To BeMarie and Wrfortiscue:
I have had the Widex Zen hearing aids with the plain amplification and white noise masker since 07/2015, and I am very ambivalent about their usefulness for this condition.
When I got them there was the theory that the amplification would "cover" that portion of the hearing loss that the brain filled in with the tinnitus sound, and after perhaps a year of wearing them 24/7, the brain would "forget" the tinnitus sound and it would not be evident after the hearing aids were removed. This sadly has not been the case with me after over 6 years of constant usage.
In fact, the primary difficulty with amplification is that in order to eliminate the tinnitus sound I have to turn them up to maximum volume, so that normal sounds are so distorted that they are nearly identical to the pre-existing tinnitus.
We have radiator heat in our bungalow, and the sensitive receptiveness of the hearing aids even in our quiet living room makes the steam circulation sound like the most irritating kind of tinnitus hissing. I am very concerned that this amplification in a noisy environment could cause further hearing damage.
Amazingly, when I rode on our Elevated to Downtown, I could hear three levels of sound that were fully nonexistent when I took the hearing aids off (and I had to do so because of the punishing noise level of this environment). This made me appreciative of an entire universe of sound that is available to other animals; a cat, for example, can hear a mouse putting it's foot down on a single blade of grass from 50 feet away.
My wife's sister's husband (like several others I have heard from) said that hearing aids actually worsened his tinnitus; instead of covering it they only made it louder (and sometimes I also find this to be the case instead of that "covering" described above).
That Dr. DeKirk who was recently podcast interviewed on this Forum said that only 20% of tinnitus sufferers seem to significantly benefit from hearing aids.
The difficulty with the white noise generator portion is that (especially with a spike) all you are often doing is placing the equivalent of an artificial tinnitus sound on top of the natural tinnitus sensation, thereby doubling the volume.
Trying to find a tried-and-true Plan for this condition is like trying to catch a greased eel with your bare hands.
All you can do is try hearing aids for yourself, and after a however much time determine if the outcome is worth pursuing. They cost $3,150.00 when I first purchased them, and I'll bet I would have to be sitting down to hear about their current price (although I was given the option of trying them out for 2 weeks, and if I returned them within this time my charge was only $250.00).