Most estimates put the number of people affected by tinnitus in the millions or about one in every seven people. In a few countries, the numbers are even higher and that’s pretty startling.
True, tinnitus isn’t always recurring. But if you’re dealing with persistent tinnitus symptoms it becomes crucial to find a remedy as soon as you can. Luckily, there is a treatment that has proven to be quite effective: hearing aids.
Tinnitus and hearing loss are connected 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, treating hearing loss and stopping tinnitus in one fell swoop.
How Hearing Aids Can Help Tinnitus
According to one study, 60% of individuals who suffer from tinnitus reported some measure of relief when they started using hearing aids. Approximately 22% of everyone surveyed went so far as to report considerable relief. However, hearing aids are not made specifically to handle tinnitus. Association seems to be the main reason for this benefit. So if you have tinnitus and hearing loss then that’s when your hearing aids will most successfully treat the tinnitus symptoms.
Here’s how tinnitus symptoms can be decreased with hearing aids:
- Everything gets a bit louder: When you experience loss of hearing, the volume of the world (or, at least, certain wavelengths of the world) can fall away and become more silent. The ringing in your ears, then, is much more obvious. It’s the loudest thing you hear because it is not diminished by your hearing loss. A hearing aid can increase that ambient sound, helping to drown out the buzzing or ringing 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: Amplifying human speech is something modern hearing aids are particularly good at. This means having a conversation can be much easier once you’re routinely using your devices. You will be more engaged with your co-worker’s story about their kids and better able to participate with your spouse about how their day went. The more you interact with others, the more social you are, the less you’ll detect your tinnitus. At times, tinnitus is worsened by stress so being able to socialize can helps in this way too.
- The increased audio stimulation is keeping your brain fit: Hearing loss has been confirmed to put stress on mental function. Wearing a hearing aid can keep the audio regions of your brain limber and healthy, which as a result can help minimize some tinnitus symptoms you might be experiencing.
The Benefits of Modern Hearing Aids
Smart Technology is incorporated into modern hearing aids. To some degree, that’s because they feature the newest technologies and hearing assistance algorithms. But it’s the ability to customize a hearing aid to the distinct user’s requirements that makes modern hearing aids so effective (they can even detect the amount of background noise and automatically adjust accordingly).
Whatever your particular hearing levels are, personalized hearing aids can conveniently be calibrated to them. The buzzing or humming is more likely to be effectively hidden if your hearing aid is dialed in to work best for you.
The Best Way to Stop Tinnitus
Your degree of hearing loss will determine what’s right for you. If you haven’t experienced any hearing loss, you’ll still have available treatments for your tinnitus. That could mean custom-made 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 pair of hearing aids may 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 pair of hearing aids.