The cause of tinnitus, a persistent 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.
As you probably know, your age, genetics, and lifestyle can all contribute to the development of hearing loss. And while it may seem as if the symptoms of hearing loss would be rather obvious, when it’s still in the early stages, it often goes undetected. 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 treat 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 frequency range that a person loses hearing in is usually in sync with the pitch of their tinnitus symptoms. For instance, someone who hears high-pitched ringing from tinnitus might suffer from high-frequency hearing loss. Some people believe this parallel to be a result 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. Luckily, tinnitus symptoms can be treated in other more advanced ways than traditional hearing aids.
Lessen symptoms of tinnitus with specialized hearing aids
Hearing aids pick up environmental sounds and boost frequencies you can’t hear very well. Even though it may be simple in design, that amplification of noise, be it the din of a dinner party or the rattling of a ceiling fan, is critical in training your brain to receive certain stimulations again.
But you can improve those amplification endeavors with a mix of other methods like counseling, sound stimulation, and stress reduction for a more extensive approach to treatment.
Some manufacturers even use the irregular rhythm of fractal tones to reduce the symptoms of tinnitus. Tinnitus sufferers typically hear tones that are consistent and regular which can sometimes be disrupted by the irregular rhythms of these fractal tones. While white noise devices are available, the most common fractal tones sound somewhat like wind chimes that supply a pleasant sound that overwhelms the ringing.
Blending natural sounds from your environment with your tinnitus is the goal of other specialized devices. A white noise generator will be used in this approach, which can be calibrated by a hearing specialist to help reduce your specific tinnitus symptoms..
Whether it’s through sound therapy, blending, or a white noise system, each of these specialized devices has a common aim of distracting the user away from the ringing or buzzing of tinnitus.
Though tinnitus can’t be cured, hearing aids can help decrease the intensity of the symptoms and enhance 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 reducing tinnitus symptoms, check out our tinnitus section or call for a consultation.