Ringing Ears

For many people, ringing ears or tinnitus is a constant problem and annoyance. Tinnitus is different than an actual audible tone. It rings from within the ear itself. The difference between tinnitus and for example, the mosquito ringtone, is hard to explain in words. When experiencing tinnitus, it almost sounds and feels like it’s coming from inside your head itself. There are varying degress of severity that can only be measured in words. Since only the person experiencing tinnitus can “hear” the ringing, no external tool or test can measure or detect it. Ear doctors will ask the patient to rate it on a scale from slight to catastrophic. Tinnitus usually goes hand in hand with hearing loss, at least to some degree and is actually a symptom of any number of disorders rather than a condition itself.

Hearing the mosquito ringtone is not the same thing as having ringing ears!

Tinnitus Treatment

Ringing ears and tinnitus are the same thing, but tinnitus is usually used in more severe cases. In addition to dozens of medical disorders it can also be caused by a few common and easily remedied conditions. Check out ringing ears treatment for common ways to remedy the problem. If you are experiencing ringing ears it may not be a permanent annoyance, but one that can be cured by following the advice of an expert. Rather than treating tinnitus itself, tinnitus treatments work by treating the underlying disorder that is causing your tinnitus to occur.

There are many different reasons for hearing loss and several different clinical types, but it basically means full or partial loss of the ability to detect or understand sounds. Hearing loss can affect anyone, it doesn’t only affect older people. Even children can lose their hearing.

Symptoms of Hearing Loss

Many people don’t even realize that they are losing their hearing (usually hearing loss is a ongoing thing that gets progressively worse) until they notice one of the following typical symptoms of hearing loss:

* you have difficulty in understanding what people are saying.

* you listen to TV or audio at higher volume as before.

* you have pain in your ear or the area around your ear.

* you have a family history of hearing loss.

* you have been exposed to very high levels of noise.

* you have difficulty hearing the phone ring.

Types of Hearing Loss

There are several different types of hearing loss depending on the underlying cause of the hearing loss. The common types of hearing loss include:

Conductive Hearing Loss

Conductive hearing loss involves some sort of obstruction or blockage in the outer or middle ear. It can usually be treated successfully by medical or simple surgical procedures. A great example of this is imagining a large glob of ear wax clogging your ear. You will have some hearing loss as a result of the wax blocking or partially blocking the sound waves from reaching the inner parts of your ear.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Sensory hearing loss is the most common type of hearing loss. It involves either the inner ear, the auditory nerve called the Vestibulocochlear nerve or the brain itself. Sensory hearing loss it is most commonly treated by the use of a hearing air instrument to amplify sounds so that they can be heard by the wearer.

Mixed Hearing Loss

Mixed hearing loss is the the result of both conductive and sensorineural components.

Causes of Hearing Loss

In addition to the types of hearing loss described above there are many underlying reasons that hearing loss could occur.

Disease & Illnesses Causing Hearing Loss

There are many diseases and illnesses that can cause loss of hearing in people, however, with a few exceptions it seems hearing loss is rare effect. Common diseases that can cause hearing loss include: Measles, Meningitis, HIV/Aids, Mumps, Otosclerosis, Autoimmune Disease and many other common conditions and diseases. As with all hearing loss, someone experiencing it should be properly checked by a trained and licensed medical doctor.

Genetic Hearing Loss

Genetic conditions and mutations can also be the root cause of hearing loss. Common birth defects like irregular ear hair follicles can really play a number on someone’s hearing. Many times the condition will not manifest until the adult years.

Presbycusis

Presbycusis is a common medical condition that will affect most people once they start reaching their mid-20′s. The exact cause is unknown although it usually progresses slowly and can be managed at severe levels with the use of a hearing aid. Presbycusis can be easily determined by the ability or lack of ability to hear certain frequency tones. Try the free hearing test to determine which tones you can hear.

Noice Induced Hearing Loss

We experience sounds in our environment all the time. We hear noises and sounds from television and radio, household appliances, and traffic. We normally hear these sounds at safe levels that don’t affect our hearing. However, when we become exposed to harmful sounds that are either way too loud or loud sounds for an extended period of time, sensitive structures in our inner ear can become permanently damaged. This damage can cause noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). These structures, called hair cells, are small sensory cells that convert sound energy into electrical signals that travel to the brain that translates the signals into the sounds we recognize. Once these hair cells are damaged they cannot grow back.

If you are going to be spending time with extended relatives this Thanksgiving, consider testing the Mosquito Ringtone if you still doubt it actually works! It’s a great time to do this as you will probably have a wide range of age groups from which to test! Visit the hearing test to get started. The older family members will find they can only hear up to 12-16k depending on their age and the young ones should be able to hear them all. This is the technology behind the ultrasonic ringtone that students use in class to receive cell phone calls and text messages.

Some people claim that the mosquito ringtone doesn’t work as they are older and can still hear the tones, this is only partly true. It really does work…… for the majority of the population. There is no known single cause of presbycusis, the medical condition that affects the ability to hear the Mosquito Ringotne, only things that “might” contribute to it.

We have seen adults that could hear the mosquito ringtone but based on our age range estimates they should not have been able to hear it. I myself have witnessed it’s effects as I can no longer hear some of the high frequencies I was be able to hear when this website was put online several years ago.

The whole ability to hear high frequencies seems to fascinate people when I show it to them, I thought it would a cool thing to share with your family this Thanksgiving.

I was recently browsing the app store on my iPhone when I came across the dog whistle iPhone app from a company called Wawa Mobile that claims that by using ultrasonic frequencies on the iPhone, you can call your dog with it and it was only $0.99 to download it. The concept is similar to the ultrasonic ringtones in which dogs have much better hearing than humans, young or old. They have an even much wider range of hearing than those that are not affected by presbycusis do!

The App:
It’s a single screen app that has all the options on it including a slider to adjust the frequency of the “Whistle” and a bark detector! If you enjoy playing around with mosquito ringtones and seeing who can hear what, it’s worth it to be able to change the frequencies quickly.

It didn’t quite work for me with my dogs though, but I have’t had a lot of time to spend fine tunning the frequency yet. I did notice that when I played some of the frequencies that correspond to our free ringtones of the same frequency, my kids where unable to hear them as the normally do on my website. Either the frequencies are off or it’s getting changed/modified somehow. I hope to have time soon to fine tune it for my dog and see if it is a viable replacement for a dog whistle.

We had a suggestion from one of our visitors and we decided to add a new area to the website, “Mosquito Games”. These are simple free flash games that you can play that involve mosquitoes. Now you can blast them, swat them and even become a mosquito in order to save the world!

We thought what better way to entertain our visitors then to let you have fun playing with the mosquitoes!

Play Mosquito Games

If you know of any other mosquito games please let us know! We’ll be looking out for them too!