The cause of tinnitus, a continual ringing or buzzing in the ears, has long baffled scientists. Hearing specialists, however, do agree that tinnitus is more prevalent in people who also have hearing loss.
Some of the main factors that play a role in hearing loss are genetics, age, and lifestyle. And while it may seem like the symptoms of hearing loss would be rather obvious, when it’s still in the early stages, it frequently goes unnoticed. Unfortunately, your risk of experiencing hearing loss increases with even mild cases of hearing loss.
Hearing aids can’t cure tinnitus, but they can help address the symptoms
Tinnitus can’t be cured. However, hearing loss and tinnitus symptoms can be improved as well as quality of life by using hearing aids. There are some pretty remarkable similarities between tinnitus and hearing loss, in fact.
The frequency range that a person loses hearing in is often in sync with the pitch of their tinnitus symptoms. As an example, if someone has hearing loss in the high-frequency range, they will often 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.
A traditional hearing aid can essentially hide the ringing or buzzing connected with tinnitus by replacing it with the appropriate sounds. Here’s the good thing, there are other, more advanced options beyond just traditional hearing aids to treat the symptoms produced by tinnitus.
Reduce symptoms of tinnitus with specialized hearing aids
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 din of a dinner party.
But other combinations of methods like sound stimulation, counseling, and minimizing stress can also be used to enhance those amplification efforts and provide a more comprehensive treatment approach.
Some hearing aid manufacturers attempt to decrease 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 overwhelmed by pleasant, wind chime-like sounds produced by the most common fractal tones rather than simple white noise which can also be helpful in some cases.
Other specialized devices try to blend your tinnitus in with the outside 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 reduce your specific tinnitus symptoms..
The common aim of these methods is to help the user ignore tinnitus symptoms whether it’s through the use of white noise systems, sound therapy, or blending.
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 live a better quality of life.
Have more questions about tinnitus?
If you’re struggling with ringing or buzzing in the ears, take a look at our tinnitus section for more information on ways to reduce symptoms.