to it varies. Two individuals with the same level of intensity of tinnitus can react in completely different ways. And again severity will depend on how an individual reacts to it. Those who suffer from tinnitus also talk about having difficulty going to sleep or being able to concentrate on anything for long enough. There is also a feeling of depression. Stress at work increases due to lack of performance and stress again is related to the causes of tinnitus.