The cause of tinnitus, a continual ringing or buzzing in the ears, has long puzzled scientists. 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.
Some of the principal factors that play a role in hearing loss are genetics, age, and lifestyle. 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 minor cases of hearing loss.
It’s not a cure, but hearing aids can help treat tinnitus
Tinnitus can’t be cured. However, hearing aids can treat both hearing loss and tinnitus in ways that can reduce symptoms and improve one’s quality of life. 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 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 frequently 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 detect environmental sounds and boost frequencies you can’t hear very well. Even though hearing aids have a simple concept, they help train your brain to receive particular stimulation again by boosting noises like the rattle of a ceiling fan or the buzz of a dinner party.
But you can augment those amplification efforts with a mix of other techniques 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. 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 soothing, wind chime-like sounds produced by the most common fractal tones rather than basic 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 calibrated by a hearing specialist to help reduce your particular tinnitus symptoms..
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 has no cure, hearing aids can help reduce the intensity 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 info on decreasing tinnitus symptoms, take a look at our tinnitus section or call for a consultation.