Can Tinnitus Symptoms be Relieved by Using Hearing Aids?

The cause of tinnitus, a persistent ringing or buzzing in the ears, has long puzzled scientists. Hearing specialists, however, do agree that tinnitus is more prevalent in people who also have hearing loss.

As you most likely know, your age, genetics, and lifestyle can all play a role in the development of hearing loss. And while many of us think of hearing loss as being obvious, the reality is that some slight hearing loss can go unnoticed. Still worse, even a slight case of hearing loss raises your risk and likelihood of developing tinnitus.

It isn’t a cure, but hearing aids can help treat tinnitus

Tinnitus can’t be cured. However, hearing aids can manage both hearing loss and tinnitus in ways that can minimize symptoms and enhance one’s quality of life. 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 often in sync with the pitch of their tinnitus symptoms. For instance, somebody who hears high-pitched ringing from tinnitus may suffer from high-frequency hearing loss. Some people believe this parallel to be a result of the brain attempting to compensate for a lack of acoustic stimulation at that level by generating a similarly pitched tone of its own.

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. Luckily, tinnitus symptoms can be managed in other more advanced ways than traditional hearing aids.

Lessen symptoms of tinnitus with specialized hearing aids

Hearing aids work by collecting natural sounds from the environment around you and boosting them to a level that allows you to hear. Even though hearing aids have a simple concept, they help teach your brain to receive particular stimulation again by boosting noises like the rattling of a ceiling fan or the din of a dinner party.

But you can augment those amplification endeavors with a blend of other techniques like counseling, sound stimulation, and stress reduction for a more comprehensive approach to treatment.

Some hearing aid manufacturers attempt to reduce tinnitus symptoms with the use of the irregular rhythms of fractal tones. These rhythmically inconsistent tones can detract from the consistent and regular tones tinnitus sufferers hear. The ringing is drowned out by soothing, wind chime-like sounds produced by the most prevalent fractal tones rather than simple white noise which can also be helpful in some cases.

Other specialized devices try to blend your tinnitus in with the environmental sounds you’re hearing. This approach will generally use a white noise signal that a hearing specialist can program to ensure accurate calibration for your ear and your condition.

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 live a better quality of life.

Want to talk about your tinnitus with a hearing professional?

If you’re experiencing ringing or buzzing in the ears, take a look at our tinnitus section for more information on ways to minimize symptoms.