Tinnitus and Hearing Center of Arizona

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Tinnitus and Hearing Center of Arizona Tinnitus and Sound Relief Hearing services, hearing aids, musician's clinic, Lenire Tinnitus

Two people can wear the exact same hearing aid make and model, programmed the exact same way, but hear two completely di...
10/09/2026

Two people can wear the exact same hearing aid make and model, programmed the exact same way, but hear two completely different things. 👂🤯

Here's why:

Every ear canal is shaped differently, so the same setting can sound completely different from one person to the next. Real-ear measurement is how your hearing aids get adjusted for YOUR ears specifically (instead of an average).

This quick and painless test uses a soft, thin tube placed in your ear canal before your hearing aid goes in. You’ll sit in front of a speaker and listen to speech or sound at soft, average, and loud volumes. As you listen, your audiologist measures how your hearing aids respond inside your ear and adjusts the programming at each level to ensure the most accurate, comfortable fit possible.

There is a real science behind getting hearing aids just right, and REMs help us tailor your devices to your hearing loss, your ear shape, and your listening needs. 🎶📈

Before World War II, if your hearing changed, you didn’t have many options. There was no designated specialist to help, ...
10/01/2026

Before World War II, if your hearing changed, you didn’t have many options. There was no designated specialist to help, no way to measure exactly what you could hear, no fitting technology to help, and no teaching you how to live with it. 🙁

Thousands of service members during WWII came home after being exposed to artillery, tank engines, and aircraft noise that left many with hearing loss that surgery could not fix. The military decided to establish rehabilitation centers in Army and Navy hospitals and staffed them with an unlikely mix of ear physicians, speech scientists, psychologists, and lip-reading teachers who figured it out together.

A Northwestern professor named Raymond Carhart, who ran the program, went home after the war and built the first university program to train people to do this work. The name they gave it: audiology! 👏

Did you know your inner ear does TWO jobs? ✌️The one everyone knows about: hearing.The one most people don't: balance.De...
09/30/2026

Did you know your inner ear does TWO jobs? ✌️
The one everyone knows about: hearing.
The one most people don't: balance.
Deep inside your ear is a system called the vestibular system, and it is constantly sending signals to your brain about where your body is in space. When something disrupts it, whether that's age, infection, injury, or certain medications, the result can feel like dizziness, unsteadiness, or that unsettling sensation that the room is moving when it isn't.
What makes this easy to miss is that balance symptoms and hearing symptoms often show up together. Ringing in one ear and dizziness. Sudden hearing change and vertigo. One without the other. The combinations vary, but the origin is often the same system.
If you have been experiencing unexplained dizziness or have mentioned it to your doctor without getting a clear answer, a hearing evaluation is often the first step in understanding what is actually happening. Not because the audiologist always has the answer, but because the ear is usually where the investigation starts.👂

Happy World Heart Day. 👋As audiologists, this one is close to our heart, literally.The inner ear depends entirely on hea...
09/29/2026

Happy World Heart Day. 👋
As audiologists, this one is close to our heart, literally.
The inner ear depends entirely on healthy blood flow to function. When circulation is compromised, the ears often feel it first. It is one of the reasons hearing loss is so common in people managing high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.
Caring for your heart is caring for your hearing. The two have always been the same conversation.
❤️👂

Something we tell almost every new hearing aid patient, and it almost always surprises them.Your ears are not the ones t...
09/28/2026

Something we tell almost every new hearing aid patient, and it almost always surprises them.
Your ears are not the ones that need to adjust. Your brain is! 🧠🙌
When you have had hearing loss for a while, your brain quietly reorganizes itself around the sounds it has been getting. Then you put in hearing aids, and suddenly there is more information coming in: the hum of the refrigerator, the turn signal in the car, the sound of your own footsteps. 👣
It can feel like too much at first. That does not mean something is wrong. It means your brain is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
Most new users need 4-6 weeks before things start feeling natural. Some need a little longer. The patients who do best are the ones who wear them consistently during that window, even on the days when it feels like a lot, and come back for follow-up appointments so we can make adjustments as their brain adapts.
The devices are only part of it. The process is the other part.
If you are in that adjustment window right now and wondering if it is supposed to feel this way, it probably is. And we are here to walk through it with you. 💞👂

Ever feel completely drained after a long conversation, especially somewhere noisy? That exhaustion is real, and it has ...
09/25/2026

Ever feel completely drained after a long conversation, especially somewhere noisy?
That exhaustion is real, and it has a mechanism.
When hearing is compromised, your brain has to fill in the gaps, predicting words, reading faces, working backward from context. That effort is not free. It borrows from the same resources you use for memory and focus, which is why a two-hour dinner can leave you as tired as a full workday.
Researchers call this cognitive load. It is the reason untreated hearing loss shows up in places that have nothing to do with your ears.
The long-term picture is worth knowing too. A landmark Johns Hopkins study following adults over more than a decade found that dementia risk rose alongside the degree of hearing loss, mild loss was associated with roughly double the risk, and the association grew from there. That is a link, not a verdict, and hearing loss is one factor among many.
But it is one of the few that can actually be measured and addressed.
If listening has started to feel like work, that is worth looking into.

