Making great strides to educate patients and multi-disciplinary medical communities about pulsatile tinnitus, the long list of potential underlying causes for the symptom, and treatments.
We are making an impact.
PTF is the premier organization for pulsatile tinnitus awareness, education and collaboration in the world. Since 2009, tens of thousands of patients and their doctors have joined in support our international community. We will continue to build awareness programs and educate the public and medical communities about PTF. In the future, we aim to award research grants and financial resources to patients that cannot pay for warranted medical diagnostics.
Our Impact
Tell us how we can help you.
Do you have: Comments or questions about PTF? An announcement for our community? A resource you think would be helpful to other Whooshers or the medical professionals that support them?
Contact usOur dedicated Board members, including distinguished doctors and committed patients, have contributed to the pulsatile tinnitus community for decades and currently volunteer their time to support PTF’s mission.
Emma Greenwood
PTF Founder & President
David J. Eisenman, MD
Aristides Sismanis, MD, FACS
Maksim Shapiro, MD
PTF Treasurer
Renee Biermann
PTF Secretary
What is the history of The Pulsatile Tinnitus Foundation?
in 2009, Emma Greenwood created Whooshers.com, a blog about pulsatile tinnitus, shortly after hers started. There she documented her experiences finding medical professionals that were familiar with the rare symptom, and she used the site to organize medical reports she found, many of which reported that pulsatile tinnitus may be the sole symptom of an underlying condition that, if left untreated, could be dangerous. While many medical professionals told her that pulsatile tinnitus was tinnitus, or that there was no cure, or that maybe she was imagining the sound, she persisted with her quest for a diagnosis and shared reports with doctors that would read them. She received a formal diagnosis later that year and continued collecting reports and advocating for other patients. Since then, tens of thousands of patients and doctors from all corners of the world have found the Whooshers site, and thousands of patients have received a diagnosis as a direct result. Emma has continued to establish relationships with doctors, medical institutions and medical foundations, including successfully petitioning for specific pulsatile tinnitus ICD medical codes that, since 2016, are recognized by the World Health Organization, for a symptom that still does not receive enough attention. The mission to increase awareness and support for the pulsatile tinnitus community has endured. The Pulsatile Tinnitus Foundation, the first organization of its kind, was established in late 2019 to continue the important advocacy work and fundamental dedication to the pulsatile tinnitus community.
Do you provide a list of doctors that treat pulsatile tinnitus?
We do not, and this is why: Pulsatile tinnitus is a symptom, not a condition. The list of possible underlying conditions is quite long and crosses over many different medical specialities. For this reason, a doctor that is able to diagnose one patient may very well not be able to detect the cause for another. We recommend that patients and doctors share and read the myriad of medical reports for the possible underlying causes.
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I am so grateful for the work you’ve done trying to get pulsatile tinnitus more accurately diagnosed and dealt with in the medical world. I can only imagine how much frustration I could have avoided and how much safer I would feel if any of those early doctors had taken it more seriously or had accurate information about what needed to be done.
-PT Patient