Around one in seven people are estimated to deal with tinnitus. That puts the overall number in the millions. That’s… a lot of people, both in absolute terms and in relation to the overall population, and in several countries, the amount of the population who experience tinnitus is even more startling.
True, tinnitus isn’t always chronic. But if you’re dealing with chronic tinnitus symptoms it becomes imperative to find a remedy as soon as possible. Luckily, there is a treatment that has proven to be rather effective: hearing aids.
There are some connections between hearing loss and tinnitus but they are actually separate conditions. It’s possible to have tinnitus with average hearing or to experience hearing loss without also developing tinnitus. But the two conditions occur together often enough that hearing aids have become a dependable solution, treating hearing loss and stopping tinnitus all at once.
How Hearing Aids Can Help Tinnitus
According to one study, 60% of people who suffer from tinnitus observed some amount of relief when they started using hearing aids. For 22% of those individuals, the relief was significant. However, hearing aids aren’t designed specifically to handle tinnitus. Association appears to be the principal reason for this benefit. So if you have tinnitus along with hearing loss then that’s when your hearing aids will most effectively treat the tinnitus symptoms.
Here’s how tinnitus symptoms can be reduced with hearing aids:
- Everything gets a bit louder: The volume of some of the wavelengths of the world become quieter when you’re suffering from hearing loss. When that occurs the ringing in your ears becomes much more obvious. Hearing loss is not decreasing 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 an issue.
- It gets easier to engage in conversations: Amplifying human speech is something contemporary hearing aids are particularly good at. So once you’re using your hearing aids regularly, having conversations becomes much easier. You can keep up with the story Carl is telling at the restaurant or listen to what Sally is excited about at work. The more you interact with other people, the more social you are, the less you’ll detect your tinnitus. In some cases, tinnitus is worsened by stress so being able to socialize can helps in this way also.
- The enhanced audio stimulation is keeping your brain fit: When you have hearing loss, those portions of your brain tasked with interpreting sounds can frequently suffer from stress, fatigue, or atrophy. Using a hearing aid can keep the audio centers of your brain limber and healthy, which in turn can help decrease some tinnitus symptoms you may be experiencing.
The Benefits of Modern Hearing Aids
Smart Technology is incorporated into modern hearing aids. They come with innovative hearing assistance algorithms and the newest technology. But it’s the ability to customize a hearing aid to the specific user’s requirements that makes modern hearing aids so effective (sometimes, they recalibrate according to the level of background noise).
Personalizing hearing aids means that the sensitivity and output signals can conveniently be adjusted to the particular hearing levels you may have. The better your hearings aid works for you, the more likely they are to help you drown out the humming or buzzing from tinnitus.
What is The Best Way to Get Rid of Tinnitus?
This will likely depend on your degree of hearing loss. If you haven’t experienced any hearing loss, you’ll still have accessible treatments for your tinnitus. That could mean custom-made masking devices, medication, or cognitive behavioral therapy.
However, hearing aids might be able to take care of both situations if you have tinnitus and hearing loss at the same time. Treating your hearing loss with a good pair of hearing aids can often stop tinnitus from making your life miserable.