William Shatner is lending his voice to a cause close to his heart – and to his very health.
The actor, 94, was announced as one of the new faces endorsing the organization Tinnitus Quest, described as "a newly established patient-led nonprofit committed to silencing tinnitus."
The Mayo Clinic describes tinnitus as when "you experience ringing or other noises in one or both of your ears. The noise you hear when you have tinnitus isn't caused by an external sound, and other people usually can't hear it."
© Getty ImagesSeveral factors can contribute to tinnitus, with the Canadian actor attributing it to the filming of a 1967 Star Trek episode titled "Arena." During production, the actor stood too close to a prop explosion, which he believes caused the condition (his co-star Leonard Nimoy was affected as well).
William shared a powerful video message through the organization this week, discussing his own journey with the condition, which has since become chronic. He has spoken about lessening its effect with the help of an ear piece which introduces a sound to put the tinnitus buzz in the background.
"Over the years I've had many ups and downs with my tinnitus," he said. "It's a diverse condition that comes in different degrees of severity."
"About 1–2% of the population suffer from a chronic, debilitating form of tinnitus. There are no effective treatments — and that's why we need more research."
"I've also observed how tinnitus affects friends and colleagues," he added, concluding with: "The more money we can raise for Tinnitus Quest, the quicker we can find a solution to help the millions of people suffering."
In a press release, Sven Köllmann, founder of Tinnitus Quest, released a statement, which reads: "William Shatner's voice lends tremendous credibility to our cause."
© Getty Images"His willingness to share his personal struggle helps destigmatize tinnitus and highlights the urgent need for research funding. When someone of his stature speaks about living with this condition for decades, people listen."
Speaking with NPR previously, the Miss Congeniality star described his condition and what it really can feel like in detail, saying: "Turn on a television set without the station. A lot of people [with tinnitus] have different kinds of sound."
"But the most common, and mine, is that hiss static," he continued. "And that's what it's like. And during the time I was going to the doctor, they attempted to reach the nature of the sound, so they had an instrument that played all kinds of hissing."
© Getty Images"So they tweaked the machine until they reached me. And when they reached the same timbre and tone of my sound, I broke into tears: Somebody had hacked their way through this jungle of sound where I was totally alone in my agony, and somebody had reached me. And it just moved me to tears."
William added: "It's caused by a number of things, age being one of them, medication, and mostly traumatic sound. A lot of sound engineers have it. The cilia in your inner ear dies — some of it dies — and this code of silence that you had when you were born is broken, and so it's the brain's activity."
