The cause of tinnitus, a persistent ringing or buzzing in the ears, has long perplexed 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 it may seem like the symptoms of hearing loss would be rather obvious, when it’s still in the early phases, it often goes undetected. Worse, even a minor case of hearing loss raises your risk and likelihood of experiencing tinnitus.
It isn’t a cure, but hearing aids can help treat tinnitus
Tinnitus can’t be cured. However, hearing loss and tinnitus symptoms can be improved as well as quality of life by using hearing aids. As a matter of fact, the similarities between hearing loss and tinnitus are fairly remarkable.
The frequency range that a person loses hearing in is usually in sync with the pitch of their tinnitus symptoms. As an example, if somebody 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 generating tinnitus sounds in the same frequency range.
Tinnitus sounds can be effectively “masked” by a hearing aid which can drown out the offending sound and replace it with one that’s supposed to be heard. Fortunately, tinnitus symptoms can be treated in other more advanced ways than traditional hearing aids.
Lessen symptoms of tinnitus with specialized hearing aids
Hearing aids work by gathering natural sounds from your environment 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 particular stimulation again by amplifying noises like the rattling of a ceiling fan or the buzz of a dinner party.
But other combinations of strategies like sound stimulation, counseling, and decreasing stress can also be used to improve those amplification efforts and provide a more comprehensive treatment approach.
Some hearing aid manufacturers endeavor to decrease tinnitus symptoms by using irregular rhythms of fractal tones. Tinnitus sufferers typically 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 soothing, wind chime-like sounds generated by the most common 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 goal of other specialized devices. This approach will generally utilize a white noise signal that a hearing specialist can program to ensure proper calibration for your ear and your condition.
The common intent of these strategies is to help the user disregard tinnitus symptoms whether it’s by employing white noise systems, sound therapy, or blending.
Though tinnitus has no cure, hearing aids can help decrease the severity of the symptoms and enhance quality of life, which is an attractive feature for the 50 million people who use hearing aids.
Have more questions about tinnitus?
For more info on reducing tinnitus symptoms, check out our tinnitus section or call for a consultation.