In contemplating surgery as a last resort for tinnitus treatment, you should perhaps think about this option a hundred times over. You should be aware that tinnitus surgery involves cutting the eighth nerve in your auditory system without guarantee that the process will relieve you of your discomfort.
In fact, tinnitus surgery has been criticized by many medical practitioners as a destructive procedure which only has a 40% showing in terms of improvement.
About fifty-five percent of those who resorted to surgery as tinnitus treatment still experience the same symptoms; others claim that it only worsened their uneasiness.
Surgery as tinnitus treatment will also include the placing of cochlear implants after the eighth nerve has been cut. The severance of the nerve will of course cause impairment or partial hearing loss, thus implants have also been recommended to improve the patient's post surgical conditions.
The argument provided as benefits of tinnitus surgery is that the vestibular nerve in the middle ear will relieve the patient of his dizziness or vertigo. The term vestibular refers to the ear canal in the middle ear section of the human auditory system.
However, the tinnitus treatment involving surgery is said to be in relation to the medical establishment of a tumor in the middle ear area. The hissing and ringing sound is said to stem from a medical condition known as acoustic neuroma or non-malignant tumor of the eighth cranial nerve.
Nevertheless, the possibility of developing acoustic neuroma in one's lifetime is said to be a 1/1000 and most often occur in adults. Still, there are those who contend that the present medical trend shows that there is a rising prevalence in acoustic neuroma in as much as tinnitus has now afflicted millions in a global scale.
Causes of Acoustic Neuroma
There are those who believe that acoustic tumor leading to tinnitus disorder arises from cell phone radiation. This belief however has had no medical evidences yet as of present.
Medical researches have pinpointed to what is called as Neurofibromatosis II or NF2 as the leading cause of acoustic tumor leading to tinnitus disorder.
This is said to be a genetic disorder where the patient has an innate deficiency in producing a protein called merlin. This substance has a significant role of wrapping insulation in the nerve cells as a way of controlling cell growth and movement.
The long and short of it is that merlin is known in the medical world as a tumor suppressor protein. Mutations in NF2 is said to be inherited from one of two parents. Hence, only those medical practitioners who specialize in ear and hearing disorders may recommend surgery as form of tinnitus treatment.
In case, you are badly bothered by your tinnitus, it would be best to seek consultation from an otologist who will employ the use of an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan. This will determine whether acoustic neuroma exists; hence, surgery will be recommended as tinnitus treatment.
