It’s generally unclear what’s causing tinnitus (a buzzing or ringing in your ears). But one thing we know for sure is that if you have hearing loss your chance of developing tinnitus goes up. According to HLAA up to 90 percent of individuals who have tinnitus also have hearing loss.
Your age, lifestyle, and genetics can all play a role in the development of hearing loss as you probably know. Often, moderate cases of hearing loss go unnoticed and hearing loss, in general, isn’t always evident. Worse, even a slight case of hearing loss raises your risk and probability of developing tinnitus.
Hearing Aids Won’t Cure Tinnitus But They Can Help
There isn’t a cure for tinnitus. However, hearing aids can help you manage both hearing loss and tinnitus in ways that can decrease symptoms and improve one’s quality of life. Sixty percent of people dealing with tinnitus, in fact, experienced relief of their symptoms, and twenty-two had considerable improvement.
A traditional hearing aid can basically hide the ringing or buzzing caused by tinnitus by strengthening your ability to hear other sounds, which effectively drowns out the ringing. And, fortunately, traditional hearing aids aren’t the only solution as more advanced treatment possibilities are being produced.
Types of Specialized Hearing Aids to Decrease Tinnitus Symptoms
Hearing aids work by gathering natural sounds from the environment around you and boosting them to a level that lets you hear. This basic technology is critical in teaching your hearing to receive certain stimulation by boosting sounds like the clattering of a ceiling fan or the rabble of a dinner party.
You can take an even more comprehensive approach to your tinnitus treatment by augmenting hearing aids with other strategies, like stress reduction, sound stimulation, and counseling.
Some hearing aid makers even utilize the irregular rhythm of fractal tones to minimize the symptoms of tinnitus. The constant tone of tinnitus can be interrupted by the uneven tones of these inconsistent rhythms.
Blending the natural 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 strategy will use a personalized white noise that will be calibrated by your hearing specialist.
All of these approaches, from white noise therapies to sound therapies, use specialized hearing aid technology to distract the attention of the user away from focusing on tinnitus noises.
Hearing aids can improve quality of life and lessen symptoms of tinnitus even if there is no cure.
References
- https://www.hearingloss.org/wp-content/uploads/HLAA_HearingLoss_Facts_Statistics.pdf?pdf=FactStats
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17956798
- https://www.ata.org/managing-your-tinnitus/treatment-options/hearing-aids
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6197965