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Diane Green can recall exactly the day unbearable tinnitus entered her life. On December 27, 2025, she suddenly experienced both the loss of hearing in one ear and the unpleasant acquisition of a constant and loud ringing noise that she describes as sounding like Big Ben. She was rushed to hospital in Brisbane, where they tested her every which way for two months, only to conclude they didn\u2019t really know what was causing the problem, just that it wasn\u2019t life-threatening. \u201cThey don\u2019t know,\u201d she tells us. \u201cIt just happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fellow sufferer Jennifer Bettess dates her tinnitus back seven years, a noise in her head that sounds like \u201ca thousand cicadas\u201d, an ordeal that has yet to relent. When it appeared, she says, \u201cI thought I had a tumour, I was dying or something.\u201d Emergency examinations quickly ruled out anything sinister. So why couldn\u2019t they figure out what was causing the phantom sound?<\/p>\n
Paul Maye\u2019s tinnitus also emerged suddenly, caused, he deduces, by his taking a new medication in 2022. \u201cOne day my hearing was fine, the next there was this extremely loud, relentless sound in my head, like a steaming kettle that just never switched off, and I had no idea what it was. At first, it was overwhelming. The noise would not stop. It followed me into work, into conversations, quiet relaxing evenings were now gone. I tried to keep myself busy every minute I could. Living with tinnitus changed every part of my day. Every waking second was now torture. I had to find a completely new way to live.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Tinnitus, generally described as experiencing a sound that has no external source, affects about one in eight people worldwide, possibly more. For many, the condition is mild, typically a gentle ringing or buzzing usually experienced in particularly quiet times, a sound the brain can often mostly ignore.<\/p>\n
For some, though, it can be chronically debilitating, affecting sleep, relationships, work and even the will to live. While the word itself is derived from the Latin for ringing bells, tinnitus can also sound like a jet engine, a fire alarm, escaping steam, buzzing mosquitoes: inescapable, unrelenting and infuriatingly difficult to overcome. What do we know about tinnitus? What are the causes? How is it best treated?<\/p>\n
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Ear surgeon Sir William Wilde (father of Oscar) described tinnitus in the 1850s: in cities, he said, patients hear hammering and steam engines, in villages, they hear bees and birds. Getty Images What is tinnitus? <\/p>\n
Tinnitus may well be triggered or exacerbated by the audible intrusions of modern life \u2013 ear-splitting cinematic sound effects, live music amplified up to 11, constant headphone use and anything else that contributes to hearing loss, one of its main causes (more on that below). But it is far from a contemporary phenomenon. In 1853, Sir William Wilde (father of Oscar) observed tinnitus patients describing the sound as like hearing \u201cwater, birds, bees, trees\u201d, if they hailed from the country; \u201cwhile in towns [people] say that they hear the rolling of carriages, hammerings, steam engines\u201d.<\/p>\n
The ancient Egyptian tome Ebers Papyrus contains passages describing ringing in the ears and \u201ca buzzing in the ear like the roar of a waterfall\u201d. Babylonian clay tablets mention ringing, whispering and roaring in the ear, write Doreen Huppert and colleagues in the Journal of Neurology<\/a>. The ancient Greeks described patients suffering from \u201cquiet sound\u201d, the physician Hippocrates speculating it was caused by the brain swelling into the ear canal, for which he recommended \u201ccooling agents\u201d \u2013 whatever they were \u2013 and \u201cdrawing off blood\u201d. The ancient Chinese encyclopedia of medicine the Huangdi Neijing, linked tinnitus, along with most other things, to the life force Qi, suggesting, \u201cIf Qi is insufficient above, the brain is not sufficiently filled by it, the ears suffer a ringing noise, the head is bent low by it, the eyes [experience] dizziness.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enclose people with perfect hearing in a soundproof space for long enough, their brains will start to generate noise.<\/p>\n Today we are closer to understanding some of the causes of tinnitus, though major gaps remain. Broadly, it is divided into two camps: \u201cobjective\u201d tinnitus, which may be heard close to the ear canal by an outside examiner such as an audiologist or ear, nose and throat specialist; and the insidious and much more common \u201csubjective\u201d version, which can be heard only by the affected person themselves, and which \u201cdoesn\u2019t really obey acoustic principles because it is a neurological phenomenon,\u201d says audiologist Myriam Westcott. \u201cIt\u2019s heard as a sound because this neurological phenomenon is taking place in the part of the brain that\u2019s processing sound.