Characterized by audio disturbances, tinnitus can be a frustrating and distressing symptom of hearing loss. Sufferers typically ‘hear’ whooshing, ringing, buzzing, roaring, hissing, humming, or clicking sounds, despite there being no external source of this noise.
Tinnitus can affect one or both ears and may be present intermittently or constantly. Many people report that tinnitus makes it difficult to converse with people, as well as having a negative impact on their concentration, ability to sleep, and even their memory.
Fortunately, new treatments are giving sufferers the opportunity to live an almost tinnitus-free life. With the ability to minimize and eradicate the classic ‘sounds’ tinnitus sufferers hear; tinnitus treatment can revolutionize your life.
What causes tinnitus?
In order to find the best type of tinnitus treatment, it’s important to understand what causes the symptoms to occur. Tinnitus can have various causes, but hearing loss is by far the most common. While some people may develop tinnitus as a result of other health issues, such as TMJ or Meniere’s disease, the vast majority of people experience tinnitus at the same time as hearing loss.
In fact, the frequency of tinnitus almost always corresponds to the frequency where the hearing loss is most developed, especially in tonal high-frequency sounds. Therefore, wearing hearing aids usually mitigates tinnitus by compensating for the underlying hearing loss.
Hearing loss typically occurs because hair cell damage occurs within the inner ear. If these tiny hairs become damaged or broken, they no longer move in response to sound waves. This prevents your auditory nerve from sending signals to your brain, which you would normally interpret as sound.
Depending on how the hair cells are damaged, they may send the wrong signals to your brain, thus creating the irritating sounds you recognize as tinnitus. Another possibility is that the brain tries to create sound when expected auditory input is absent.
Essentially, the brain doesn’t receive input from the auditory nerve due to the inner ear hair cells being damaged. As a result, the brain attempts to rectify the situation and produces sounds, such as buzzing, humming, clicking, and ringing in the ear.
Fortunately, tinnitus, which is associated with hearing loss, can be resolved. We have a team of dedicated tinnitus specialists who are continually working to provide more advanced tinnitus treatments.
Explore the best tinnitus treatments of 2022
When tinnitus is caused by hearing loss, enhancing your hearing function can help to alleviate the symptoms of tinnitus. Due to this, wearing hearing aids is often the first-line treatment.
While any hearing aid can minimize the symptoms of tinnitus by improving your hearing function, there are hearing aids from Signia with special functions for tackling tinnitus.
Designed to improve hearing function and give you relief from the symptoms of tinnitus, you may find that these are the most effective ways to resolve crunching, whooshing, humming, hissing and ringing in the ears.
The best tinnitus treatment for you will depend on the cause of your symptoms. If you experience tinnitus as a side-effect of taking other medications, for example, it may be possible to reduce your dosage or switch to alternative medicine to eliminate tinnitus symptoms. Alternatively, if a neurological issue or structural abnormality causes tinnitus, surgical intervention may be used to resolve the underlying cause and reduce your symptoms.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is another effective way to minimize the impact tinnitus has on your everyday life. By learning how to deal with the whooshing, buzzing or ringing in your ears, your ability to drown the noises out, increases. As a result, your day-to-day life isn’t interrupted by tinnitus.
For many people, however, wearing hearing aids is the most effective way to deal with tinnitus. By treating your hearing loss, you can tackle the cause of your tinnitus symptoms and minimize them significantly.
If the brain is ‘producing’ sounds because hearing loss prevents you from picking up external sounds, for example, increasing hearing function means your brain isn’t compelled to respond in this way. Similarly, if hearing loss and tinnitus occur because damage to the hair cells sends faulty messages to the brain, wearing hearing aids improves the accuracy of these messages and reduces the symptoms of tinnitus.
Furthermore, hearing aids work to distract your brain from the clicking, hissing, humming or ringing in your ears. While these sounds may still be present, when you’re wearing hearing aids for tinnitus, you won’t notice them as much. Over time, specialist hearing aids for tinnitus may enable you to ignore the symptoms completely, and you’ll no longer notice any sounds in your ears.
Choosing hearing aids for tinnitus
By selecting hearing aids designed for tinnitus sufferers, you can get the most relief for your symptoms. We understand the impact that tinnitus symptoms can have on your life, which is why our hearing aids feature tinnitus therapy signals.
Suitable for sufferers of both tonal and non-tonal tinnitus, therapy signals mix with the sounds of tinnitus and distract you from it. With a superior selection of options, you can choose from five static signal noise therapy signals and four ocean wave therapy signals when you opt for our hearing aids.
Combining the latest technology and scientific breakthroughs, our built-in Tinnitus Notch Therapy reduces tinnitus sounds without adding any extra sounds at all.
As the most unobtrusive way to target tinnitus, you won’t notice any additional noise signals when using this type of tinnitus treatment. Instead, our Notch Therapy prevents overstimulation and gives your brain the opportunity to re-learn how to ignore tinnitus symptoms, such as ringing in the ears.
Bringing you short and long-term relief from tinnitus, Notch Therapy is a game-changing tinnitus treatment.
We’ve included state-of-the-art tinnitus technology in a wide range of our hearing aids, so you can choose from a selection of discreet styles. What’s more, our hearing aids for tinnitus ensure you have complete remote control via the Signia app.