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 reality is that some mild hearing loss can go unnoticed. Still worse, even a slight case of hearing loss increases your risk and likelihood of developing 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 decrease symptoms and enhance one’s quality of life. In fact, the similarities between hearing loss and tinnitus are pretty remarkable.
The frequency range that a person loses hearing in is often 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. Some individuals believe this parallel to be a result of the brain trying to compensate for a lack of acoustic stimulation at that level by producing a similarly pitched tone of its own.
A traditional hearing aid can essentially hide the ringing or buzzing connected with tinnitus by replacing it with the appropriate sounds. 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 reduce tinnitus symptoms
Hearing aids work by picking up natural sounds from your environment and boosting them to a level that allows you to hear. Even though it may be simple in design, that amplification of noise, be it the din of a dinner party or the rattle of a ceiling fan, is critical in training your brain to experience certain stimulations once more.
But other combinations of strategies like sound stimulation, counseling, and decreasing stress can also be utilized to improve those amplification efforts and provide a more complete treatment approach.
Some manufacturers even use the irregular rhythm of fractal tones to reduce the symptoms of tinnitus. These rhythmically inconsistent tones can detract from the constant and regular tones tinnitus sufferers hear. The ringing is drowned out by pleasant, wind chime-like sounds produced by the most common fractal tones instead of basic white noise which can also be helpful in some cases.
Other specialty devices try to blend your tinnitus in with the environmental sounds you’re hearing. A white noise generator will be used in this approach, which can be calibrated by a hearing specialist to help decrease your particular tinnitus symptoms..
The common objective of these methods is to help the user ignore tinnitus symptoms whether it’s through the use of white noise mechanisms, sound therapy, or blending.
It’s true that tinnitus can’t be cured, but for at least some of the 50 million suffering from the condition, hearing aids provide an alluring possibility to reduce symptoms and live a better quality of life.
Want to talk about your tinnitus with a hearing professional?
If you’re struggling with ringing or buzzing in the ears, check out our tinnitus section for more information on ways to decrease symptoms.