Tinnitus is a condition that affects people in various age groups all across the country. This condition is characterized by hearing spontaneous ringing, buzzing, and other sounds that do not have external sources. In some cases, the phantom noises are bothersome to the patient and affect their quality of life. So, it’s best to seek tinnitus treatment to address the condition as soon as possible.
There are many ways to treat tinnitus. Tinnitus has various causes, so treatment varies from case to case. If you are wondering which program you should undergo, there are several effective methods that your audiologist can recommend. Here are some of them.
Treatment of Medical Conditions
Tinnitus is often a byproduct or symptom of a range of medical conditions. When this is the case, a patient will continue to experience phantom sounds unless the root cause is addressed. Examples of conditions that can produce tinnitus symptoms are earwax buildups, blood vessel problems, and issues with the temporomandibular joint in the jaw.
Aside from direct tinnitus treatment that deals with the phantom sounds, hearing professionals will recommend that patients get therapy to address the main condition causing the unwanted noise. Once the medical condition is fixed, the patient will often experience more relief from tinnitus.
Noise Suppression
In some cases, tinnitus cannot be cured entirely. So, instead of addressing the underlying cause of the unwanted noise, hearing experts will recommend using a device that produces a sound to suppress or counter tinnitus. These gadgets help make the phantom sounds less noticeable or blend in with the background noise they play. There are two tools used for noise suppression: masking devices and white noise machines.
Masking devices are small, portable gadgets similar to hearing aids that patients wear on their ears. These devices produce a constant, low-level, broadband, or narrow-band white noise to mask tinnitus. White noise machines, on the other hand, are bigger gadgets that look like modern-day radios or speakers. They produce white noise in their environment and help suppress tinnitus for nearby people.
Hearing Aids
If your tinnitus is a byproduct of age-related or noise-induced hearing loss, getting a hearing aid will help reduce phantom sounds. When you have these types of hearing loss, the hairs in your ear responsible for perceiving sound are often broken or damaged. This causes them to send random signals to your brain interpreted as phantom noises.
When patients cannot perceive their external environment, they tend to only hear the tinnitus sound. However, with hearing aids, the sound around them is amplified, which masks the tinnitus symptoms.
These are just some of the effective tinnitus therapy methods. Get in touch with our team at Bluegrass Hearing Clinic to learn which treatment is best for your condition.