How Do Audiologists Treat Tinnitus?

Tinnitus is often seen as one of the most frustrating conditions to deal with due to how hard it is to pinpoint the exact cause of it. It can be caused by hearing damage, it could be a neck injury or even hearing loss. When approaching your audiologist about tinnitus, it’s important to let them know about your underlying health conditions to ensure they know your full medical history.

Treating tinnitus by dealing with the underlying condition

The first approach to treating tinnitus is identifying the underlying health problems it’s associated with. If your audiologist notices that you have hearing loss, then it could be a contributing factor to your tinnitus. However, even after treating those underlying conditions (if possible) there’s no telling if you’ll be able to deal with the ringing in your ears.

Treating tinnitus with therapy

When the underlying condition cannot be found, the only other effective method of treatment is to help a patient manage it. This usually involves training someone to distract them from the sound of tinnitus, and there are a couple of different ways to achieve this.

• Sound therapy – The most common method of treating tinnitus is to listen to neutral sounds that distract you from the ringing or buzzing you experience from tinnitus.`
• Counseling – Counseling helps to educate you about tinnitus and teaches you how to cope with the condition more effectively.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy – Also known as CBT, this is a type of therapy that helps to change the way you perceive your tinnitus. Your audiologist will help you make the tinnitus less noticeable in everyday life.
• Tinnitus retraining therapy – Lastly, there is tinnitus retraining therapy. This is a type of therapy that helps to retrain the way your brain responds to the sounds of your tinnitus. This is to help you tune out the sound of tinnitus so that you are less aware of it.

These are the most common types of therapy that you’ll undergo if your audiologist cannot find the root cause of your tinnitus. While these types of therapy can take a while to go through, they are all effective ways of helping you manage tinnitus.

Treating tinnitus with hearing aids

Lastly, your audiologist may also recommend hearing aids to help beat tinnitus. This is becoming more common because it has the ability to solve your hearing loss and also your tinnitus at the same time. Your audiologist will likely be able to recommend you a couple of different hearing aids that will suit your needs to combat both hearing loss and tinnitus.