Scientists still haven’t pinpointed the cause of tinnitus, a ringing or buzzing in the ears. Hearing specialists, however, do agree that tinnitus is more prevalent in people who also have hearing loss.
As you probably know, your age, genetics, and lifestyle can all contribute to the progression of hearing loss. And while it might seem like the symptoms of hearing loss would be fairly obvious, when it’s still in the early phases, it often goes undetected. Unfortunately, your risk of experiencing hearing loss increases with even minor cases of hearing loss.
It’s not a cure, but hearing aids can help manage tinnitus
There is no cure for tinnitus. However, hearing aids can manage both hearing loss and tinnitus in ways that can reduce symptoms and improve one’s quality of life. 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 somebody has hearing loss in the high-frequency range, they will often hear a high-pitched ringing from tinnitus. The concept is that the brain tries to compensate for the missing frequencies by creating 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. Fortunately, tinnitus symptoms can be managed in other more advanced ways than traditional hearing aids.
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 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 critical in teaching your brain to experience particular stimulations again.
But you can improve those amplification efforts with a blend of other techniques like counseling, sound stimulation, and stress reduction for a more comprehensive approach to treatment.
Some manufacturers even use the irregular rhythm of fractal tones to lessen 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. The ringing is drowned out by soothing, wind chime-like sounds generated by the most common fractal tones rather than basic white noise which can also be helpful in some cases.
Mixing natural sounds from your environment with your tinnitus is the aim of other specialized devices. A white noise generator will be used in this approach, which can be calibrated by a hearing specialist to help lessen your particular tinnitus symptoms..
Whether it’s through sound therapy, blending, or a white noise mechanism, 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 decrease the intensity of the symptoms and improve quality of life, which is an attractive feature for the 50 million people who use hearing aids.
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 decrease symptoms.