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 cope with hearing loss.
Some of the primary factors that contribute to hearing loss are genetics, age, and lifestyle. And while many people think of hearing loss as being obvious, the truth is that some mild hearing loss can go undetected. Unfortunately, your risk of developing hearing loss increases with even mild cases of hearing loss.
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 improve one’s quality of life. As a matter of fact, the similarities between hearing loss and tinnitus are pretty remarkable.
The pitch or frequency of the ringing one hears when dealing with tinnitus is often in sync with the type of hearing loss that person has. For example, a person who hears high-pitched ringing from tinnitus might suffer from high-frequency hearing loss. The concept is that the brain tries to compensate for the missing frequencies by generating tinnitus sounds in the same frequency range.
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. Here’s the good thing, there are other, more advanced options beyond just traditional hearing aids to manage the symptoms associated with tinnitus.
Specialized hearing aids to reduce tinnitus symptoms
Hearing aids detect environmental sounds and amplify frequencies you have trouble hearing. Even though it might 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 teaching your brain to experience particular stimulations again.
But you can enhance those amplification efforts with a combination of other methods 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. These rhythmically irregular tones can detract from the constant and regular tones tinnitus sufferers hear. The ringing is drowned out by soothing, wind chime-like sounds produced by the most common fractal tones instead of 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 fine-tuned by a hearing specialist to help decrease 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.
It’s true that there is no cure for tinnitus, but for at least some of the 50 million suffering from the condition, hearing aids present an attractive possibility to reduce symptoms and improve quality of life.
Want to talk about your tinnitus with a hearing specialist?
If you’re experiencing ringing or buzzing in the ears, take a look at our tinnitus section for more information on ways to decrease symptoms.
