Q: A few years ago there was a question about tinnitus in your column and the reader asked if there were any recent developments. I’d like to add my experience.
I am 48-year-old very healthy female who developed a humming in my right ear two years ago. It started out low enough that I only heard it at night when I was lying in bed and the house was silent. The humming grew worse over the past few months, so I finally got a referral to an otolaryngologist as you then suggested. They ran all the tests you described in your article, including the brain wave tests, but could find no reason for my humming. I figured I would just have to live with it.
A month later my female gynecologist was doing some routine tests for me at my age (being pre-menopausal) and found that I was anemic. She prescribed prescription iron and within a few days of taking the iron pills, the humming became much quieter. I can, on occasion, still hear tiny blips of this humming but it is nowhere near as bad as it used to be. I’m very lucky to have such a thorough gynecologist because had she not run the test for anemia, I would still be dog tired, besides having ringing in my ear. Perhaps this will help some of your readers.
A: Yes, perhaps it will, indeed.
Anemia is a condition in which an individual fails to have sufficient healthy red blood cells to carry adequate amounts of oxygen to bodily tissues. And, as you can attest, the condition can make an individual ‘dog tired’. Depending on the form of anemia, and there are several forms, there are a variety of causes with a loss of blood being most common. There are other instances when the body is unable to produce sufficient red blood cells, or the body incorrectly destroys red blood cells. The condition can be temporary to long-term and minor to severe.
The body produces three types of blood cells: white to fight infection, platelets that help blood to clot, and red to transport oxygen throughout the body. Most blood cells are produced normally in bone marrow which is a red substance found within the cavities of many of the large bones of the body. In order for this to occur, the body requires vitamin B12, folate, iron and other nutrients that are commonly supplied through the foods we eat. Your condition of iron deficiency anemia, therefore, may be the result of too little iron in the body caused by heavy menstrual cycles, the long-term use of aspirin or NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), an ulcer, or from other causes.
.
Symptoms other than fatigue may include shortness of breath, heart arrhythmias, headache, pale skin, cold extremities, headache, and more. And despite the myriad of symptoms, some anemias can be so mild that they remains unnoticed or undiagnosed for years – unless someone such as your gynecologist runs routine testing.
If an individual has a severe iron deficiency, he or she may complain of noise in the ears which is not true tinnitus, but rather a roaring sound caused by an accelerated blood flow through the ears. Specific steps include iron supplements and ingesting more iron-rich foods such as dark, leafy green vegetables or beans daily to raise iron levels back to within normal readings.
