740 Million People Are Living With Tinnitus, A Condition They Rarely Talk About

Tinnitus has baffled doctors and burdened sufferers for centuries. The notion that patients should just live with it is beginning to fade. 740 Million People Are Living With Tinnitus, A Condition They Rarely Talk About

Gregory Marzolf had been around fast cars and firearms since he was a kid. When he joined the Air Force in 1988, it was a natural extension of his need for speed.

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“I was having a great time,” says the 60-year-old engineering professor at Colorado State University. By the early 2000s, as a major in a fighter-jet unit, he was keeping up with pilots half his age — and he could mostly ignore the ringing in his ears he’d hear even in a quiet room.

By 2012 the ringing had become a scream.

“It went from squealing in the background to now I’ve got a jet engine running in my head,” he says. “I thought I was dying.”

Marzolf has tinnitus, the perception of buzzing, ringing or whooshing sounds that don’t come from an external source. The condition can result from hearing damage, neurological disorders or other medical issues.

“Your brain for some reason is perceiving things that are inappropriate for it to be paying attention to,” says Gail Whitelaw, a clinical professor and director of the Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic at Ohio State University.

Roughly 740 million people — 14% of all adults worldwide — have experienced the condition; 2 million Americans are so severely affected they’re incapacitated. While those figures have remained relatively stable for years, audiologists say awareness has surged.

“It’s not a matter of, ‘Do your ears ring?’ It’s more like, ‘How loud is it now?’” says Tobin Pascarosa, 57, a litigation paralegal in West Virginia. He attributes it to “years of loud car stereos and front-row concerts, plus shooting guns and riding motorcycles with no exhaust.”

Noise exposure is the leading trigger — tinnitus is the top disability reported among military personnel who are routinely exposed to artillery fire, armored vehicles and other heavy machinery, with 2.3 million veterans receiving compensation for it in 2020, according to the Veterans Benefits Administration.

Musicians have disproportionately high rates, as do people regularly exposed to loud environments, from Formula 1 and Nascar races to Metallica concerts and motorcycle rides.

“I started to notice in my 20s when I started racing with my dad,” says Rob Sutherland, 48, a real estate investment banker in Toronto. Attending loud raves didn’t help. “It hasn’t gotten louder in the last 10 years, but it’s harder to ignore.”

Children are affected too. Brian Fligor, president and audiologist-in-chief of Tobias & Battite Hearing Wellness in Boston, says pressure to participate in noisy pursuits like the school band can contribute. So can high levels of anxiety and headphones played too loudly. One-fifth of Fligor’s patients are kids.

“Culturally, we were taught, ‘If it’s loud, it’s fun,’” he says. “And guess what? It really does result in some damage.”

Despite the prevalence of the condition, research remains limited and underfunded, and scientists are only beginning to understand the links between tinnitus, hearing loss and cognitive decline.

One study found that adults with tinnitus are 68% more likely to develop early-onset dementia, though the exact correlation isn’t yet understood. Tinnitus has long been classified as a complaint patients must learn to tolerate.

“There’s no point having a really healthy body if your brain is no good,” says Ross O’Neill, a biomedical engineer and the founder of Neuromod, a company that makes medical devices that treat tinnitus. “It’s a time bomb waiting to go off, and we need to start getting serious about it.”
‘It’s Not Gonna Go Away’

María Belén Carrasco first heard ringing and static in her head three years ago after a series of migraines. “I couldn’t go to work, I could barely concentrate,” says the 34-year-old founder and chief executive officer of Pijamera, a clothing company in Mexico City.

Her condition became so crippling that she stopped going outside. Several medical professionals she consulted were less than helpful.

“One doctor laughed at me,” she says. “He was like, ‘Why do you keep spending money and looking for a solution when we’ve already told you it’s not gonna go away?’”

Tinnitus affects everyone differently, making it notoriously difficult to treat. It doesn’t help that even in clinical settings, it’s often lumped with hearing loss rather than treated as a condition in its own right.

Many sufferers say their hearing is excellent — it’s just the constant, bothersome ringing or clicking in their ears that causes the trouble. Others say it’s a deafening whoosh or hiss that flares up at certain times, sometimes lasting for days.

John Ginty, a Grammy-winning musician and drag racer in Sarasota, Florida, compares it to phantom limb syndrome. “You take somebody whose arm has been amputated, and they wake up with pain in their hand.

Well, the hand’s not there, but the pain is real,” he says. “That’s how it is with tinnitus. It’s something that your brain is making up, but it was almost giving me panic attacks.”

Mild cases can cause irritability and anxiety. Moderate cases can affect balance and sleep patterns, disrupting the ability to focus on reading and problem-solving. Severe cases prevent the routines of daily work, family and social life, leading to isolation and anguish.

