My Tinnitus Is Mostly Under Control When I Use My Hearing Aids

[MEH]

Hello,

I think I first noticed my tinnitus back in 2016 but I was able to ignore it and didn't really give it a thought.

Then in 2017 I had an operation that stopped me from being active and changed the way I used to do some of the things I liked doing. This is when my tinnitus hit me and it has been a struggle since then.

For more than twelve months I did what the hospital told me to do, with varied success but I wasn't happy.

I was sent for another hearing test and was asked if I wanted to try hearing aid? I tried them and they did the job, for a while. The hearing aids helped especially knowing they were there for when I woke up. If I woke up and my tinnitus was there, then it was a bad day. After a while, when the white noise from the hearing aids was not helping to mask the tinnitus, I went back to the hospital and we played around with the noise levels and found the levels that helped.

My tinnitus has now been mostly under control when I use my hearing aids but when I can't ignore it, it is full on from anywhere from 1 day if I'm lucky, several days if unlucky.

Recently I have realised my mental health, how I feel is playing a part in it as it makes it harder to ignore the tinnitus.

 

[Wrfortiscue]

Did you have hearing loss? I thought the hearing aids fill in the gap and remove the tinnitus? Or at least that's what I was told.

 

[slc]

My ENT has suggested hearing aids, although my hearing loss is not particularly severe.

However, from posts on Tinnitus Talk, it seems that hearing aids are helpful in reducing tinnitus (I'm not sure if we are talking decibel level or degree of difficulty putting up with the tinnitus) for about 20% of sufferers -- not a grandiose total but perhaps worth considering as an option.

Right now I'm looking at the Phonac P50-RT which also includes white noise. When the tinnitus spikes (often weeks at a time; in fact spike is not really the word as for the moment that's the usual level), I have to use sound enrichment to survive.

Right now, I'm wearing white noise generators set to near max level (which my audiologist claims no one ever needs, yeah, grrrrrr) and I have the TinnitusPlay app on my iPhone playing notched audio at a level suitable for the next Grateful Dead concert. Level of discomfort with them both playing is about a 7, without would be an easy 8+

 

[Gary Galloway]

Difficult, isn't it.

And only the saints could persevere allowing the brain to adjust to the noise.

But that's exactly what I did. The ENT suggested using the program on my hearing aids (a wave crashing noise) to mask the high pitch but instead I used a free phone app called WHIST during the day (on my earphones) and a Bluetooth speaker with a near match frequency at night.

*Note I would not recommend putting anything in the ears such as earplugs, even musician's earplugs, and certainly not sleep with hearing aids in (I tried it and it makes it worse).

Problem is masking covers up the problem and whilst great for times in need, the brain needs to do the work for the tinnitus sufferer. Movement of the audio system coupled with damage to nerve cells in the inner ear is difficult to reverse (or impossible as the scientific community know there are several factors at work that cause tinnitus).