Hearing Aids With Built-In Tinnitus Relief: How Each Brand Does It

If you live with ringing, buzzing or hissing in your ears, the quiet times are often the worst. Lying in bed. Reading. Sitting in a still room. You may not know that the hearing aid that helps you hear conversation can also help with that sound. Most hearing aids made today have tinnitus relief built right in.

Why hearing aids help tinnitus at all

Most tinnitus travels with hearing loss. When the ear stops sending certain pitches to the brain, the brain turns up its own volume to look for them, and you hear that as ringing. Two things in a hearing aid push back on that:

• Bringing back the sounds you were missing. When real sound reaches those quiet pitches again, the brain has less reason to fill the gap. For many people this alone makes the ringing less noticeable.
• Adding a soft background sound. A gentle sound, like rushing water or soft static, lowers the contrast between the ringing and silence. This is often called masking, or sound therapy. The goal is not to drown the ringing out. It is to make it easier for your brain to tune it out.

What each brand offers

Every brand we carry has its own version. They work in slightly different ways, and we can turn them on, shape them and set their volume to suit you.

• Oticon: Tinnitus SoundSupport. A set of relief sounds, including ocean-style sounds, played through the hearing aids and adjusted to your ringing.
• Phonak: Tinnitus Balance. A built-in noise generator we can shape to your hearing, with volume you can change from the app.
• Widex: Zen. Soft, chime-like tones that do not repeat in a pattern, designed to be calming to listen to. Widex aids can also use plain noise.
• Signia: Notch therapy and relief sounds. Signia offers background sounds, plus a notch option that quiets the exact pitch of your tinnitus within the amplified sound.
• Starkey: Multiflex Tinnitus Technology. An adjustable relief sound that can be tuned to your tinnitus and your hearing loss.
• ReSound: Tinnitus Sound Generator and the ReSound Relief app. Built-in sounds plus a phone app with relaxing sounds and guided exercises.

You can learn more about each brand on our pages for Oticon, Phonak, Widex, Signia, Starkey and ReSound.

Which one is best?

There is no single best tinnitus feature. People react to these sounds in very personal ways. One person finds ocean sounds soothing and another finds them annoying. The best way to choose is to hear them. At your appointment we play the options for you so you can pick the one you would actually leave on.

It also matters that the hearing aid itself is fitted well. If the amplification is wrong, the relief sound cannot do much. We check every fitting with real-ear measurement so the sound reaching your ear matches your prescription.

Who it helps, and who should see a doctor first

Built-in tinnitus relief helps most when you have both tinnitus and hearing loss, which is true for most people with ringing ears. It is less useful if your hearing tests normal. Then other approaches may help more, and we will talk them through with you.

Some tinnitus needs a physician before a hearing aid. See a doctor first if your tinnitus is in only one ear, beats in time with your pulse, came on suddenly, or comes with sudden hearing loss or dizziness. Our tinnitus page covers these warning signs.

Your next step

Start with a hearing test. It tells us whether hearing loss is behind your tinnitus and which pitches are affected. Your first evaluation at Wichita Falls Hearing is free. Book online or call 940-264-4327, and ask to hear the tinnitus sounds while you are here.