Around one in seven people are estimated to suffer from tinnitus. That puts the total number in the millions. That’s… a lot of people, both in absolute terms and in relation to the overall population, and in some countries, the percentage of the population who experience tinnitus is even more alarming.
True, tinnitus isn’t always chronic. But if you’re dealing with persistent tinnitus symptoms it becomes crucial to find a treatment as soon as you can. Fortunately, there is a treatment that has proven to be rather effective: hearing aids.
Tinnitus and hearing loss are related but separate conditions. you can have hearing loss without tinnitus or tinnitus without hearing loss. But if you are going through the two conditions together, which is fairly common, hearing aids can treat both at the same time.
How Can Tinnitus be Managed by Hearing Aids?
Hearing aids have, according to one study, been documented to give tinnitus relief to up to 60% of participants. For 22% of those people, the relief was considerable. Despite this, hearing aids are actually designed to manage hearing loss not specifically tinnitus. The benefits seem to come by association. As such, hearing aids appear to be most practical if you have tinnitus and hearing loss.
Here’s how hearing aids can help stop tinnitus symptoms:
- Everything gets a bit louder: When you have loss of hearing, the volume of the outside world (or, at least, particular wavelengths of the world) can fall away and become quieter. The ringing in your ears, then, is a lot more noticeable. Hearing loss is not decreasing the ringing so it becomes the loudest thing you hear. A hearing aid can boost that ambient sound, helping to drown out the ringing or buzzing that was so prominent before. As you tune out your tinnitus, it becomes less of a problem.
- Conversations become less difficult: Contemporary hearing aids are particularly effective at identifying human speech and amplifying those sounds. So once you’re using your hearing aids on a regular basis, having conversations becomes a lot easier. You can follow the story Carl is telling at the restaurant or listen to what Sally is excited about at work. The more you interact with others, the more social you are, the less you’ll detect your tinnitus. Interacting socially also helps decrease stress, which is related to tinnitus.
- Your brain is getting an auditory workout: When you experience hearing loss, those parts of your brain charged with interpreting sounds can often suffer from fatigue, stress, or atrophy. Tinnitus symptoms you might be experiencing can be decreased when the brain is in a healthy flexible condition and hearing aids can help maintain this.
Modern Hearing Aids Come With Several Advantages
Modern hearing aids are smart. To some degree, that’s because they feature the newest technologies and hearing assistance algorithms. But the effectiveness of modern hearing aids is accomplished in part because each device can be refined and calibrated on a patient-by-patient basis (they can even sense the level of background noise and automatically adjust accordingly).
Whatever your particular hearing levels are, customized hearing aids can effortlessly be calibrated to them. The buzzing or humming 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. Medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, or a custom masking device are some possible options.
But, hearing aids might be able to take care of both situations if you have tinnitus and hearing loss at the same time. Stop tinnitus from making your life miserable by treating your hearing loss with a good set of hearing aids.
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