If you’ve ever heard sounds that aren’t really there — perhaps a buzzing, hissing, whooshing, humming, roaring, clicking, or ringing in your ears — you may be suffering from tinnitus, and chances are you’re looking for the best tinnitus relief.
To most of the population, tinnitus sounds are objectively quiet — almost imperceptibly so — but they can be very loud to the person who hears them, and they can lead to the hearer experiencing a strong negative emotion. While the hearer may try to ignore it, they often fail and find themselves instead of focusing on it, harming their ability to filter out irrelevant noises and to pay attention to what’s going on in the world or conversation around them.
Though it’s subjective, meaning only the person experiencing it can hear it, tinnitus is very much real. MRI scans have demonstrated that the brain of someone with tinnitus truly is receiving sound signals, or at least is responding as though it is, even when those sounds cannot be measured objectively.
What is Tinnitus?
We have already known that the ringing or buzzing sound a person experiences inside their ear is called tinnitus, despite having a source of that sound nearby. The sound can also be described as a clicking, hissing, or beeping sound. The sound a person hears because of tinnitus can be profound, low-pitched, or high-pitched. The type and intensity of the noise can differ from person to person, and they can also change with time.
Whether the sound is constant or occasional, severe or mild, the noise can be distracting and cause massive irritation in a person. It can come and go anytime, anywhere. It can be like you are just talking to someone over the phone, or just spending quality time with a group of people, or just sitting alone in a silent room, and suddenly you start to hear the noise inside your ear.
Why and How Tinnitus Occurs?
Tinnitus sounds can be low-pitched, high-pitched, profound, or of any other level. Also, the noise can be occasional or constant. The intensity and the type of noise vary from person to person. Also, tinnitus can be caused for various reasons. The reasons are-
Aging
Like other hearing problems, tinnitus can also be age-related. The older we grow, the more our hearing cells in the inner ear and the hearing nerve fibers keep getting damaged. Tinnitus can occur as a result of that.
Loud Noise
Exposure to deafening noise like gunshots, explosions, machinery noises, or even thunderous music can cause tinnitus.
Medications
Tinnitus can occur as a side effect of some medications.
Some other things that can cause tinnitus are:
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Earwax Blockage
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Several Neurological Disorders
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Upper Respiratory Infections
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Ear Injuries, Head or Neck Injuries
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Degeneration of the small bones inside the middle ear
Who Experience Tinnitus Symptoms?
Most people will experience tinnitus symptoms at some time in their lives. It often occurs after exposure to very loud noise — spending time in a crowd at a sporting event or rock concert, for example — and can last for several hours depending on the volume and length of time of the noise. Other times, it happens randomly for no apparent reason and may last only a few moments. In either of those circumstances, experiencing tinnitus is normal and nothing to be concerned about.
Other times, tinnitus can be brought on by other factors. Can stress cause tinnitus? The answer is YES; as stress goes up, so does their tinnitus — and hearing loss can, in turn, increase stress and tinnitus, making it difficult to find tinnitus relief.
Approximately 10 to 15 percent of the population has experienced some form of tinnitus in one or both ears. About 12 million people seek medical help for tinnitus in the United States each year. About 85 percent of people with tinnitus also experience some form of hearing loss.
What Causes Tinnitus?
While tinnitus can begin without warning, it can also build over time. There isn’t one single known cause of tinnitus, but these are a few of the possible causes:
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The material in the ear (such as earwax) that causes sounds within the head to seem louder
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Trauma or stress
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Hearing loss — 80 percent of those suffering from hearing loss also experience tinnitus
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Ear infections, fluid, or other conditions in the middle ear or eardrum
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High blood pressure and/or hardened arteries
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Exposure to loud noise
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Diseases of the ear
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Medications
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Stress and chemicals in the body
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Brain conditions (such as tumors or aneurysms)
Does Tinnitus Go Away?
Unfortunately, tinnitus cannot be cured, but most people usually adjust to the constant ringing in their ears, even though this does take some time. However, for one in every 5 people, the condition can lead to irritability, anxiety, depression, and difficulty in concentrating. Though tinnitus and insomnia are two different things, tinnitus often leads to insomnia affecting all aspects of their daily routine.
If the tinnitus is caused by any underlying issues, including an ear infection or earwax accumulated in the ear, it can be treated.
In extreme cases where tinnitus threatens the well-being of a person, anti-anxiety treatments may be prescribed and cognitive therapy or sound therapy does help.
If the tinnitus is accompanied by hearing loss, then hearing aids have proven to benefit them.
Treatment methods of Tinnitus
If a person is suffering from tinnitus, they need first to make sure if there’s an underlying cause for their condition or not. If there is a treatable underlying cause, such as earwax blockage, they should concentrate on treating that. Tinnitus will go away after dealing with the underlying problem.
