This tinnitus week (Monday 5th – Sunday 11th February), we want to help our customers have a better understanding of what tinnitus is, how it can affect you, and how to minimise your symptoms.
What Is Tinnitus?
Tinnitus is hearing noises that sound as if they’re coming from within your ear. Often, this takes the form of ringing or whistling but it can be other sounds, like a humming or buzzing. It affects 15% – 20% of people, and is usually caused by underlying conditions such as age-related hearing loss, an ear injury, ear infections and more.
Most of the time, tinnitus comes and goes, but if it becomes particularly irritating or lasts for a long time, it’s a good idea to seek professional help. Our team of expert audiologists are here to help you with any tinnitus complications you have and help to resolve them.
How to manage and minimise symptoms of tinnitus?
Tinnitus can impact each person differently, and although there is no cure for tinnitus, it can be managed to help minimise its impact on your daily life.
- Book a hearing assessment: Tinnitus is often associated with hearing loss. By attending a hearing assessment, we’re able to determine how your hearing has been affected which allows us to treat the problems behind the hearing loss. Often, this will lead to tinnitus symptoms becoming far less pronounced. Book a consultation with our friendly audiologists today, to stay on top of your hearing health.
- Sound Therapy: By providing a variety of relaxing, external sounds, the internal tinnitus noise can be lessened. Tinnitus can also be caused by stress. During our tinnitus management appointments, we can provide you with a tailored series of relaxation exercises that can alleviate symptoms and provide ways to deal with tinnitus. This can often be done from the comfort of your own home through a phone, radio, speaker where you can play your chosen sounds e.g. rain, waves, white noise, and more.
- Hearing aids: A hearing aid device can help to mask the symptoms of tinnitus by amplifying natural sounds in your environment. This will allow you to take part in conversations better, and forget about the tinnitus symptoms. Some manufacturers even offer specialised apps that incorporate sound therapy to help with minimising tinnitus symptoms:
Resound Relief App
Resound hearing aids, such as the Resound Omnia, can be connected to your mobile device and paired with resound apps. One offering from this manufacturer is the Resound relief app, which offers sound therapy straight through your hearing aid, relaxing exercises, meditation and guidance for tinnitus management. Meaning that you can easily and discreetly manage your tinnitus symptoms. In the app, you get a choice of sounds to play such as woodland, birds chirping, bonfire, heavy rain, and tides as well as calming music. You can also balance sounds between your left and right ear and layer sounds to better manage your own symptoms.
Widex Fractal Tones
Widex also offers sound therapy through fractal technology, which plays relaxing sounds through your hearing aids, but ensures that there are no sudden changes in the tone or tempo. The sounds repeat, but vary enough to make sure they are not predictable to you so that you don’t become ‘immune’ to the sound and rhythm. There are two parts to this, SoundRelax and Zen. Widex SoundRelax plays nature sounds which help to disguise the sounds of tinnitus. Whereas, Widex Zen plays random ‘chime-like’ tones which help you to relax and make tinnitus less noticeable. If you have a Widex hearing aid, such as the Widex moment sheer, you can benefit from these features. Visit our clinics if you’re not sure how, and our team of audiologists will gladly help you.
Tinnitus comes in different forms, and will affect everyone differently. If you’re concerned about tinnitus, the first thing you should do is have your hearing tested. It can sometimes be difficult to notice hearing loss when tinnitus is present, which is where professional advice will help. We’ll provide a full consultation and a range of strategies to help minimise the effects of your tinnitus.
Don’t suffer in silence. Let our family care for your family! Try our online hearing test or book a consultation with our audiologists, who are here to help you every step of the way.
