Around one in seven individuals are estimated to suffer from 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 a few countries, the amount of the population who experience tinnitus is even more alarming.
True, tinnitus isn’t always recurring. But in those situations where buzzing, ringing, or humming in your ears is hard to shake, finding an effective remedy can very quickly become a priority. One of the most practical of such solutions is already quite common: hearing aids.
Tinnitus and hearing loss are related but distinct conditions. you can have hearing loss without tinnitus or tinnitus without hearing loss. But both conditions coexist frequently enough that hearing aids have become a practical solution, managing hearing loss and stopping tinnitus in one fell swoop.
How Can Tinnitus be Treated by Hearing Aids?
According to one survey, 60% of individuals with tinnitus observed some amount of relief when they began using hearing aids. Approximately 22% of those surveyed reported considerable relief. However, hearing aids aren’t manufactured specifically to treat tinnitus. The benefits appear to come by association. So if you have tinnitus along with hearing loss then that’s when your hearing aids will most successfully treat the tinnitus symptoms.
Here’s how hearing aids can help stop tinnitus symptoms:
- Outside sounds are enhanced: When you have hearing loss, the volume of the outside world (or, at least, specific wavelengths of the world) can fade away and become more silent. When that occurs the ringing in your ears becomes a lot more obvious. Hearing loss is not reducing the ringing so it becomes the most pronounced thing you hear. A hearing aid can enhance that surrounding sound, helping to drown out the buzzing or ringing that was so forefront before. Tinnitus becomes less of a problem as you pay less attention to it.
- Conversations become easier: Modern hearing aids are particularly effective at identifying human speech and amplifying those sounds. This means carrying on a conversation can be much easier once you’re regularly wearing your devices. You can follow the story Fred is telling at the restaurant or listen to what Sally is excited about at work. When you have a balanced involved social life tinnitus can seem to disappear into the background. Interacting socially also helps reduce stress, which is associated with tinnitus.
- Your brain is getting an auditory workout: Hearing loss has been proven to put stress on cognitive function. Tinnitus symptoms you may be experiencing can be reduced when the brain is in a healthy flexible condition and hearing aids can help keep it that way.
Modern Hearing Aids Come With Several Advantages
Modern hearing aids are intelligent. To some degree, that’s because they incorporate the newest technologies and hearing assistance algorithms. But the effectiveness of modern hearing aids is attained in part because each device can be customized and calibrated on a patient-per-patient basis (sometimes, they recalibrate based on the level of background noise).
Customizing hearing aids means that the sensitivity and output signals can conveniently be adjusted to the particular hearing levels you might have. The humming or buzzing is more likely to be successfully masked if your hearing aid is dialed in to work best for you.
What is The Best Way to End Tinnitus?
Your degree of hearing loss will dictate what’s right for you. There are still treatment options for your tinnitus even if you don’t have any hearing impairment. That could mean custom-created masking devices, cognitive-behavioral therapy, or medication.
But, if you’re one of the many individuals out there who happen to suffer from both hearing loss and tinnitus, a set of hearing aids might 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.