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Tinnitus "fixed" with amplification only - no masking

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I’ve read in several places that individuals with hearing loss and tinnitus may experience relief when their hearing loss is treated, but haven’t found many details and first hand accounts of that.

I have mild hearing loss (my is in my profile) and unilateral tinnitus at about 5kHz. I’ve been programming my hearing aids (Starkey Livio 2400 purchased on ebay) myself after getting the audiogram at an audiologist. The masking features work, but I’ve also noticed that amplification only helps a great deal - better than masking. I don’t have very aggressive amplification - the compression ratio is 1.2 for “moderate” and 1.4 for “quiet” with a bit of gain around 5kHz (where my tinnitus is centered.

That is enough to completely remove the perception of tinnitus while I have my hearing aids in. The relief when I put them in is almost immediate, and sometimes lasts for a few minutes after I take them out. It works even in a quiet environment.

Why does this work? I’m not complaining, I’m just curious. Is there just enough background noise even in a quiet environment that the 1.4 compression ratio provides enough background noise to help mask the tinnitus? Is there something else going on?

Like I said, I’m not complaining - I just didn’t expect what seems like a relatively simple solution to work so well.

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That fits in with the ‘phantom limb’ theory of tinnitus. It’s probably not masking. It’s faint clues telling some part of your auditiry cortex ‘hey, it’s quiet but I have hearing so don’t stress over it’. Having said all that, I really don’t have a clue. :grinning: Great that it’s happening for you though.

I am no expert, just someone that has had tinnitus since Thanksgiving 1975. Yes I still remember when it started. I had just gotten off a cargo jet after a 34 hour flight almost around the globe. My tinnitus is what I term as white noise, it never truly goes away, but wearing probably fitted hearing aids puts it down in the mud as my dad would say. I have aids that can mask my tinnitus but only use it in really quiet environments. But when I take my aids off at night the first thing I do is turn on my sound machine and it is always set for white noise. I didn’t get hearing aids until 2005, but I slept with a sound machine since about 1980, for the most part I taught myself mindfulness and mind control to force myself not to pay attention to my tinnitus, but at times it wasn’t possible. I would get a bad headache or have a cold or sinus infection and the tinnitus couldn’t be put to rest.

I have had tinnitus 24/7 since the 80’s. I was very curious if getting hearing aids would help with it or not. Although, like @cvkemp, I learned how to tune it out or control myself when I have what I call flare ups over the years. My curiosity got me researching and asking my audiologist when I was going through getting aids. From what I understand, in some cases the brain is just recreating tones in the frequency ranges that you have loss in. So the aids filling in those frequency ranges causes the brain to not want to create the sound anymore. This is all just happening in your head obviously. The human brain is a miraculous thing!

My aids help my tinnitus quite a bit. Mine is a constant tonal ringing. It is not gone by any means but it is much quieter. I still get flare ups that range from what feels like going deaf in one or both ears but really its the tinnitus just overwhelms all other sound. To just an increased volume of the ringing. These can last 30 seconds to 3 days for me and I’m told it is most likely due to stress. Guess I need to take up yoga or meditation lol.

You are among the approximately 60% of hearing aid wearers with tinnitus who experience at least partial relief while wearing the hearing aids. You are one of the lucky ones who experience total relief. The phenomenon of the tinnitus staying away for a while when you remove the aids is called residual inhibition, for some it only temporary and for some it became more or less permanent. Research has been done to find the cause of residual inhibition as a treatment for tinnitus.

Thanks for posting this. I’m 71 and have had 5K tinnitus for about 8 years. I worked in the audio industry for various speaker manufacturers. This has taken a toll. I am currently looking for hearing aids at Costco. I tried the Philips 9030 the Jabra. Personally, I found listening easier with the Jabra. Both tests were only done walking around Costco. The Philips seemed to be always “searching” for high frequencies to amplify. I know that in the beginning, HF are going to be a new experience and a challenge, but I think my ears and brain will welcome new HF sounds. Going tomorrow for a comparison of the Kirkland 10 vs the Jabra at a new Costco location (a story for another time). Starkey have been mentioned to me because of tinnitus. Have you tried other HA, and what was your experience?

Sorry for the late reply. I have not tried any other hearing aids. I bought them on ebay and have been programming them myself. It took a while for me to figure this out, but I was happy with the masking features during the return window.

The Starkey software is easy to find on their website, which is helpful, but it’s easy to post here and find programming software for other brands. I’m probably a bit of a control freak but I would want ones that I can program myself. The gain settings that work for my tinnitus aren’t what the software suggested, so you’d need to be able to program them yourself or have an audiologist willing to try some extra gain around your tinnitus frequency.

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