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Many of us are likely to experience it at one time or another: experiments have even demonstrated that if you enclose people with perfect hearing in a soundproof space for long enough, their brains will start to generate noise, apparently to compensate for the lack of audio input. So why does it become a problem for some but not others?<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we\u2019ve got normal hearing, we can hear a huge amount of stuff, so the brain is being swamped with sound,\u201d says Westcott. \u201cAt a subconscious level, it will filter out the unimportant sounds, so only the important sounds reach conscious awareness. For many people, over time, tinnitus becomes an unimportant sound. It\u2019s annoying, but not particularly problematic to that person\u2019s functioning. But for a smaller proportion of people, and that\u2019s considered to be about 2 per cent of the population, people become severely distressed. It can affect their cognitive functioning. They are in a state of fight or flight all the time. It\u2019s rare that people have to stop work, but sometimes that does happen. They become really overwhelmed by the impact on their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Tinnitus can be triggered by illnesses such as Meniere\u2019s disease, an ear disorder that typically also causes episodes of severe vertigo and dizziness; by some antibiotics and drugs for chemotherapy; by head injuries; by problems in the jaw or neck that cause sounds to be referred into the inner ear; by ear infections; and, in very rare cases, by tumours such as the sinister-sounding vestibular schwannoma, which is benign but interferes with the nerve that connects the inner ear to the brain.<\/p>\n In people with no obvious cause, genetic or age-related hearing loss is often considered the culprit, the theory being that the brain is over-compensating for the reduction in perception of naturally occurring sounds, often in the higher ranges, by generating its own white noise, attempting to adapt to a lack of information that is no longer coming from the ear \u2013 a malfunction that has been likened to phantom limb syndrome (where amputees feel pain or itchiness in an arm or leg that is no longer there).<\/p>\n \u2018Tinnitus is a strange thing because it\u2019s not proportional to hearing loss. So you can have severe tinnitus and have normal hearing, and you can have severe hearing loss and no tinnitus.\u2019<\/p>\n Ear, nose and throat surgeon Nigel Biggs<\/p>\n \u201cThe commonest physical cause by far and away is hearing loss,\u201d says Nigel Biggs, a leading ear, nose and throat surgeon based in Sydney\u2019s Darlinghurst. \u201cAround 80 per cent of patients who have tinnitus that\u2019s a constant sound will have some sort of underlying hearing loss, no matter how small.\u201d But, he notes, \u201ctinnitus is a strange thing because it\u2019s not proportional to hearing loss. So you can have severe tinnitus and have normal hearing, and you can have severe hearing loss and no tinnitus.\u201d Indeed, Biggs operates on patients to remove tumors (vestibular schwannomas), resulting in complete hearing loss, but their tinnitus remains.<\/p>\n (Jennifer Bettess is one of those who has unbearable tinnitus and has been examined by specialists and found to not only be otherwise healthy but to have had no hearing loss at all.)<\/p>\n Mini Gupta, an audiologist specialising in tinnitus in Melbourne, noted a sharp rise during the COVID pandemic, though it\u2019s unclear whether it was a side effect of the virus itself or simply due to people spending more time in quiet environments and noticing internal sounds, which then spiralled to the point of needing to see a clinician. \u201cThey started becoming aware that there\u2019s a problem, which I believe was one of the reasons why so many people suddenly started coming with tinnitus.\u201d<\/p>\n It can also likely be caused by trauma or a change in stress levels, says Philippa James, a Melbourne audiologist who specialises in tinnitus and the related disorders hyperacusis (super-sensitivity to everyday sounds) and misophonia (strong reactions to specific, ordinary sounds). \u201cI\u2019ll see a bunch of people where they might have a mild underlying hearing loss that\u2019s been sitting there for many years that hasn\u2019t necessarily impacted them, but then they\u2019ve had something stressful happen in their life or they\u2019ve been involved in a traumatic incident, and what can happen from that is that they start clenching the jaw more, and that can in itself cause tinnitus.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes, if the tinnitus is found to have a physical, or somatic, cause, says James, \u201cif that is treated by a physiotherapist very quickly then, yes, that could switch off their tinnitus\u201d. But tinnitus is a tricky customer. