Around one out of every seven individuals are estimated to deal with tinnitus. That puts the overall number in the millions. In a few countries, the numbers are even higher and that’s pretty alarming.
Sometimes tinnitus is temporary. But in those situations where ringing, buzzing, or humming in your ears is hard to get rid of, finding an effective remedy can very quickly become a priority. One of the most practical of such remedies is already quite common: hearing aids.
There are some links between tinnitus and hearing loss but they are actually separate conditions. you can have hearing loss without tinnitus or tinnitus without hearing loss. But the two conditions occur together frequently enough that hearing aids have become a dependable solution, managing hearing loss and stopping tinnitus all at once.
How Can Tinnitus be Helped by Hearing Aids?
According to one survey, 60% of individuals who suffer from tinnitus reported some amount of relief when they started using hearing aids. For 22% of those individuals, the relief was considerable. But, hearing aids aren’t made specifically to handle tinnitus. Association appears to be the main reason for this benefit. As such, hearing aids seem to be most practical if you have tinnitus and hearing loss.
Here’s how tinnitus symptoms can be decreased with hearing aids:
- Outside sounds are enhanced: The volume of certain wavelengths of the world become quieter when have hearing loss. The ringing in your ears, in that situation, is much more noticeable. 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 ringing or buzzing that was so forefront before. As you pay less and less attention to your tinnitus, it becomes less of an issue.
- Conversations become less difficult: Increasing the volume of human speech is something contemporary hearing aids are particularly good at. This means having a conversation can be much easier once you’re routinely wearing your devices. You can follow the story Carl is telling at happy hour or listen to what Sally is excited about at work. The more you socialize with other people, the more social you are, the less you’ll detect your tinnitus. Interacting socially also helps reduce stress, which is associated with tinnitus.
- Your brain is getting an auditory workout: When you experience hearing loss, those regions of your brain tasked with interpreting sounds can often suffer from fatigue, stress, or atrophy. Wearing a hearing aid can keep the audio centers of your brain flexible and healthy, which in turn can help reduce some tinnitus symptoms you might be experiencing.
The Perks of Modern Hearing Aids
Smart Technology is built into modern hearing aids. To some extent, that’s because they integrate the newest technologies and hearing assistance algorithms. But the effectiveness of modern hearing aids is achieved 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).
Whatever your specific hearing levels are, personalized hearing aids can effortlessly be calibrated to them. The humming or buzzing is more likely to be effectively masked if your hearing aid is dialed in to work best for you.
The Best Way to Stop Tinnitus
This will likely depend on your level of hearing impairment. There are still treatment solutions for your tinnitus even if you don’t have any hearing loss. That could mean custom-created masking devices, medication, or cognitive behavioral therapy.
However, if you’re one of the many people out there who happen to have both hearing impairment and tinnitus, a set of hearing aids may be able to do the old two-birds-one-stone thing. Managing your hearing impairment with a good pair of hearing aids can often stop tinnitus from making your life miserable.