The lack of effective solutions has opened the door for iffy remedies. Online searches reveal tinctures, ear drops and acupuncture, vegetable capsules and CBD, homeopathic tricks and hormone therapy.

Some may help patients feel a modicum of relief, generally as a placebo, says Ohio State’s Whitelaw. None are scientifically proven to help.

“I tell my patients, ‘Do not go on the internet,’” she says. “Reddit isn’t a very good source of research. If it comes up in your Facebook, it’s probably not valid.”

Only one treatment for tinnitus is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration: Lenire, a handheld at-home device that combines sound and electrical stimulation to reprogram the brain. Neuromod unveiled it in 2019; the FDA approved it in 2023.

A Subjective Sound

People may be talking about tinnitus more than ever, but the condition itself has tormented humans since antiquity. Ancient Egyptians tried to treat it with sap and frankincense. One old Welsh treatment recommends a loaf of hot bread divided in two and stuffed in each ear.

The world has gotten louder in recent decades, with deafening cinemas and industrial-grade audio in cars and entertainment venues, restaurants-as-clubs and a whole rash of folks never not wearing ear buds (or listening to them at maximum volume).

Then there’s the daily barrage of sirens, jackhammers, dump trucks, chainsaws and lawnmowers.

Researchers have also explored a potential link between Covid-19 and tinnitus, though it’s not yet possible to pinpoint the nature of the connection.

“Being alone and that anxiety during Covid definitely did not help,” says Lindsey Jorgensen, chair of the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at the University of South Dakota. Advocates say more research is needed.

John Ginty has had to balance his tinnitus with his career as a touring musician.Photographer: Martin Lewis

What is clear is that the psychological toll can be as debilitating as the ringing itself. Tinnitus, anxiety and depression are closely intertwined, and some people describe reaching such a low point that they considered taking their own life.

“I had to go to the psychiatrist and tell him I’m depressed,” says Carrasco. “I told him, ‘This is killing me.’”

Many people — especially men — keep tinnitus to themselves. “Men don’t want to appear weak,” says Whitelaw. “Tinnitus is not just about the ringing. It’s also anxiety and depression, and people don’t like talking about their mental health issues.”

Some evade the topic because they blame themselves. “It’s my own fault,” is a refrain Whitelaw hears often, usually followed by a regretful nod to decades without ear protection.

“I have tinnitus from driving my Morgan three-wheeler daily in NYC for years without ear protection,” says Alex Roy, a long-range driver who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. He now won’t drive it without wearing military-grade ear muffs.

Others stay quiet because tinnitus can be perceived as a disability that limits job opportunities. “A musician with a hearing problem is like a race car driver with a right-foot problem,” Ginty says. “You don’t want to have it be detrimental to whether people are willing to hire you.”

The consequences of suffering in silence have occasionally become public. Kent Taylor, founder of Texas Roadhouse Inc., died by suicide in 2021 after battling symptoms following a case of Covid-19, including severe tinnitus. He was 65.

For most people, the damage is less visible but still life-altering. Tinnitus can drive them away from public spaces, work and social interaction. “It caused me to want to stop touring,” says Ginty, who’s now on tour with the Allman Betts Band. He wears Loop ear protection, and a Lenire has provided significant relief.

It pairs musical tones delivered through Bluetooth headphones with gentle electrical stimulation on the tongue, which helps retrain the brain to ignore the sound he hears. But when a roadie dropped a riser behind him recently, his ears rang for hours afterward.

“In the studio, I can control the volumes, but live, it’s really tough,” he says. “Every night you’re getting it handed to you.”

Help Is On The Way

There’s no cure for tinnitus, but there is a deeper understanding today of its causes and treatments than there was 10 years ago.

Researchers increasingly see the condition as more than an irritating consequence of aging or noise exposure, and additional studies are exploring the nexus between ear health, brain health and cognitive decline.

“Audiologists are about to become some of the most important doctors in the world,” says O’Neill, who predicts improved early detection as those connections are better understood.

The shift is already changing how tinnitus is managed. The American Academy of Audiology and the American Tinnitus Association now recommend treatments including cognitive behavioral therapy and the emerging field of bimodal neuromodulation, which combines sound with electrical stimulation.

Sound masking with specialized pink or brown noise has also gained acceptance as a way to help manage symptoms.

Awareness is improving too. The market for hearing protection is growing about 5% annually as concerns over sound exposure rise. Loop markets earplugs specifically for the Coachella and Tomorrowland music festivals, while Earos has partnered with Nascar’s Hendrick Motorsports team.

Marzolf and Carrasco say Lenire has helped them. More than 90% of patients who used the device reported symptom reduction in clinical trials, suggesting meaningful progress is possible.

740 Million People Are Living With Tinnitus, A Condition They Rarely Talk About

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