A randomized clinical trial published in JAMA found that patients fitted with hearing aids by an audiologist following b...
09/24/2026

A randomized clinical trial published in JAMA found that patients fitted with hearing aids by an audiologist following best practices experienced significantly better outcomes than those using pre-set over-the-counter devices, even when OTC users got limited professional help with the fitting. 🦻
This is not surprising to anyone who works in this field. But it is worth saying out loud because the OTC market has made it easy to assume that buying a device is the same as receiving care.
👉 It is not.
The device is one part of the equation. The diagnostic evaluation that tells us exactly what your hearing needs, the programming that matches the device to your specific audiogram, the follow-up appointments that fine-tune the fit as your brain adapts - that's the other part! 🧠 And it is the part that actually determines whether hearing aids end up in a drawer or change someone's life.
To be fair to the research: OTC devices did help people in this study. They are a legitimate option for the right person.
What they did not do is match what happens when someone trained fits them to your ears.
If you or someone you love has tried OTC hearing aids and found them disappointing, this might explain why.
Link to the full study below. 👇

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/audiology-and-otology/articles/10.3389/fauot.2024.1397604/full

September is World Alzheimer's Awareness Month.What the research consistently shows across multiple large studies is tha...
09/23/2026

September is World Alzheimer's Awareness Month.
What the research consistently shows across multiple large studies is that untreated hearing loss is one of the most significant modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline. 🧠
Not a guarantee.
👉 A risk factor.
One that, unlike age or genetics, you can actually do something about.
The leading theory is the cognitive load explanation. When the brain is working overtime just to process incomplete sound signals, it draws resources away from other functions, like memory, attention, and processing speed. Over time, that chronic strain may contribute to changes we do not want.
The word modifiable matters here. It means addressable. It means that getting a hearing evaluation and treating hearing loss if it is found is one of the most concrete steps an adult can take to support their long-term brain health, alongside exercise, sleep, and staying socially connected.
It is not a cure. It is not a guarantee. But it is something.
If you’ve been putting off a hearing evaluation, this month is a meaningful time to move it up the list. 🧠👂

Myth: "If I had hearing loss, I would know." 🫣This is the one we hear most often, and it is also the one that delays car...
09/22/2026

Myth: "If I had hearing loss, I would know." 🫣
This is the one we hear most often, and it is also the one that delays care the longest.
The truth is that hearing loss is almost never sudden. It creeps in so gradually that the brain adapts in real time, filling in gaps, leaning on context, reading lips without realizing it. By the time someone notices something is off, the loss has usually been there for years. 👂
The signs are easy to miss because they do not feel like hearing loss. They feel like other people mumbling.
If any of that sounds familiar, for you or someone you love, it might be worth finding out what is actually happening.
A hearing evaluation takes less than an hour. And knowing is always better than guessing. Share this with someone who keeps saying they are fine. 👇

This one surprises almost everyone when we bring it up in an appointment.‼️People with untreated hearing loss are signif...
09/21/2026

This one surprises almost everyone when we bring it up in an appointment.‼️

People with untreated hearing loss are significantly more likely to experience a fall.
Not because their legs are weaker. Not because their vision is worse. Because hearing plays a direct role in how the brain understands where the body is in space. When the auditory system is working harder than it should just to process sound, it has less capacity left over for the spatial awareness and balance cues that keep us steady on our feet. 🫨🌀

There is also a cognitive load piece to it. The mental effort of straining to hear in everyday environments takes up processing power, leaving less available for the automatic, unconscious work of staying balanced while walking, turning, or navigating an uneven surface.

What this means practically is that treating hearing loss is not just about hearing better. For a lot of patients, especially older adults, it is also about moving through the world more safely and confidently.

If someone you love has had a recent fall, or has been feeling unsteady in ways that do not have an obvious explanation, their hearing is worth looking at as part of the picture.

It is not always the first place anyone thinks to look. But it probably should be. 👂🌾

Address

2034 East Southern Avenue
Tempe, AZ
85282

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 1pm

Telephone

+14808316159

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