Tinnitus & Hearing Aids

Tinnitus can be defined as 'the perception of sound in the absence of a stimulus'. Or to the layman 'an annoying ringing in the ears!'.

Tinnitus can vary widely in the type of sound, such as high pitch ringing, to white noise, to rustling, or even continuous music. Tinnitus is a symptom of many things, but unfortunately we still do not know what the real mechanical cause of tinnitus is. Therefore we can treat tinnitus, but we cannot cure it.

There are several different methods to treat tinnitus, but here we are just focusing on hearing aids and how we can help alongside other treatments you may wish to undergo, such as cognitive relaxation techniques.

A couple of the leading hearing aid manufacturers now incorporate tinnitus masking technology into their hearing aids, and this allows us to frequency shape the masking noise to suit your hearing loss.

The key suppliers of 'tinnitus hearing aids are:

  • GN Resound - with their new 'Alera TS' hearing aid range. The 'Alera TS' introduces frequency shaped masking noise, which can be controlled to user preferences in a separate programme using a remote control. Also, the masking has 'environmental steering' which means the masking noise level reduces if speech is present. This has two distinct advantages over other products in that the masking noise does not affect you hearing people speak and you don't have to keep changing programme.
  • Widex - with the Zen feature in their new and 'CLEAR' range of hearing aids. Zen tones are fractal tones - read more on this here.
  • Siemens Pure Carat - info to be update on this product.

  • An added bonus of using the latest digital hearing aid tinnitus maskers / sound generators is that they now use wireless transmission technology . This allows you to stream your own therapeutic background noise direct into to your hearing aids wirelessly. To see what devices work with each device please click the manufacturers tab on the left, or click here for a summary.

    Please click the following links for more reading on this subject:

  • TSG Whitepaper
  • Alera Whitepaper

  • Alternatively do not hesitate to call us on 0800 077 8248 or send us an email.

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