Can Stress Increase/Worsen Tinnitus Permanently?

I'm going back to work soon, maybe it's a very bad idea. I work in a quiet office as a web developer, but it is a job that requires a lot of concentration and there is also a lot of stress.

I'm scared of a possible permanent spike in my tinnitus due to getting back to work. I'm still very very depressed and my tinnitus is very loud and intrusive.

I don't know if maybe going back to work could help me keep my mind busy and don't focus on tinnitus or if it's going to be a complete disaster and a bad idea. It is advisable? What should I do? Maybe I should wait a little longer to come back. But I don't know, I'm in a terrible despair because tinnitus do not disappear. I'm in a depressive loop.

I seek for any advice and personal experiences. Thank you.

 

My personal view is your thinking is precisely correct. Unknowable. Do we ever know when to dive into the water and what the outcome will be. No.

What you can do however is try. What is your relationship with the management of this company? Do you plan to tell them about your health challenge?

Can you describe what you call a stressful work environment and why? Is it time compression to implement web changes? Difficulty tailoring the web page to customer expectations? What about your work environment is stressful.

I personally wouldn't obsess about making your tinnitus worse. It may in fact make your tinnitus much better because you will focused on something other than your tinnitus. When tinnitus comes into our life, we obsess about it. All we can think of. WTF is this invader?...will it stay?....will it get worse? Mine has stayed but on balance is more livable because I have grown used to it. It sometimes even softens but I often wake to loud tinnitus which is disconcerting but I expect it will go back down again and it does.

You might want to give it a try. You may want to share your health challenge with your manager and close friends though so they understand where you are at.

Only you know if its time. Thing about tinnitus after a while is...we get sick of being sick and then decide to move on and branch out. You are thinking about that right now. Turning the train around after licking your wounds and getting back to living. Many great people have tinnitus at varying degrees. Sitting around and thinking about tinnitus is about as bad as it can get and of course many here are in the early stages. But many have left Tinnitus Talk and lead productive lives.

A last note you will appreciate. Fuck tinnitus.

 

I have very high pitched tinnitus that cuts through everything else so I'm almost always aware of it.

If you are anything like me I have always found that the more I am alone and the more time I have to think about my tinnitus, then the more it affects me. Going back to work allowed me to completely snap out of overthinking about everything and begin to habituate.

If you wait "a little longer" is anything really going to change? If it's too much after a few weeks then there's no reason you can't change your mind.

 

I think it may be a good idea to go back to work. It will take you focus off tinnitus. Tinnitus reacts to loud sounds so as far as your workplace is not loud you should be ok. Buena suerte!

 

they say stress can cause it so, yeah

 

I can't imagine it ending up being permanent.

 

I led a very productive life yesterday, I went into Melbourne city and did what I used to do before tinnitus and benzo withdrawal got the better of me, I shopped till I dropped so to speak. I Still had both issues going on especially the non stop high screeching tinnitus in both ears, but when all the sales assistants asked "how are you today," I replied "good thanks" and I am, because I am sick of being sick. I even gave myself the day off my keto diet and had Coffee (decaff) and cake....

So Yeah I appreciate the F...tinnitus, keeping it lady like LOL even though I could match a fishmongers wife at times

 

@acute this is in the realm of "things that only get worse, the more you think about them". The more you worry about something like this, the more stress you're under.

Stress is inevitable. I think the best plan is to engage in whatever stress management you can (meditation, yoga, kickboxing, medication, some combination) and then just live your life.

Also, one dev to another -- tinnitus has, if anything, made it easier for me to distance myself from the sort of ego-and-resume-driven arguments about tooling or particular ways of doing OOP or whatever, that some people seem prone to. People create stress for themselves by becoming emotionally attached to languages or applications or other transient things.

When you have a serious problem in your life, I think it's easier to think "huh, this team really wants to use Java for this and these other people really wanna use Python, but actually both of these things are Turing complete and a hammer is a hammer, so I'm going to sit this one out until the children settle down, or an engineering manager makes the decision for us". I know another guy who seems to have achieved an even calmer level of detachment than me without the tinnitus (at least, his is very mild), but that dude meditates a lot.

 

I am not routinely exposed to noise at work, yet I seem to get a temporary spike after going there. It usually takes a day or two to go down after working a day. I was not sure if it was from the 40 min car commute, but wearing earplugs while driving did not make any difference. I believe at this point that the increase in T is due to the stress of work.

I do not find that thinking about T increases the volume of it for me.

 

Going back to work sounds like the better idea. The more you can get your mind off it the better. But, I would definitely do some meditation on stressful days and maybe even on the not so stressful ones as well. I used to do about 20-30 min of guided meditation I found on YouTube. There are hundreds if not thousands of great meditation videos on YT. Good luck!