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty natural for someone to start to become pretty worried about that tinnitus, and the distress will then cause them to go into feedback cycles, and it will turn into neurological tinnitus because they\u2019re stressed by it,\u201d James says. \u201cIt\u2019s considered a threat, and then when it\u2019s considered a threat, you get the whole stress response in the body, and then the subconscious brain starts to learn, OK, we don\u2019t like this sound. We need to keep sending it up to the conscious brain for this person to notice it to keep them safe. That\u2019s a survival mechanism, and then once we\u2019re noticing that sound prominently, that then drives the emotional reaction, and then it kind of goes around and around in a circle.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018We know that in around 55 per cent of people with bothersome tinnitus or distressing tinnitus, they will also become less tolerant to loud sounds and noise.\u2019<\/p>\n Audiologist Philippa James<\/p>\n Christopher Cederroth, a researcher at Sweden\u2019s Karolinska Institute, told the journal Medicinsk Vetenskap <\/a>in 2017: \u201cAnimal studies have shown an increased activity in the brain\u2019s auditory centre, but the emotional and cognitive areas of the brain can also contribute to reinforcing tinnitus. If we feel stressed, anxious or think about tinnitus, the activity in the brain\u2019s auditory centre increases and the burden accompanying tinnitus is exacerbated.\u201d<\/p>\n Some sufferers go on to develop hyperacusis apparently because they are so aware of their tinnitus that they seek to protect themselves from any further potential hearing damage. \u201cWe know that in around 55 per cent of people with bothersome tinnitus or distressing tinnitus, they will also become less tolerant to loud sounds and noise,\u201d says James. \u201cThat stems from a hypervigilance to protect their auditory system.\u201d Similarly, some might experience tensor tympani syndrome, in which a tiny muscle attached to the eardrum that tightens to protect us from loud noises becomes over-sensitised, which can cause pain, a sensation of fullness or pressure in the ear and mild vertigo and which can itself exacerbate tinnitus.<\/p>\n The rapid onset of tinnitus should be investigated immediately in case it is a symptom of an underlying issue that requires urgent medical attention. \u201cSome patients need surgical intervention,\u201d says Mini Gupta. \u201cA patient whose tinnitus is caused by chronic middle-ear effusion [also known as glue ear], for example, is referred to an ENT [ear, nose and throat] surgeon, and once the effusion resolves, the tinnitus may go away.\u201d<\/p>\n Once any obvious (usually rare) causes \u2013 illnesses, tumours, possibly even earwax \u2013 have been treated or ruled out there is, unfortunately, rarely a quick fix. Audiologists typically recommend a multi-faceted approach that combines physical stimuli with counselling.<\/p>\n \u2018There\u2019s no doubt that for some people that I\u2019ve seen \u2026 tinnitus is the most traumatic thing that\u2019s ever happened to them. The impact of that emotionally, and the stress that can cause, is really intense.\u2019<\/p>\n Audiologist Myriam Westcott<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no single solution,\u201d says Myriam Westcott. \u201cPeople need a really comprehensive, personalised and targeted therapeutic approach that manages the psychological aspects of distress as well. There\u2019s no doubt that for some people that I\u2019ve seen, over 30 years that I was practising in this field, tinnitus is the most traumatic thing that\u2019s ever happened to them. The impact of that emotionally, and the stress that can cause, is really intense. People really need to know in that situation they are strongly supported. Tinnitus causes stress, and stress can aggravate tinnitus.\u201d Gupta concurs. \u201cWe are using our expertise and joining the puzzle pieces together to treat it,\u201d she says. \u201cFor us, tinnitus is a multi-system phenomena. And each system, on its own, is not probably causing the tinnitus, but they influence each other in a very complex way, and the result is the tinnitus.\u201d<\/p>\n Treatments include retraining the brain using sound waves from hearing devices so the tinnitus becomes less apparent or disappears entirely \u2013 known as tinnitus retraining theory, or TRT \u2013 and employing psychological efforts such as cognitive behavioral therapy, to try to reduce focusing on the sound (as in, forget to hear it and it\u2019s at least briefly gone).<\/p>\n \u201cHabituation is the aim,\u201d says Philippa James, \u201cso the subconscious part of our brain that evaluates all external and internal sound reloads and reconsiders the tinnitus as going from a threat to a safe sound, going from an important or interesting sound to a not-important sound. Once it starts to evaluate it as less of a threat then it won\u2019t be a sound that is sent up to the conscious brain as much, and people won\u2019t consciously notice it as much.