It’s generally unclear what’s triggering tinnitus (a buzzing or ringing in your ears). However, there is one thing experts agree on: you are more likely to develop tinnitus if you also suffer from hearing loss. Up to 90% of individuals who are afflicted by tinnitus also have hearing loss according to HIAA.
As you most likely know, your genetics, age, and lifestyle can all play a role in the advancement of hearing loss. And while many people think of hearing loss as being obvious, the truth is that some mild hearing loss can go unnoticed. Even minor cases of hearing loss will raise your chance of tinnitus, making the situation even worse.
It’s Not a Cure, But Hearing Aids Can Help Treat Tinnitus
Tinnitus doesn’t have a cure. 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. Sixty percent of people coping with tinnitus, in fact, saw relief of their symptoms, and twenty-two had significant improvement.
A traditional hearing aid can basically hide the ringing or buzzing caused by tinnitus by improving your ability to hear other sounds, which effectively drowns out the ringing. And, fortunately, traditional hearing aids aren’t the only option as more advanced treatment methods are being produced.
Types of Specialty Hearing Aids to Lessen Tinnitus Symptoms
Hearing aids work by collecting natural sounds from the environment around you and boosting them to a level that lets you hear. This simple technology is crucial in teaching your hearing to receive specific stimulation by amplifying sounds like the rattle of a ceiling fan or the hum of a dinner party.
You can augment those amplification efforts by the combination of other approaches, like counseling, sound stimulation, and stress reduction for a more complete approach to treatment.
Some hearing aid makers even use the irregular rhythm of fractal tones to reduce the symptoms of tinnitus. The constant tone of tinnitus can be interrupted by the uneven tones of these inconsistent rhythms.
Blending the normal sounds you hear with your tinnitus sounds is the objective of other advanced hearing aid options. This strategy will commonly use a white noise signal that a hearing specialist can adjust to ensure correct calibration for your ear and your disorder.
Whether it’s through sound therapy, blending, or a white noise mechanism, all of these specialized technologies have a common goal of distracting the user away from the ringing or buzzing of tinnitus.
Hearing aids can improve quality of life and decrease symptoms of tinnitus even if there isn’t any 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