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January 25, 2019
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February 15, 2019
Lets talk about Sivantos Notch Therapy and the cool tinnitus therapy features in their Signia & Audio Service Hearing instruments & how it may help you with your tinnitus.
I always recommend that any Tinnitus Investigation starts with a full tinnitus assessment. This allows your hearing care professional to understand your tinnitus and how it affects you. I have written about this previously just follow these links to understand my take on tinnitus and its treatment.
Tinnitus and why we should insist its looked at
– This talks about what a tinnitus assessment involves
Treating Tinnitus emotionally
– This talks about the subjective elements of tinnitus and how we can work with it and not against it
Many people are told there is nothing that can be done for their tinnitus they just have to live with it! NOT TRUE!! There is so much that can be done with Tinnitus let’s just take the most common cause and easiest solution and discuss it here.
First of all lets start with a statistic.
90% of people who have tinnitus have some form of hearing loss.
‘But I’m not deaf I hear you say’ And I didn’t say you were! Again but listen (With your eyes)
90% of people who have tinnitus have some form ofhearing loss.
Yep, I said hearing loss. You may be reading this with glasses on or contact lenses. Around 60% of the UK wear some form of vision correction are they blind? No of course not, they need glasses to see better and that’s the same philosophy you should look at hearing loss with.
Sivantos Notch Therapy
Sivantos is a company based in Singapore that owns Siemens hearing technologies. Siemens is a German powerhouse of manufacturing and innovation. They have 2 brands Audio Service and Signia. Essentially the same thing but different packaging think Volkswagen & Audi. High quality German Engineering made in Asia!
One common known concept in the audiology world is good fitting hearing aids can help tinnitus and in some cases make tinnitus disappear altogether for the duration you wear the hearing aids. At Lanarkshire Hearing Centre we have fitted many clients with hearing aids to help their tinnitus with fantastic results. We have done this with Oticon, Bernafon and GN Resound hearing instruments.
So, what makes Signia & Audeo Service hearing aids so special then?
I was expecting you to ask that!! Good job I have my answer prepared!
Both Signia & Audeo Service from Sivantos/ Siemens (Mouthful isn’t it) go at the problem with a 3-pronged attack.
1. Tinnitus soothing sound therapy
Whats this? Well basically this is using your hearing aids to play soothing sounds through them to calm your tinnitus down or calm you down. Tinnitus in my experience tends to pop up when you’re stressed most. It’s almost like a reminder to yourself that something is not quite right, and you need to do something. I personally get tinnitus when I’m at my most stressed and generally in bed. With the soothing sound therapy your hearing aids will play soothing sounds into your ears. Sounds like pebbles scattering across the beach or my personal favourite the sound of the rolling ocean. I don’t have hearing loss, but I use this myself in the office sometimes to meditate. It really works and calms me down!
2. Tinnitus App control
There are loads of cool apps out there. If you don’t wear hearing aids the Widex app is brilliant. It gives you all sorts of cool stuff like breathing exercises and some great sounds. It also comes with a timer so you can set it and forget it while focussing on calming your ringing mind. With the Signia app it connects to your hearing instruments so you can choose your soothing sounds that come through your hearing aids and the volume you want from them. They can also stream music or video such as Netflix all of which will sooth your tinnitus or distract you from your tinnitus.
3. Notch Therapy
So this is the biggy. Every other hearing aid manufacturer does the top 2 and to be fair some do it better but when you add this element this is where Signia and Audeo Service pull ahead with tinnitus therapy in their hearing aids. So what’s different about it and what is it? Well first of all the above two move your mind away from your tinnitus or at the very least they will mask your tinnitus by stimulating the damaged part of your ear. But what happens when I remove this stimulus? Well in a lot of cases the tinnitus will come back! And when does it come back????….. Aaarrggghh yes when I’m trying to sleep!
So, this is where notch therapy comes in. Notch therapy basically is a test where we work out the exact frequency and noise level of your tinnitus. We then remove any stimulus from that area but help other areas of the damaged ear. The effect being that we improve your hearing and your sensory sound of the world, remove the stress of listening but make the world sound on par with your tinnitus. We basically work with your tinnitus as opposed to running away from it. The results? Well, when you take the hearing instruments off your tinnitus does not bother you because you have been aware of it during the day but had it under control on your terms instead of it controlling you on its terms!
The above is all part of Tinnitus retraining therapy. There are 600 page books on the subject… I could write about this all day but we only have a short time to give so in closing.
Do you have tinnitus?
Do you have tinnitus with or without hearing problems?
Do you have hearing loss but are unsure about making the first step?
Lanarkshire Hearing Centre is a family business with a no obligation free trial on all hearing technology. If you want to try the Signia or Audio Service hearing instruments or any hearing instruments for that matter, please get in touch for your free 30 day trial.
Lanarkshire Hearing Centre is Lanarkshire’s only independent specialist hearing aid clinic.
For more information on Signia & Audio Service support click here for a digital brochureor contact us and we will send you a hard copy brochure.
Steven Ross (MSHAA, RHAD)
Director
58 Cadzow Street,
Hamilton,
ML3 6DS
t: 01698 283549
m: 07340 746950
e: info@lanarkshirehearingcentre.co.uk
