It’s generally not clear what’s causing tinnitus (a buzzing or ringing in your ears). But one thing we know for certain is that if you have hearing loss your probability of developing tinnitus goes up. Up to 90 percent of people who are afflicted by tinnitus also have hearing loss according to HIAA.
Your age, lifestyle, and genetics can all play a role in the development of hearing loss as you probably know. Frequently, mild cases of hearing loss go unnoticed and hearing loss, in general, isn’t always apparent. Worse, even a minor case of hearing loss increases your risk and likelihood of developing tinnitus.
It’s Not a Cure, But Hearing Aids Can Help Manage Tinnitus
There is no cure for tinnitus. However, hearing aids will help you manage both hearing loss and tinnitus in ways that can minimize symptoms and improve one’s quality of life. As a matter of fact, one study revealed that as much as 60 percent of tinnitus patients saw relief when they wore hearing aids, with 22 percent showing substantial relief.
A conventional hearing aid can basically hide the buzzing or ringing caused by tinnitus by strengthening your ability to hear outside sounds, which basically drowns out the ringing. Luckily there are other, more sophisticated solutions beyond just traditional hearing aids to manage the symptoms linked to tinnitus.
Types of Specialty Hearing Aids to Reduce Tinnitus Symptoms
Hearing aids work by collecting natural sounds from the world around you and boosting them to a level that allows you to hear. Even though it might be simple in design, that amplification of noise, be it the rabble of a dinner party or the clank of a ceiling fan, is critical in teaching your brain to receive certain stimulations again.
You can take an even more complete approach to your tinnitus management by augmenting hearing aids with other strategies, like stress reduction, sound stimulation, and counseling.
Some hearing aid makers even use the irregular rhythm of fractal tones to decrease the symptoms of tinnitus. These rhythmically inconsistent tones can distract from the consistent and regular tones tinnitus sufferers hear.
Blending the normal sounds you hear with your tinnitus sounds is the goal of other sophisticated hearing aid options. Your condition and ear have very personal needs and this technique will use a customized white noise that will be calibrated by your hearing professional.
Whether it’s through sound therapy, blending, or a white noise mechanism, all of these specialized technologies have a common goal of distracting the attention away from the ringing or buzzing of tinnitus.
It’s true that there isn’t any cure for tinnitus, but for at least some, hearing aids help reduce symptoms and improve your quality of life.
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References
- https://www.hearingloss.org/wp-content/uploads/HLAA_HearingLoss_Facts_Statistics.pdf?pdf=FactStats
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17956798
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6197965