\u201d<\/p>\n For some patients, physiotherapy can be effective, if their tinnitus originates from a physical trigger. Peter Selvaratnam, a specialist musculoskeletal physiotherapist, looks at whether neck and jaw movements contribute, \u201cor if there are other causes like grinding their teeth\u201d. \u201cWe also look at … life stressors or if they have a heightened nervous system. Then we show them how to reduce it,\u201d he says. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to laud and say all the patients get better, but they come to acceptance, and then their tinnitus is not a big deal in their life.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article Kerrie Bor, a myotherapist who works with Selvaratnam, says there are numerous jaw muscles that can contribute to tinnitus. \u201cBy normalising the activity of these muscles via different treatment modalities such as manual therapy approaches, dry needling, breathing, visualisation and specific exercises it\u2019s possible to impact the severity of the tinnitus. We can then start to change the messaging that\u2019s running in a particular loop between these muscles, and the trigeminal nerve that supplies these muscles and the brain.\u201d<\/p>\n Anti-anxiety or depression medications can also ameliorate the distress, and sleeping pills can give some relief in the short term \u2013 sleep being a major problem for some with distressing tinnitus \u2013 but all have their downsides too. Alternative therapies such as acupuncture, yoga, breath work and meditation can help, possibly because they reduce the anxiety and stress that can exacerbate tinnitus, or because of the placebo effect, which has also been shown to reduce symptoms. \u201cHypnotherapy can work for certain brains,\u201d says James. \u201cSome people respond really well to it and others don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Probably less effective, except as placebos, are supplements such as zinc, ginkgo biloba and magnesium that are marketed online for tinnitus, despite little clinical evidence that they do anything. \u201cThere are lots of problematic forums online,\u201d says James, \u201cmis-messaging about tinnitus, and that puts people in a really sort of dangerous position where they\u2019re just spiralling: \u2018I can\u2019t do anything about this. I can\u2019t cope.\u2019 Even in severely distressed patients, there are multiple strategies to support the brain to habituate. It is at least somewhat possible in any brain at any age and stage.\u201d<\/p>\n Diane Green, who flew from Brisbane to see Mini Gupta, has found relief with sound desensitisation therapy using a device that can play different levels of background sound in response to her environment. Five months in, Green says, \u201cit\u2019s a huge improvement\u201d. If the noise was 10 out of 10 to start with, now it\u2019s around four or five.<\/p>\n Jennifer Bettess, another of Gupta\u2019s patients, tells us she has tried everything. \u201cKinesiology, physiotherapist, medications like Valium and antidepressants and sleeping pills. I\u2019ve tried dietary changes. I\u2019ve tried red light therapy, the oils, the sprays. Everything.\u201d The only relief, she says, has been from tinnitus retraining therapy, playing a soft background noise such as the sounds of rain or wind.<\/p>\n There are promising treatments in the field of neuroplasticity, efforts to rewire the brain so that the tinnitus is at least diminished. Studies of patients stimulated with both sound waves and electrical stimulus of the nerves that surround the ear canal have suggested this is possible, with many people reporting a drop in the severity of their symptoms.<\/p>\n Pioneers in the field include Susan Shore, an auditory neuroscientist and researcher at the University of Michigan, who has developed a device designed to retrain damaged nerve cells in the brain stem and who is on a pathway to commercialisation through her company Auricle<\/a>. Neuromod, meanwhile, uses audio combined with mild electrical stimulation of the tongue tip to reinforce brain retraining.<\/p>\n Its device, called Lenire, was approved for use in Australia<\/a> by the Therapeutic Goods Administration last year and is now being rolled out to patients through specialist clinics. In March, the American Journal of Audiology <\/a>published the results of a trial on real-world patients treated at an independent clinic using the Lenire device, which found a clinically significant response in a majority of patients with \u201cbothersome\u201d tinnitus. Lenire has also been proven effective in three large-scale clinical trials conducted at independent sites by Neuromod\u2019s chief scientific officer, University of Minnesota\u2019s Professor Hubert Lim.<\/p>\n \u2018When I was talking to [ear, nose and throat specialists] and audiologists, asking them what are the big unmet needs in the space, this tinnitus topic kept coming up.