Professor Henry Pau (right) is an ear, nose and throat specialist at Leicester Royal Infirmary and the Nuffield Hospital in Leicester.

He said: "Tinnitus is peculiar in that only the patient can hear the noise and it can be so distressing for them.

"There is no cure but there is a lot of psychological support and techniques which can teach people how to cope."

It is estimated about one in 10 people in Leicestershire has permanent tinnitus.

Prof Pau said: "It is difficult to give an exact number of people who suffer from tinnitus because most don't come to us but are seen by their GP.

"The cause is still not properly understood but one theory is the inner ear can be damaged in people who work in a noisy environment.

"Once the tiny hairs on the cochlea (a small cavity in the ear) are damaged they don't regenerate and the sound patients hear is the ear firing spontaneously to noise and transmitting the signal to the brain, but there isn't any noise."

Some suffer central tinnitus where they hear the noise in the middle of their head.

Prof Pau said: "In these cases stress, emotional or physical, does seem to a factor."

He said in rare cases the hearing nerve might have a benign tumour, but if surgery was used to remove the tumour it did not cure the tinnitus.

Prof Pau added: "There is lots of research going on into how it can be treated, but I haven't seen any evidence it works."