 

Do you think if stress can cause it that it can also damage the ear, ie hair cells etc, and cause hearing loss?

A relative of mine said she had three weeks of panic attacks and then shortly after became partially blind.

 

Stress kills the body overall. It breaks down the immune system. Some people due to predisposition fold under stress and for some it feeds them and their energy.

Take our US president so many love to hate. He feeds on stress that would crush a different man or woman. He loves chaos. In fact, steady state is likely more stressful for him. He needs the apple cart upside down to feel comfortable. Vast majority of others are wired much differently and require the opposite for a sense of calmness.

Temperament and mental health are big components of not only contracting tinnitus but also managing it.
Psychologists have understood memory imprinting of the brain under stress for decades. Its the basis for PTSD.
Increased cortisol, adrenaline and other hormones likely forges neural pathways deeper than a more relaxed person.
Stands to reason that tinnitus may be more readily contracted by somebody with more marginal mental health.

 

Probably all true. I'm pretty sure my tinnitus was brought on by medication as the timing was spot on, but I wouldn't be surprised if the underlying stress I was going through made things easier for the meds to act in the way they did.
I had the same stress before the tinnitus for many weeks but not the meds, but it only came on once the meds were in place.

As you know I have OCD etc, and I feel managing this affliction is made many time harder because of this. It wouldn't surprise me if my tinnitus was considered only moderate, but my reaction to it is severe. My psychological makeup was definitely not made for this.

 

that's horrible. yes I think so.

 

BS. Lots of people have stress and don't get tinnitus. Of all the material out there, I can't recall a definitive link.

Yes, it impacts the immune system but to cause malfunctioning of the brain causing tinnitus or hearing loss?

Can you try to find a web developer job at home? You could try going to the current job and see how it goes? But, I think some web developers jobs offer work at home for some of it?

 

My work gets my mind off of T.

 

You don't know how profound her stress levels were. 3 weeks of panic attacks is pretty rough on the system. Many if not most here contracted tinnitus when undergoing a lot of stress in their lives. For some, stress causes heart attacks. Depends what your weak link is.

No doubt, you were under stress. I have never seen a bigger mess on the forum. I have to give you a pass a bit, and you are entertaining with your hyperbolic threats of ending it all. Clear your objectivity is gone if you ever had any in the first place. You are the boy that cried wolf.

 

I'm going through a very stressful change at work and my tinnitus has hit the roof. I've not had any loud noise exposure recently, so can only link it to stress right now.

 

The two best things I did with my T were a) taking time off work and b) going back to work. I had to take some time off because I just couldn't function, but the doctor wouldn't sign me off for very long, and I was effectively forced to go back before I felt "ready". It was a good thing. Things started to get better for me fairly quickly because I was distracted and busy and purposeful. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had continued to sit at home wallowing. Give it a go, and if it's really taking a toll then take some more time off. It's all about balance and listening to your body.

Also see if you could do a phased return e.g.starting with a couple hours a day. That's what I did and it was really good for me. Or see if you can work from home a couple days a week or something.

I wouldn't worry about making your T worse. Worrying about it is what makes it worse. You can always slow down if you feel like work is having a negative impact.

Best of luck to you
Xxx

 

Also yes stress is bad for you and bad for T, but so is sitting around worrying. Sometimes a bit of distraction and hard work actually LESSENS the overall stress on your system.

 

How do you know it's not noise?
I think stress can maybe cause a temporary spike but I don't see how it makes it worse long term.

The times it has spiked on me and seemed to not improve has been after a noise exposure. When it worsened in April, it was an exposure I would have needed to be wearing ear plugs but I don't think you can wear them all the time, everywhere.

Also, now my tinnitus is so bad, I don't want to wear plugs now because the tinnitus is isolated then and not masked. It's hell either way.

My stress would lower if my tinnitus lowered. I have had very rare fluctuations when it reduced and my stress was relieved but then the same loud tinnitus returned so I think people linking stress as some causal relationship is exaggerating the co-relation.

 

Good advice. I may be able to do a day working from home. I was off work in 2010 and phased back in and it helped back then. I need to find ways of relaxing more.

 

Noise exposure also worsens my tinnitus but many times stress has also. Ten years of living with this and I have seen the pattern a few times with me but everyone is different.

 

Yeah relaxing can feel very difficult with T! Still VERY much a learning process for me. But I find that relaxing activities are usually better than just sitting. I still struggle to relax when watching TV because of the T. But things like cooking, or going for a meal with friends relax me more. I also really like having hot baths. I find the physical sensations really take my mind of my T, and I can always listen to something if it's too quiet, and the whole process relaxes my muscles and just makes me feel good. And talking of physical sensations oh my god there is nothing better than cuddles, kissing, sex and so on. All about getting out of your head and into your body. I'm single so not often an option, but there are platonic cuddles from friends, and also Tinder!!