Most estimates put the number of individuals impacted by tinnitus in the millions or around one out of every seven people. In a few countries, the numbers are even higher and that’s pretty startling.
Sometimes tinnitus is temporary. But in those cases where ringing, buzzing, or humming in your ears is hard to shake, finding a reliable treatment can very quickly become a priority. One of the most effective of such treatments is already quite common: hearing aids.
Hearing loss and tinnitus are related but separate conditions. It’s possible to have tinnitus with normal hearing or to experience hearing loss without also getting tinnitus. But if you’re going through the two conditions together, which is fairly typical, hearing aids can handle both at the same time.
How Can Tinnitus be Helped by Hearing Aids?
According to one study, 60% of people with tinnitus noticed some measure of relief when they started using hearing aids. Approximately 22% of everyone surveyed reported considerable relief. But, hearing aids are not designed specifically to handle tinnitus. Association seems to be the main reason for this benefit. 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 a little bit louder: When you have loss of hearing, the volume of the outside world (or, at least, certain frequencies of the world) can fall away and become quieter. The ringing in your ears, then, is much more obvious. Hearing loss is not affecting the ringing so it becomes the most pronounced 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 an issue.
- Conversations become less difficult: Modern hearing aids are particularly good at identifying human speech and raising the volume of those sounds. This means having a conversation can be much easier once you’re routinely using your devices. 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. When you have a balanced involved social life tinnitus can appear to disappear into the background. Sometimes, tinnitus is worsened by stress so being able to socialize can helps in this way too.
- The enhanced audio stimulation is keeping your brain fit: Hearing loss has been confirmed to put a strain on mental function. Tinnitus symptoms you might be experiencing can be decreased when the brain is in a healthy flexible condition and hearing aids can help keep it that way.
The Benefits of Modern Hearing Aids
Smart Technology is incorporated into modern hearing aids. To some degree, that’s because they incorporate the latest technologies and hearing assistance algorithms. But the efficiency of modern hearing aids is achieved in part because each device can be refined and calibrated on a patient-per-patient basis (sometimes, they recalibrate according to the amount of background noise).
Personalizing hearing aids means that the sensitivity and output signals can effortlessly be calibrated to the specific hearing levels you might have. The better your hearings aid works for you, the more likely they are to help you mask the humming or buzzing from tinnitus.
What is The Best Way to End Tinnitus?
This will probably depend on your level of hearing impairment. There are still treatment solutions for your tinnitus even if you don’t have any hearing impairment. Cognitive behavioral therapy, a custom masking device, or medication are some possible solutions.
However, if you’re one of the many individuals out there who happen to suffer from both hearing impairment and tinnitus, a set of hearing aids could be able to do the old two-birds-one-stone thing. Stop tinnitus from making your life miserable by managing your hearing loss with a good set of hearing aids.
