Hearing Aids

Thanks @Jukka.

So I just found out that my insurance will basically pay for anything I want in a hearing aid. My 99.9% complaint is with my severe tinnitus, I wouldn't have known I had any appreciable hearing loss if the audiologist hadn't told me I had mild loss above 4k.

My question to those of you in the know is about the therapy options, what do you use? Do you like it? Anything I should know going in?

Please I don't want to get into some hate thread about TRT, but how do the therapies built into the hearing aids differ from doing TRT? Is it just the counseling?

Last question.....I live in the middle of no where and the local audiologists seem to not be very savvy about Tinnitus treatment. They seem very much about the hearing piece of it, but I am not particularly confident that they have much knowledge beyond turning on the Widex app. Here is the question, is it worth traveling hours to get set up by someone that seems to have a greater knowledge about Tinnitus treatment or do they all just do the same thing, just turn on the app and walk you out the door?

 

I am currently using Widex Zen, but I do not use the amplification. It takes the edge off and on a mild day it sometimes stops the tinnitus in its tracks before it ramps up, but does not help much on a bad day. Either way they have been worth it for the trial, but there really is not any counseling, so yes they just set it up and that is about it.

I am turning them in soon and beginning true TRT with simple white noise generators and the program is half the price of the Widex aids. I am going to work remotely with one of the few true TRT audiologists in the USA. I will post my progress and excited to begin getting this condition under some control and move on.

Hoping for the best for myself and you!

 

I had a long appointment with a recommended tinnitus oriented audiologist. She convinced me to give hearing aids a go. Next Tuesday is my fitting, fingers crossed. I am excited that it might help enough to make me whole. Wish me luck.

 

Are your hearing aids optimized for tinnitus relief?

https://www.hearingtracker.com/opinion/are-your-hearing-aids-optimized-for-tinnitus-relief

 

Can you get them via public health care, or are you paying them yourself ?
I have had Oticon Nera2 Pro Ti almost three years now in my left ear, and I expect that I could replace it soon with more capable aid. This model goes up ~7000 Hz and model going to 10000 Hz would be great.

 

I have to pay them by myself. In finland public health care bought me only cheap five years old resound hearing aids which goes as well up ~7000 Hz. Not these new ones.

 

Thank you, good to know.

 

I trialed Oticon, they did nothing...

 

Well I got my Widex Moments a couple of days ago. So far...OK, I guess, no magical improvements. Though I have mild hearing loss at higher frequencies, I really can't tell any difference in hearing, but as my insurance is going to pay for almost the entire price I am keen on using them as a sound therapy The Audiologist suggested 6 weeks-ish to start to see some improvement in my experience of T. She suggested using the zen settings as needed, but using the hearing aids function all the time with no real prescription beyond that.

I know from talking to TRT oriented therapists that they hold more along the lines of 'more is better' in terms of sound therapy. So far I have applied a maximalist approach to the zen. It doesn't really bother me so I just keep it on unless I'm exercising or doing something else that gets my brain/body system excited. Plus it is nice when I find myself suddenly in silence to already have something else going on in the background

Does anyone have experience/strategies on how best to use Zen settings with the goal of habituation in mind? Also does anyone know whether there is any difference in Zen set to your hearing profile vs other sound therapy devices?

 

To AfroSnowman:

I got the Widex Zen in July of 2015. I take it that you have the remote that plays the white noise masker or the sole amplification. Recently, a writer for the New Yorker Magazine got hearing aids. He said that he was notified that it would take his brain at least one month to acclimate itself to the sense of amplification (it has been one year for me, and the maximum amplification needed to eliminate the tinnitus will often produce it's own distortion sound).

Regarding habituation, at night I program them for mid-level white noise in my left ear (with amplification only in the right year.) I talk myself into imagining that this is the soothing sound of a waterfall (and it blends in with a floor fan I run.) The problem arises when my tinnitus will spike at night, and I will wake up to the roaring sound of an air hose.

After three years I got tired of the white noise sound, and went with maximum amplification only. This has been only partially successful; as I have said, this will result in sound distortion that is similar to tinnitus (and when I have a super spike, there is nothing I can do in monitoring the Widex that will make any difference.) Such amplification is also equivalent to having occasionally painful hyperacusis.
For anyone who does not regard this as a disability, just reflect on how much maneuvering and only partially successful strategizing I am constantly engaged in.

 

Dave,

Thanks for the response. Mine are programmed with a few zen tones and a white noise tuned to the highest ranges available (I'd say tuned to my t, but my t is way higher than 10 kHz), some of my settings are a mix of the two, others are separate. Everything is controlled by my phone. I can turn up the sounds, but I don't think I can increase the amplification of the hearing aids. In any case I can barely tell the difference between having the hearing aids on or off as my hearing really isn't that bad and have the amplification on does absolutely nothing to the tinnitus.

I am basically just keeping the zen tones going 24/7, I find that it is good to have something else to hold my attention than just the noise in my head. I figure that is sort of the point of sound therapy, teach the brain to stop paying attention to the tinnitus all the time.

I'm going to give this 6 weeks to see what benefit it provides then I'm going to start Lenire again on top of doing sound therapy. I'll confuse my brain into submission.

