The cause of tinnitus, a continual ringing or buzzing in the ears, has long puzzled scientists. Hearing specialists, however, do agree that tinnitus is more prevalent in people who also have hearing loss.
As you most likely know, your age, genetics, and lifestyle can all play a role in the development of hearing loss. And while many individuals think of hearing loss as being obvious, the truth is that some slight hearing loss can go unobserved. Still worse, even a mild case of hearing loss raises your risk and likelihood of experiencing tinnitus.
It isn’t a cure, but hearing aids can help manage tinnitus
There is no cure for tinnitus. However, hearing aids can treat both hearing loss and tinnitus in ways that can minimize symptoms and enhance one’s quality of life. There are some pretty remarkable similarities between tinnitus and hearing loss, as a matter of fact.
The pitch or frequency of the ringing a person hears when dealing with tinnitus is often in sync with the type of hearing loss that person has. As an example, if someone has hearing loss in the high-frequency range, they will usually hear a high-pitched ringing from tinnitus. The idea is that the brain tries to compensate for the missing frequencies by producing tinnitus sounds in the same frequency range.
Tinnitus sounds can be essentially “masked” by a hearing aid which can drown out the offending sound and replace it with one that’s supposed to be heard. The good news is, there are other, more advanced solutions beyond just traditional hearing aids to treat the symptoms associated with tinnitus.
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 allows you to hear. Even though hearing aids have a simple concept, they help teach your brain to receive certain stimulation again by boosting noises like the rattle of a ceiling fan or the buzz of a dinner party.
But other combinations of methods like sound stimulation, counseling, and decreasing stress can also be used to enhance those amplification efforts and provide a more complete treatment approach.
Some hearing aid manufacturers attempt to reduce tinnitus symptoms with the use of the irregular rhythms of fractal tones. Tinnitus sufferers usually hear tones that are constant and regular which can sometimes be interrupted by the irregular rhythms of these fractal tones. The ringing is overwhelmed by pleasant, wind chime-like sounds generated by the most prevalent fractal tones rather than simple white noise which can also be helpful in some cases.
Mixing natural sounds from your environment with your tinnitus is the objective of other specialized devices. This strategy will generally utilize a white noise signal that a hearing specialist can adjust to ensure correct calibration for your ear and your condition.
Whether it’s through sound therapy, blending, or a white noise system, each of these specialized devices has a common objective of distracting the user away from the ringing or buzzing of tinnitus.
Though tinnitus can’t be cured, hearing aids can help reduce the severity of the symptoms and improve quality of life, which is an alluring feature for the 50 million people who use hearing aids.
Have more questions about tinnitus?
For more information on decreasing tinnitus symptoms, check out our tinnitus section or call for a consultation.