Most estimates put the number of individuals impacted by tinnitus in the millions or about one in every seven people. That’s… a lot of people, both in actual terms and in relation to the overall population, and in several countries, the amount of the population who experience tinnitus is even more alarming.
True, tinnitus isn’t always recurring. But in those instances where ringing, buzzing, or humming in your ears is tough to shake, finding a reliable remedy can very quickly become a priority. Luckily, there is a treatment that has proven to be really effective: hearing aids.
There are some connections between hearing loss and tinnitus but they are in fact separate conditions. you can have hearing loss without tinnitus or tinnitus without hearing loss. But the two conditions coexist often enough that hearing aids have become a practical solution, managing hearing loss and stopping tinnitus all at once.
How Hearing Aids Can Help Tinnitus
Hearing aids have, according to one study, been reported to give tinnitus relief to up to 60% of participants. Roughly 22% of those surveyed went so far as to report significant relief. However, hearing aids aren’t designed specifically to handle tinnitus. The benefits seem to come by association. As such, hearing aids appear to be most effective if you have tinnitus and hearing loss.
Here’s how tinnitus symptoms can be decreased with hearing aids:
- External sounds are boosted: When you have hearing loss, the volume of the world (or, at least, specific wavelengths of the world) can fade away and become more silent. When that happens the ringing in your ears becomes a lot more obvious. It’s the loudest thing you’re hearing because it is not decreased by your hearing loss. A hearing aid can boost that surrounding sound, helping to drown out the buzzing or ringing that was so forefront before. As you tune out your tinnitus, it becomes less of an issue.
- It becomes less difficult to have conversations: Modern hearing aids are particularly good at identifying human speech and raising the volume of those sounds. So once you’re using your hearing aids regularly, having conversations becomes much easier. 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 connect with others, the more social you are, the less you’ll detect your tinnitus. Interacting socially also helps reduce stress, which is associated with tinnitus.
- 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 in turn can help reduce some tinnitus symptoms you may be experiencing.
Modern Hearing Aids Come With Numerous Benefits
Modern hearing aids are intelligent. They include cutting edge hearing assistance algorithms and the latest technology. But it’s the ability to customize a hearing aid to the specific user’s needs that makes modern hearing aids so effective (they can even detect the amount of background noise and automatically recalibrate accordingly).
Personalizing hearing aids means that the sensitivity and output signals can conveniently be adjusted to the specific hearing levels you may have. The humming or buzzing is more likely to be successfully hidden if your hearing aid is dialed in to work best for you.
The Best Way to Stop Tinnitus
Your level of hearing impairment will determine what’s right for you. If you haven’t had any hearing loss, you’ll still have accessible treatments for your tinnitus. That could mean custom-made masking devices, medication, or cognitive behavioral therapy.
But, if you’re one of the many people out there who happen to have both hearing impairment and tinnitus, a set of hearing aids could be able to do the old two-birds-one-stone thing. Stop tinnitus from making your life difficult by managing your hearing loss with a good pair of hearing aids.