Scientists still haven’t determined the cause of tinnitus, a ringing or buzzing in the ears. However, there is one thing that all hearing specialists agree on, you are more likely to experience tinnitus if you also suffer from hearing loss.
As you most likely know, your age, genetics, and lifestyle can all play a role in the progression of hearing loss. And while many of us think of hearing loss as being obvious, the truth is that some slight hearing loss can go unobserved. Unfortunately, your risk of developing hearing loss increases with even mild cases of hearing loss.
Hearing aids can’t cure tinnitus, but they can help address the symptoms
There is no cure for tinnitus. However, hearing loss and tinnitus symptoms can be improved along with quality of life by using hearing aids. As a matter of fact, the similarities between hearing loss and tinnitus are pretty remarkable.
The pitch or frequency of the ringing a person hears when dealing with tinnitus is normally in sync with the type of hearing loss that person encounters. For example, someone who hears high-pitched ringing from tinnitus might suffer from high-frequency hearing loss. Some people believe this parallel to be a consequence of the brain trying to compensate for a lack of acoustic stimulation at that level by generating a similarly pitched tone of its own.
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. Here’s the good thing, there are other, more advanced solutions beyond just traditional hearing aids to manage the symptoms produced by tinnitus.
Specialized hearing aids to lessen tinnitus symptoms
Hearing aids work by collecting natural sounds from your environment and amplifying them to a level that allows you to hear. Even though it might be simple in design, that amplification of noise, whether it’s the din of a dinner party or the rattle of a ceiling fan, is essential in training your brain to receive particular stimulations once more.
But you can improve those amplification endeavors with a mix of other strategies like counseling, sound stimulation, and stress management for a more extensive approach to treatment.
Some hearing aid manufacturers endeavor to reduce tinnitus symptoms by using irregular rhythms of fractal tones. These rhythmically irregular tones can detract from the consistent and regular tones tinnitus sufferers hear. The ringing is drowned out by soothing, wind chime-like sounds produced by the most prevalent fractal tones rather than simple white noise which can also be helpful in some cases.
Other specialty devices try to blend your tinnitus in with the natural sounds you’re hearing. A white noise generator will be used in this approach, which can be fine-tuned by a hearing specialist to help decrease your specific tinnitus symptoms..
Whether it’s through sound therapy, blending, or a white noise mechanism, each of these specialized devices has a common aim of distracting the user away from the ringing or buzzing of tinnitus.
It’s true that tinnitus can’t be cured, but for at least some of the 50 million dealing with the condition, hearing aids present an alluring possibility to reduce symptoms and improve quality of life.
Want to discuss your tinnitus with a hearing specialist?
For more information on decreasing tinnitus symptoms, take a look at our tinnitus section or call for a consultation.