\u2019<\/p>\n Biomedical engineer Ross O\u2019Neill<\/p>\n Neuromod\u2019s founder, biomedical engineer Ross O\u2019Neill, tells us his quest began in earnest around 15 years ago, after his daughter was diagnosed with hearing loss. \u201cI became more aware of hearing healthcare and of the hearing industry. And when I was talking to [ear, nose and throat specialists] and audiologists, asking them what are the big unmet needs in the space, this tinnitus topic kept coming up. And then when I just talked to friends and family, I just couldn\u2019t believe how many people had it. I realised actually this is very like chronic pain.\u201d<\/p>\n Inspired by the success of the Cochlear implant, \u201cwe decided that we would try to become that category creator for tinnitus, do for tinnitus what Cochlear did for profound deafness.\u201d (The Cochlear, first successfully implanted in 1978 in Melbourne by a team led by Graeme Clarke, is a tiny electronic device that allows sound to bypass damaged parts of the inner ear to stimulate the auditory nerve directly.)<\/p>\n Related Article Neuromod\u2019s approach is what\u2019s called \u201cbimodal neuromodulation\u201d: by combining electrical stimulus with an audio signal, the device encourages the brain to focus on healthy sound and to gradually ignore the tinnitus inside, O\u2019Neill says. \u201cAnd then you get that long-lasting effect that hearing aids and sound therapies were looking for but weren\u2019t achieving.\u201d It\u2019s been available for some three years overseas, typically helping 80 or 90 per cent of users, including Paul Maye, a public servant from the west coast of Ireland whose tinnitus was so bad when it emerged four years ago that he couldn\u2019t go into the office for six months. \u201cI had to end up listening to nature sounds all day while I worked, and had an air purifier here on full blast, just to drown it out.\u201d<\/p>\n After eight weeks using the Lenire device, he began to notice a change. \u201cSlowly but surely, I kept at it for month after month, it kept going, reducing, reducing. Eventually, it wasn\u2019t as intrusive at all. I\u2019d be going around chatting all day, and what I found I was doing was not hearing the tinnitus for most of the day.\u201d It still fluctuates, he says \u2013 alcohol and lack of sleep might exacerbate it \u2013 but \u201cI have a very normal life now, where tinnitus isn\u2019t a problem. I don\u2019t wake up going, oh, how\u2019s it going to be today? I\u2019ll say it\u2019s manageable.\u201d<\/p>\n There are two caveats, however, with the Lenire: it costs several thousand dollars and it has little or no effect on between 10 and 20 per cent of users. \u201cThere are definitely some patients that don\u2019t respond,\u201d says O\u2019Neill. \u201cThat\u2019s a question that the whole field is trying to figure out as well.\u201d<\/p>\n At Melbourne\u2019s Bionics Institute, (founded by Graeme Clarke), researcher Mehrnaz Shoushtarian is conducting trials with tinnitus patients to reveal more about what\u2019s actually happening within the brain, with the goal of leading to better targeted treatments. \u201cWe hope that if there are ways to objectively show tinnitus presence and severity, then we can better track the effect of treatments and hopefully improve current treatments, but also help develop new ones.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Audiologist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/98a0e96ca20a6a1b63424e7a0874c9628b3599ae.jpeg\")
Audiologist Mini Gupta says tinnitus is a nuanced condition: \u201cWe are joining the puzzle pieces together to treat it.\u201dWayne Taylor What causes tinnitus?<\/p>\n![\"Audiologist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/23e5b6e8e3722446489d7560987372d09235112d.jpeg\")
Audiologist Philippa James says stress about physical tinnitus can trigger neurological tinnitus. \u201cIt goes around and around in a circle.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Audiologist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/542abc8655deb240d9ccc43bd5220c0f05bc6783.jpeg\")
Audiologist Mini Gupta uses sound desensitisation therapy with some patients. Wayne TaylorHow is tinnitus treated?<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2514340ecf9a1ebdc765daa14b7453c95a5f8d52.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Biomedical](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a514eabe542adf657321c98779abb539caea7f3f.jpeg\")
Biomedical engineer Ross O\u2019Neill with the Lenire device his company created: \u201cI just couldn\u2019t believe how many people had [tinnitus].\u201dCourtesy LenireCould there one day be a cure?<\/p>\n![\"\u2018I](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/c3d284361bf8666f002fc797d37f44174101f27a1caac213e5ff58a9066b48ee.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Researcher](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a1a56dfd0d8430f6f3fc1a465eb61c4aac9af081.jpeg\")
Researcher Mehrnaz Shoushtarian (left) and a colleague demonstrate a cap fitted with light sensors used to show brain activity in people with tinnitus. Wayne Taylor <\/p>\n
![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/f6914927973226a17649375492740457268290bc.jpeg\")
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