Most estimates put the number of individuals impacted by tinnitus in the millions or around one in every seven people. That’s… a lot of people, both in actual terms and relative to the overall population, and in some countries, the amount of the population who experience tinnitus is even more alarming.
True, tinnitus isn’t always chronic. But if you’re dealing with chronic tinnitus symptoms it becomes crucial to find a remedy as soon as possible. One of the most beneficial of such solutions is already rather common: hearing aids.
There are some connections between tinnitus and hearing loss but they are actually separate conditions. you can have hearing loss without tinnitus or tinnitus without hearing loss. But if you are experiencing the two conditions together, which is pretty typical, hearing aids can treat both at the same time.
How Hearing Aids Can Treat Tinnitus
Hearing aids have, according to one survey, been reported to give tinnitus relief to up to 60% of participants. For 22% of those people, the relief was considerable. Despite this, hearing aids are actually designed to deal with hearing loss not specifically tinnitus. The benefits seem to come by association. As such, hearing aids appear to be most practical if you have tinnitus and hearing loss.
Here’s how hearing aids can help get rid of tinnitus symptoms:
- Everything gets slightly louder: The volume of some of the frequencies of the world become quieter when have hearing loss. When that occurs the ringing in your ears becomes a lot more obvious. Hearing loss is not reducing the ringing so it becomes the loudest thing you hear. A hearing aid can boost that surrounding sound, helping to drown out the buzzing or ringing that was so prominent before. As you pay less and less attention to your tinnitus, it becomes less of a problem.
- It gets easier to have conversations: Modern hearing aids are particularly good at identifying human speech and amplifying those sounds. So once you’re wearing your hearing aids on a regular basis, having conversations becomes much easier. You will be more engaged with your co-worker’s story about their children and better able to participate with your spouse about how their day went. The more you socialize with other people, the more social you are, the less you’ll detect your tinnitus. Sometimes, tinnitus is worsened by stress so being able to socialize can helps in this way also.
- The increased audio stimulation is keeping your brain fit: Hearing loss has been shown to put a strain on mental function. Tinnitus symptoms you might be experiencing can be reduced when the brain is in a healthy limber condition and hearing aids can help maintain this.
The Advantages of Modern Hearing Aids
Modern hearing aids are smart. To some degree, that’s because they feature the newest technologies and hearing assistance algorithms. But it’s the ability to customize a hearing aid to the specific user’s needs that makes modern hearing aids so effective (sometimes, they recalibrate based on the level of background noise).
Personalizing hearing aids means that the sensitivity and output signals can conveniently be calibrated to the particular hearing levels you might have. The buzzing or humming is more likely to be successfully obscured if your hearing aid is dialed in to work best for you.
The Best Way to Get Rid of Tinnitus
This will probably depend on your level of hearing impairment. If you haven’t experienced any hearing loss, you’ll still have accessible treatments for your tinnitus. Medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, or a custom masking device are some possible options.
But, hearing aids may be able to take care of both situations if you have tinnitus and hearing loss at the same time. Treating your hearing impairment with a good set of hearing aids can often stop tinnitus from making your life difficult.
