Tinnitus Treatment in Marietta, GA
There is no cure for tinnitus, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. What there is, and it is a great deal better than nothing, is a set of approaches that reliably make it less intrusive.
IN SHORT
Tinnitus cannot be cured, but for most people it can be made substantially less intrusive. Because it usually accompanies hearing loss, the most effective single step is treating that loss. Beyond that, sound therapy and habituation approaches have good evidence behind them. At American Family Hearing Aid Center we measure your tinnitus, test your hearing, look for anything that needs a physician, and go through the options that actually work.
Read this first: when tinnitus needs a doctor, not us
Most tinnitus is not dangerous. A few presentations are, and they need a physician rather than a hearing aid appointment. See a doctor promptly if your tinnitus:
- Pulses in time with your heartbeat. Pulsatile tinnitus can indicate a vascular problem and warrants imaging.
- Is only in one ear. One-sided tinnitus needs evaluation to rule out causes that require treatment.
- Arrived suddenly, especially alongside a sudden drop in hearing. Steroid treatment started within days gives a far better chance of recovery than treatment started weeks later.
- Comes with vertigo, spinning or repeated dizziness.
- Comes with ear pain, drainage, facial weakness or numbness.
If any of those apply, contact your physician or urgent care today. We will still be here afterwards, and we will happily look at the hearing side once you have been seen.
What we can and cannot do
Being clear about this saves everyone time. Mark Stevenson is a Hearing Instrument Specialist, not a physician. That means:
We can test your hearing, measure the pitch and loudness of your tinnitus, look in your ear canal, identify whether hearing loss is contributing, fit devices with tinnitus sound therapy, and coach you through habituation.
We cannot diagnose the medical cause of tinnitus or prescribe medication. When the presentation points to something medical, we refer you to an ENT or audiologist rather than fitting a device and hoping. That referral is part of the job.
What happens at a tinnitus evaluation
About an hour. Most of it is measurement, because you cannot manage what nobody has measured.
First
We listen to your history
When it started, whether it is constant or comes and goes, one ear or both, what makes it worse, and crucially how much it is affecting your sleep and your mood. That last part determines a lot.
Second
We examine and test
Video otoscopy to check the canal and eardrum, then a full hearing test. Wax and middle-ear problems can cause or worsen tinnitus and are straightforward to deal with.
Third
We measure the tinnitus itself
We match its pitch and loudness, and find your minimum masking level. Those numbers guide the sound therapy settings and give us a baseline to compare against later.
Fourth
We go through the options
What is likely to help in your case, what is not worth your money, and whether anything needs a physician first. You leave with a plan rather than a leaflet.
What actually helps
In rough order of how much difference each one makes for most people.
- Treating the hearing loss. The great majority of people with bothersome tinnitus also have hearing loss, usually at the same frequencies. Restoring that input gives the brain something else to attend to, and for many people this alone is the biggest single change.
- Sound therapy. A low-level sound generated by the hearing aids, tuned to your tinnitus, that reduces the contrast between the tinnitus and silence. It does not mask it out; it makes it easier to stop noticing.
- Habituation and coaching. Tinnitus intrudes most when you are monitoring it. Structured approaches that break that monitoring loop have the strongest evidence of anything for reducing distress, and cognitive behavioral therapy in particular is well supported. We will refer you if that is the right route.
- Managing sleep and stress. Not a platitude. Tinnitus is loudest in a silent bedroom at 3am, and poor sleep makes it worse the following day, which makes sleep worse again. Breaking that cycle matters as much as any device.
What does not help, and what to be careful of
Tinnitus is a large market for people selling hope. We would rather you kept your money.
- Dietary supplements. Ginkgo biloba, zinc, melatonin and the various tinnitus formulas sold online. Clinical practice guidance in the United States specifically recommends against routine use of these for tinnitus, because the evidence does not support them.
- Anything advertised as a cure. There is no cure. A product claiming one is telling you something untrue in the first sentence.
- Silence. Understandable instinct, exactly the wrong move. Quiet rooms make tinnitus more prominent, not less. A fan or low background sound at night helps most people.
- Waiting to see if it goes away. If it has been more than a few weeks it is worth getting measured, particularly because untreated hearing loss is so often part of it.
Things that help tonight
While you wait for an appointment, these are simple and help a lot of people.
- Put low background sound in the bedroom: a fan, an air purifier, rain on a speaker. Not silence.
- Protect your ears from loud noise. A single loud exposure can make tinnitus worse for days.
- Cut back on caffeine and alcohol for a fortnight and see whether it makes a difference for you. It does for some people and not others.
- Keep a rough note of when it is worst. Patterns are useful information at the appointment.
- Tell someone. Tinnitus is isolating largely because nobody else can hear it, and saying it out loud helps more than it sounds like it should.
Common questions
Can tinnitus be cured?
No. There is no cure, and no medication approved to eliminate it. What can change substantially is how intrusive it is, and for most people that improvement is large enough to matter a great deal.
Do hearing aids help tinnitus?
Often, yes, for the majority who also have hearing loss. Restoring the missing input reduces the contrast that makes tinnitus prominent, and most current devices also include sound therapy tuned to your tinnitus.
What happens at a tinnitus evaluation?
We test your hearing, ask about the pitch, timing and triggers of your tinnitus, and check for the patterns that need a physician. We then go through the options with you, including sound therapy and hearing aids. It carries no obligation to buy anything.
Why is my tinnitus worse at night?
Because the room is quiet. Tinnitus does not get louder; the background it competes with gets softer. Low-level sound in the bedroom is the single most effective thing most people can do without any equipment.
Will my tinnitus get worse over time?
Not necessarily. For many people it stays stable and becomes less noticeable as they habituate. Protecting your hearing from further noise damage is the most useful thing you can control.
Do supplements or tinnitus remedies work?
The evidence does not support them, and United States clinical practice guidance recommends against routine use of dietary supplements for tinnitus. Be sceptical of anything sold as a cure.
When should I see a doctor instead?
If your tinnitus pulses with your heartbeat, is only in one ear, came on suddenly, or comes with vertigo, ear pain, drainage or facial weakness. Those need medical evaluation promptly rather than a hearing aid appointment.
Get it measured
A consultation takes about an hour. You will leave knowing your audiogram, the pitch and loudness of your tinnitus, and which of the options above are worth your time.