Overview of Tinnitus

One of the most common early warning signs of hearing loss is hearing sounds that aren’t real. This is called tinnitus, or ear ringing, which can be a disruptive condition that inhibits your concentration, hearing, and lifestyle. There are many types of tinnitus that impact people in different ways and require different treatment solutions to help mitigate the symptoms and allow people to get back to their normal lifestyle.

What is Tinnitus?

Tinnitus is perceiving sounds that are not actually present in the environment. This manifests itself differently in different people, but is often characterized as a ringing, buzzing, humming, or roaring sound that can come and go in waves or be present all the time. It’s estimated that up to 50 million Americans experience tinnitus of some type, making it a common yet frustrating symptom of an underlying hearing issue that’s causing it.

Tinnitus Symptoms

As mentioned, common tinnitus sounds are buzzing, humming, and ringing sensations that only affect the sufferer. Tinnitus can be loud or soft, sudden or constant, and often occurs after a sudden loud sound or exposure to an overly noisy environment. However, tinnitus can also be experienced spontaneously as the result of some underlying hearing health cause.

Many younger people who have tinnitus episodes on a regular basis have no cause for concern, although it can be a sign of something else going on with the hearing process, especially for people who are at higher risk for hearing loss. This includes groups like people over the age of 65 and people who are frequently exposed to loud noises among other risk factors.

How Does Tinnitus Affect Hearing Health?

Your hearing is a complicated process involving sensitive organs in your inner ear as well as essential brain processes. When you develop tinnitus, it is commonly due to some change in the way your brain is interpreting sound, sometimes due to something as simple as a buildup of earwax. However, in the vast majority of tinnitus cases, people have some degree of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) that may require a dedicated hearing loss solution to help protect their hearing in the future and regain their hearing ability.

Tinnitus Remedies

There is no cure for tinnitus partly due to the wide variety of symptoms, causes, and lifestyle factors at play in tinnitus patients’ lives. Most treatments for tinnitus focus on protecting hearing before developing serious symptoms, meaning using ear protection when you’re exposed to loud sounds and taking care of your overall health.

However, since the development of modern hearing aid technologies and sound processors, it’s possible that a personalized hearing aid can help people suffering from tinnitus to achieve a normal lifestyle through either training the brain to ignore the tinnitus or to mask it with other noises.

Hearing Aids for Tinnitus

If you’ve been experiencing lifestyle-interrupting tinnitus, you don’t have to suffer alone. At Georgia Hearing Aid Factory Outlet, we have the latest hearing aid technology and solutions you need to fix the ear ringing that’s bothering you without getting in the way of how you live your life. Visit the nearest location or contact us online to find out how we can help you hear better. Our teams are available for patients in communities across Georgia including Emma, Cumming, Athens, and more.