Hearing Aids Help With Tinnitus

Listen in as Timothy Hunsaker, Au.D. talks about Tinnitus, how it can affect you, and how hearing aids can help.

“Hello I’m Dr. Tim Hunsaker from Desert Valley Audiology. Todays video is gonna be about tinnitus, also known as tinnitus. And that is simply sound that is heard in the head. There is no external sound created. And so many people describe it as ringing in the ear, static sound, buzzing. What is the cause of tinnitus? There can be many causes and ultimately its a good idea if you have it checked up by an audiologist or by ear nose and throat physician. Most common cause that I see for tinnitus is hearing loss. People with hearing loss, the nerve, the brain starts to fill in the blanks with some ringing sounds. Also, due to the damage caused to the hearing, often times people have those sounds, ringing in the ears. As I’ve said, it’s always best to have a full diagnostic check to know exactly what’s causing it. Sometime we don’t know what causes it but ultimately it’s a good idea to know that there is no big problems that might be causing it. So let’s talk about the treatment of tinnitus. If you went on the internet and type in tinnitus treatments, you would probably find million things, all kinds of herbs, food supplements, things that supposed to be of help. There is no clinical proof that any of those works. If they work for some people, good for them. Ultimately, there’s no proof behind that. When people do have hearing loss, the ideal approach to helping them is a hearing aid. Facts that hearing aids amplify environmental sounds. It starts to make environmental sounds louder than the ringing or buzzing. I would say that 70% of my patients once they start wearing a hearing aid, it doesn’t cure ringing, it doesn’t cure the tinnitus but what it often does is it makes it less noticeable. But also, there are hearing aids out there that have sound generators in them and so they’ll actually produce this secondary sound to help mask out the tinnitus many people have. So I wanted to show those hearing aids today. This particular one is made by resound and its called the tinnitus solution or TS if you are to look at resound.com. You’ll find out more about this. this one here is made by widex. And it is called, it’s a clear model with a zen in it. It actually produces music so when the tinnitus is overwhelming, people reach out and push the button where you can have a remote control and the zen will actually play music. You have a choice of up to five different sound. The resound is a little different because it uses a static type sound, a very fine noise and it has many options. You can actually turn up the volume control. Again these aren’t cures for tinnitus. But they often do help people and they find that it is soothing. For other people, they say that hey that sound is kind of bothersome and they don’t like to use it. And so in that case we just recommend the hearing aid in general. And oftentimes people will notice a reduction in how much they pay attention to the sounds generated from their ears. Those are some of the options. tinnitus can be caused by many several things. Ultimately, its a good idea to have it checked out. by ear nose and throat physician or by an audiologist. Here at Desert Valley Audiology, we’re proficient in dealing with this. If you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call or visit our website. Thank you.”