I’ll be seeing an audiologist ENT on Wednesday the 20th. I have brutal tinnitus. I’ve had if for years and have had my hearing tested for it before. Seven years ago, I was told that hearing aids might help.
This can be a very expensive proposition, and a real life changer in many ways. Good and bad I think.
Any and all experience, comments or recommendations about hearing aids, or tinnitus is very welcome
I have mild tinnitus and wear hearing aids. I have hearing aids for high frequency hearing loss in both ears. They do suppress my tinnitus, but most of the time I do not even notice it until I am reminded of it by something (like this thread).
Are you getting the hearing aids for hearing loss, or just the tinnitus?
If it’s just for tinnitus, keep in mind that your doctor is required by law to give you a free trial to test your hearing aids. You can always wear them for a few days and see for yourself if they help with tinnitus. If they do, then you can decide if the difference is worth the price tag.
If you have hearing loss, what I can tell you is that socializing for me is virtually impossible without hearing aids. I don’t hear 30-40% of a sentence and try to guess what people are saying. I always guess wrong and end up looking like an idiot.
With hearing aids, I still suck at socializing, but at least it’s possible now. My hearing is not perfect, but if I stand close enough I can understand what people are saying.
Please remember to carefully select a good audiologist. Your hearing aids will not be perfect out of the box. They will require tune ups. The tune ups are free, but only if you go to the doctor who sold you hearing aids. This means you will not be able to switch to a different audiologist and get free tune ups unless you buy another hearing aid.
Use the free trial period mostly to test your audiologist. I would go to several of them. I screwed up when I chose my audiologist and almost ended up with useless $4,000 hearing aids. I ended up paying $200 for a tune up from another audiologist and it vastly improved the quality of my hearing aids. My original audiologist did not even tell me that I had a free trial period, and I didn’t know I could get my money back until it was too late.
Good luck.
Love my hearing aids. I can now go to a concert and understand most of what is being sung. Before I just listen to the music because I could not really understane enough of the words.
Mine are ReSound.
I got the blue tooth phone connection. But they are not really loud enough for me. If there is any back ground noise I am better off listening to my phone directly. I will miss some words.
I lost one of my aids, it fell out of my ear while doing yard work and I could not find it. This was after having them fo 14 months. The unconditional guarantee was for 24 months. They replace the aid at no cost. They make a little whisker that can be put in the piece that goes into the ear. That whisker helps hold the aid in the ear.
My father had severe tinnitus for many years (too much time on rifle ranges as a young man shooting .303’s in competitions with no hearing protection).
He wasn’t able to hear a phone ringing or a lot of music/TV. Getting his hearing aids was life changing (for my mother too as he couldn’t claim not to hear her anymore 
)
I don’t know the brand/type but I do know it took a lot of testing, tinkering and adjusting to get them working to his satisfaction. I believe he goes back once a year for checkups and adjustments.
Wow. Exactly what I came to say.
Thanks everyone.
Not sure if it’s hearing loss as well. But the tinnitus is so loud that it makes hearing difficult. To me, that’s hearing loss.
Not many choices of Audiologists where I live, but I do want someone close. I would rather not have to drive 100 miles each way to get a tune up.
My appointment is this Wed the 20th. We’ll see what happens.
I don’t have tinnitus, but I do have hearing loss. I’ve been wearing hearing aids for about five years. My first pair ($3,600 for the pair) was marginally satisfactory.
I just got a new pair a few months ago and they are The Bomb. They are better than normal hearing. They came with a Bluetooth gadget so they link to my phone and to my kindle (for audiobooks). The model is Alta by Oticon. The pair was $6,000. I paid for them out of pocket-- Medicare/insurance did not cover.
One theory is that tinnitus is false signals in damaged nerves. From that perspective, hearing actual sounds keeps the nerves busy and they have less capacity to transmit the false signals. My hearing aids have a white noise setting. When I’m home alone and reading, it helps with the tinnitus.