On the other hand, if the tinnitus is permanent and has been caused by damage in hearing nerves due to exposure to loud noise or old age, then tinnitus can’t be properly cured. You’ll have to resort to a treatment solution that will help reduce the impact of the problem and help you adapt to your situation. Hearing aids can help you do so and let you get on with your regular life despite having the condition.
How Can Tinnitus be Managed?
Although tinnitus cannot be treated, there are ways it can be managed. Here are two ways you can manage your tinnitus.
Tinnitus Management Program
The goal of the tinnitus management program is to manage the tinnitus symptoms so that it doesn’t interfere with your daily life. Depending on the tinnitus condition, a patient needs to go through three stages of this program.
In the first stage, it may take 90 minutes to understand the nature of your tinnitus. If you are having trouble sleeping, feeling depressed, or anxious, you will need to go through this stage.
The second stage is a two-hour session where the first hour is dedicated to evaluating your ear’s function, tinnitus, and hearing. The second hour is dedicated to consulting your evaluation.
The third stage is one-year sound therapy for tinnitus. Depending on the severity of your tinnitus condition, this stage can exceed 12 months.
Stress Anxiety Management
Tinnitus can increase the anxiety level in a person. The person may experience a lack of sleep and depression along with buzzing noise in the ear. It will keep the patient restless and stressed.
With stress anxiety management, the person can keep the tinnitus symptoms manageable. Physical exercise, a balanced diet, quality sleep, and relaxing activities can effectively help you in stress anxiety management.
Sound Therapy For Tinnitus
Sound therapy for tinnitus is beneficial for those who have tinnitus problems. In this therapy, special external sounds are introduced to help cover the sounds of tinnitus. These can be played through hearing aids from smartphone apps and can include various sounds that the person listens to shift their focus away from the ringing. These sounds could be special ear-masking noise, music played at a low level, white noise, and even customized sounds.
Treatment Methods of Tinnitus
If a person is suffering from tinnitus, they need first to make sure if there’s an underlying cause for their condition or not. If there is a treatable underlying cause, such as earwax blockage, they should concentrate on treating that. Tinnitus will go away after dealing with the underlying problem.
On the other hand, if the tinnitus is permanent and has been caused by damage in hearing nerves due to exposure to loud noise or old age, then tinnitus can’t be properly cured. You’ll have to resort to a treatment solution that will help reduce the impact of the problem and help you adapt to your situation. Hearing aids can help you do so and let you get on with your regular life despite having the condition.
Hearing Aid and Tinnitus
Tinnitus doesn’t cause hearing loss, but interestingly, about 90% of tinnitus sufferers also have hearing loss. The sounds from the tinnitus can become a problem for people who already have some hearing loss as it makes it difficult for them to hear other sounds.
Hearing aids effectively treat both problems simultaneously and according to Statista, a 2017 survey on adults in the U.S. who had been diagnosed with selected medical conditions depicts that 4% of them suffer from hearing loss due to tinnitus. This huge quantity of US Adults can get tinnitus relief wearing prescribed hearing aids.
Tinnitus, like hearing loss, does diminish the quality of life of sufferers, and wearing hearing aids helps them overcome these problems. Hearing aids, in these cases have a double impact because it not only improves communication but also reduces the stress that comes from hearing loss.
Hearing aids can be great maskers for tinnitus because the loudness of tinnitus can be masked with a hearing aid by introducing an ambient background noise or by slightly amplifying background sound to drown it out.
Increasing background noise stimulates the brain's auditory pathways because it picks up sounds that it previously couldn’t. If the hearing loss is in the same frequency range as the tinnitus, masking is an excellent way to reduce it.
It appears that open-fitting hearing aids and digital hearing aids are particularly beneficial to people with tinnitus. The amplified sounds that they produce help push the tinnitus into the background, including sound masking functions.
People who have lost their ability to communicate because of loud tinnitus find that hearing aids augment external volume making them more socially active. They can follow conversations, speak on the phone, watch television, and listen to the radio once more.
How Do Hearing Aids help With Tinnitus
Tinnitus can cause various troubles for a person in living their usual life, as it can hamper communications with other people, create troubles while doing something important, or while a person is just enjoying themselves. So, it is important to deal with this problem to get life back to normal.
If there’s any temporary underlying problem behind tinnitus, then tinnitus can be cured just by dealing with the problem. But if the tinnitus a person is suffering from has been caused due to permanent reasons, then it can be dealt with by reducing its impact and adapting to the tinnitus noises.
Hearing aids can help with that. We already know most tinnitus patients also have hearing loss problems, so hearing aids can help them with listening better by amplifying the sounds. There are also special hearing aids for tinnitus that use special features like ‘tinnitus masking’ and ‘sound therapy’.
In sound therapy, the hearing aids use external sounds to mask the tinnitus noises. Various sounds such as white noise, special ear masking noise, low-level music, or even customized sounds are used to shift the attention of a patient from the troubling tinnitus noises.