 

I haven't really sought treatment before and I'm actively looking right now. I'm absolutely clueless about hearing aids.

1. Do hearing aids help people with tinnitus who has tested with NO hearing loss?
2. How does hearing aid work to suppress tinnitus? I hear it boots hearing in certain frequencies but then reading from posts, it seems like it's just a masker that plays white noise. Which one is it or is it both?
3. Do you guys wear your hearing aids during sleep?
4. What can I do to order a hearing aid, i.e. how can I convince my ENT to issue me one if I have no hearing loss?
5. Which manufacturer or models do you guys use or recommend?

Thanks everyone!

 

1) My understanding is that they don't help if you have no hearing loss on your audiogram. They boost only on the 20hz to 8khz spectrum of human speech. Hence the standard audiogram.
2) if your tinnitus is caused by lack of input on a certain frequency, boosting it on that freq can help. Other than that, it's normally maskers.

As for the others, I can't help with. I suspect an audiologist wouldn't give you one without hearing loss, but maybe, they can mask, so maybe.

 

Hello mate... I would agree that if you have no hearing loss, a hearing aid would not help. But here is the strange thing. I have hearing aids with volume control in bed I turn them up to max and even though it's quiet in the bedroom the perception of tinnitus is halved. How/why? No idea. During the day my hearing aids cut perception of tinnitus by that same half. These are hearing aids, not maskers. I do have mild to moderate high frequency hearing loss. Without my hearing aids I do not see how I could live in this world. The tinnitus is that bad.

 

Out of curiosity what is the approximate pitch of your tinnitus? Mine is very high pitch and hearing aids do nothing.

 

Hi,

I believe it's around 4kHz.

 

That would explain why mine do nothing for me. I must be cruising around 13 or 14kHz.

 

Which ones do you wear?

Do they make a difference for your tinnitus?

 

Hi Deb,

They do help me. I have high frequency hearing loss, mild to moderate, and they cut the tinnitus down by about 50% as soon as you put them in... take them out and tinnitus ramps up again straight away. They are NHS ones, I think they are called Spirit.

Good luck.

 

I have a hearing profile where the left ear hears slightly worse than the right ear. However, the left ear is still within normal limits, e.g. it is -15dB at 2000 Hz, 4000 Hz and 6000 Hz. The right ear is more like -5dB at these frequencies.

Is there any chance an audiologist would suggest a hearing aid in my case, where hearing is worse in one ear but is still technically normal? FWIW it's only the "worse ear" where the tinnitus really bothers me; the other ear has slight tinnitus but it's not an issue at all.

 

I've recently trialled hearing aids capable of amplifying up to 10 kHz.

It made no difference to my tinnitus in spite of my maximum losses around 6 kHz and 10 kHz.

But I get residual inhibition from listening to white noise around those frequencies.

 

Thanks for responding.

Do you experience residual inhibition?

Trying to figure out if there's a trend for those who get benefit from hearing aids and also experience residual inhibition?

 

I wish you the best luck on confusing your brain into submission. I sometimes feel like trying to beat mine into submission, as my tinnitus noises will keep changing, which I find extremely frustrating, as it's making my Tinnitus Retraining Therapy more frustrating than it needs to be.

 

My understanding is an ENT would recommend a hearing aid when you have hearing loss of at least -45 dB, especially in the lower frequencies.

So if lower frequencies are ok, and let's say 6 kHz and 8 kHz are at -40 dB, a hearing aid is not really needed... the most important thing is understanding speech and for this lower frequencies are the most important, although higher frequencies make it easier to understand speech in noise.

 

I've tried both Oticon hearing aids and Neuromonics to try to reduce my tinnitus to something I can tolerate.

Nothing so far has worked.

So are there any successful devices anyone else has found to help?

 

Yes of course... you know they want that hearing aid sale.

 

Hi,

I have been on the Signia Notch Therapy now for 9 months and have experienced about 65 to 70 reduction in tinnitus.

In summary...

5 stages of tinnitus severity

• Critical/Catastrophic
• Severe
• Moderate
• Mild
• Light

I have moved from Severe to Mild in a 9 month program.

1. I had to have a hearing test to establish hearing loss and correction with Audiologist.

2. Using Signia in-ear hearing aids with tinnitus reduction setting set just below the tinnitus noise.

3. Slow progress at start. Have to be patient, as I also suffered from tinnitus spikes during the first 3 months.

4. Gradual improvements from 4 months onwards.

5. I take high quality Ginkgo Biloba, 2 tablets/day + Root Stem Ginger, 1 tablet/day.

6. I take chamomile tea every night to induce good night's sleep. I use tinnitus app with ear plug to distract from the tinnitus noise.

7. Importance of diet. Take it seriously what you can and cannot eat.

8. Watch out for medications that can make the tinnitus worse.

Writing a paper on my experiences which I can post as soon as I'm done.

Brian K. UK.

 

I haven't heard about notch therapy hearing aids.

What model hearing aid do you have?

What does your tinnitus sound like? Is it tonal or fluctuating with various sounds?

Thanks.

 

Very interesting.
I am getting Signia hearing aids myself, but i dont know if they have notch... Looking forward to reading more when you are done with the paper

 

Is your tinnitus tonal, or?