Mine also have the blue tooth so I can stream from my iPad/iPhone directly to my hearing aids but I have to wear a small receiver around my neck. The neck band serves as an antenna.
Thanks everyone, I should back Thursday with questions/updates. My appointment is tomorrow/Wed the 20th.
I’ve been wearing hearing aids for decades, but I’ve never had a problem with tinnitus. I’ll catch a case of it every once in a great while, and it always went away within a day or so. If it is a problem for you, most digital aids these days have anti-tinnitus features available, so you should definitely ask about that.
I have hearing loss and tinnitus. I’m almost completely deaf in my right ear and I’m slowly losing sensitivity in my left ear. I’ve had tinnitus since the late 1980s.
I got hearing aids about 10 years ago. State of the art at the time, and they helped up to a certain point. I gave up wearing them and would love to get a new pair with modern technology, but I can’t afford the cost these days. 
Yes, it’s sad. Insurance is no help. Thankfully, I will be able to test drive hearing aids before I drop the big $.
Thought I would give an update.
I saw the audiologist on the 20th. My hearing is 60% of the normal hearing level. Pretty much flat across the different frequencies.
I get the aids sometime next week. I am very, very relieved. Top, top of the line. I hope they help. I’m a bit of a geek, it will be interesting.
It’s a relief really, and I’m very excited. I use context and body language to hear.
Over the last few days, knowing that I will soon get help, I can say to my wife “I haven’t first clue what you just said”. The nod and smile is gone. This has been an eye opener to me.
I must admit that I’ve been faking it a bit, and pick up clues like bread crumbs down a trail. It’s been very tiring for me, and no fun for my wife or friends or co-workers.
In my defense, I have been hoping for some sort of pharm or surgical solution for my tinnitus. And, well, hearing aids are not cheap. I may have waited a bit long, but the hearing aids I’m getting should also help cancel out the tinnitus.
Gonna be interesting.
That is not true with me I had an audi for years and got a new audi and I still got free tune up and did not have to buy a new HA. I do agree that the OP should get a free 30 day trial period and if it was me I would get a second opinion from another ENT doctor to see wearing $4,000 HA is going to made any difference with the tinnitus.
I’ve a 75 day trial period. The hearing aids are $6000. I have doubts that it will do much to cover up my tinnitus. I suspect that they will just increase the volume for those frequencies that my tinnitus blocks. That is the goal I believe.
And perhaps try to block the tinnitus with white noise. The brain is a funny thing, my doc said that after all these years, my brain has taught itself to ignore those signals since it’s basically constant BS. Sort of like living next to a freeway, or pick your politician of choice. 
As much as the ringing in the ears sucks, I can deal with it. I just want to hear.
There’s always that therapy where they figure out the exact sound your tinnitus is making and mimic it, so that your ear gets fatigued and you stop hearing it. It’s only temporary, however. I’ve always wondered if they could incorporate that into a hearing aid.
Or, since other phenomena like binaural beats seem to indicate that your brain combines the signal from both ears just like it was real audio, I wonder if you could use noise canceling after finding the pitch and cancel it in the other ear, and the, in your brain, it would get canceled out. If so, that could also be done in hearing aids. (Though I’d bet it would have to be adjustable, I’d assume, since it varies in intensity and even possibly in exact pitch.)
Where did you find this audi that did tune ups for free? How does the guy make money?
My tune ups for the first 3 years are free too. And I get 200 free batteries.
Three year warrantee too. Even if I lose it or drop it in the toilet or something, free replacement.
I suspect there is significant markup on the aids, and that they are confident enough that I won’t need many tune ups.
That’s understandable if you by the hearing aids from the doctor, but purplehearingaid said she got free tune ups from a doctor she did not buy hearing aids from.
How long do batteries last in hearing aids? Do the modern, “state of the art” (so-called upthread) hearing aids still have the same form factor with that large crescent-shaped part that sits behind the ear? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone wearing them in the past few years, so I’m wondering if they’ve gotten so small and unobtrusive that they’re nearly invisible.