Tinnitus masking is the most important feature of special hearing aids for tinnitus. It works almost the same way as sound therapy. Just instead of masking the whole tinnitus noise, tinnitus masking masks a portion of the noises and leaves out the rest unmasked. It tries to provide relief from tinnitus by getting a person habituated with the tinnitus noise, and adapting to it. So, they don't feel it is as problematic as before.
Today's Hearing Devices Have Several Advantages
As technology advanced, hearing devices got more intelligent. That's because, in many modern hearing devices, there are hearing assistance algorithms.
In simple words, it means that these devices can adjust the sounds according to the background noises. So, having a personalized hearing device means these devices can automatically adjust the sounds according to the hearing levels of the user.
Therefore, the better and advanced your hearing devices will be, the more they'll help mask tinnitus's humming and buzz noises.
Types of Hearing Aids for Tinnitus
There are three types of hearing aids for tinnitus relief:
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BTE (Behind-the-ear) hearing aids
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ITE (In-the-ear) hearing aids
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In-the-canal (ITC) hearing aids
Behind-The-Ear (BTE) Hearing Aids
These were the first kind of hearing devices that were launched in the market. These devices reside behind the ear, and the attached tubing reaches down to the ear canal.
Moreover, these kinds of noise-canceling hearing aids for tinnitus are an ideal choice as long as you have no issues with the device being visible.
BTE hearing aids come in various colors so that you can easily match them with your skin or hair color.
In-The-Ear (ITE) Hearing Aids
Just as the name suggests, these kinds of hearing devices are placed right inside the ear canal and are usually custom-fit. ITE-styled hearing devices are pretty new compared to the BTE hearing aids.
In-the-ear hearing devices are very advanced and can also be an excellent choice for aiding tinnitus.
And the best part about this style of hearing device is that you don't have to worry about your device being visible to the public, as this will stay right inside the ear.
In-The-Canal (ITC) Hearing Aids
ITC devices can also be used to aid your tinnitus issues. These devices are designed to sit comfortably on the outer ear bowl, making them accessible and compatible for use.
Although it might be partially visible on your ears, it can provide you with a considerable amount of hearing range that will reduce the ringing noises in your ears.
It also comes with an advanced directional microphone that's better for your understanding, especially in a noisy and crowded environment!
Hearing Test for Tinnitus
If you assume you are suffering from tinnitus, you’ll need to take a hearing test. In this test, you’ll need to sit in a soundproof room with headphones in the ear. Then the audiologist will play various sounds one ear at a time.
Then the audiologist will ask you to verify the sounds. Then your results will be compared to the typical results of your group. Then, the audiologist can identify or rule out the possible causes of tinnitus.
CAN YOU HAVE HEARING AIDS IF YOU HAVE TINNITUS?
We have already seen that most tinnitus patients also suffer from hearing loss to some degree. People who have hearing loss will need hearing aids anyway to listen better and communicate with other people properly. Hearing aids help them to get on with their usual lifestyle. Apart from that, special hearing aids for tinnitus provide unique features that can help reduce the problem and adapt to it.
Primarily, features like sound therapy and tinnitus masking are used in hearing aids for tinnitus. In sound therapy, external sounds are used to mask the irritating tinnitus noises a person keeps hearing. This can include sounds such as low-level music, special ear masking noise, white noise, etc. You can even get your theme customized for the therapy. It becomes easier to shift the attention from the tinnitus noises with the help of sound therapy.
Tinnitus Masking also works the same way as does sound therapy. However, instead of covering up all the tinnitus noises with external sound, this feature masks tinnitus noises to some degree and leaves the rest unmasked. Apart from providing relief, tinnitus masking helps a person get habituated with the tinnitus noise and not pay attention to that anymore.
Special hearing aids for tinnitus provide these two features, and others help a person get relief from tinnitus and lead a normal life.
Final Thoughts
Tinnitus can indeed be a severe problem for many patients. Moreover, the continuous ringing sounds can also be very distracting.
So, in this case, hearing aids can come very handy, as they can get rid of the buzzing and humming noises. This can provide a lot of relief to the user.
Although tinnitus can recover with time, you must consult with an expert audiologist to diagnose early and proper treatment can be started.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: What is a tinnitus blocker?
Ans: Tinnitus blocker is a feature found in many hearing aids that masks the ringing inside the ears by creating a sound to distract the patient suffering from Tinnitus. Hearing aids for tinnitus masking can be an effective solution and an Audiologist can help in this regard to find the right device for the patient.
Q: What does tinnitus sound like?
Ans: Most often, tinnitus is described as a buzzing or ringing in the ears, even though no sound is present externally. However, people describe their tinnitus as sounding as sirens, pulsing, clicking, dial tones, crickets, or even music.
