Bad Tinnitus Flare Up — Possible Reasons: Stopped Smoking Marijuana Cold Turkey / Stress?

Hi Guys. I'm having an extremely tough time right now with things and could use any help I can get.

In December of last year, I was not in any significant distress from my tinnitus. I had fun in life, could relax, I had plans for the future, all that. In January of this year, everything changed. I suffered an extremely stressful, unusual and depressing event with a woman I was in a relationship with. I went into total shock for a week.

The week following this event my tinnitus got a little worse and more noticeable. However, say 2-3 weeks after, it really went through the roof, as well as symptoms associated with tinnitus.

I began waking up every hour or so through the night, often sweating, immediately alert and anxious over my tinnitus. My tinnitus became louder than it has ever been. I begun getting anxiety attacks at random times throughout the day. I have trouble focusing on any tasks that require concentration. I continuously fixate on my tinnitus all day long and don't know how to stop.

These problems have lasted over three months now at this point. I have never felt like this in my life. I feel like something in me has broken.

I now feel like I have mentally/emotionally moved past the sad event that caused this and just want my health and life back. I am not dwelling on her or that situation, yet my symptoms and health are still bad. I am utilizing every health/mental health resource I can think of without much improvement.

As best I can tell, there are only two factors from January that could have made this happen: obviously the stressful event I went through, and the fact that I stopped smoking Marijuana cold turkey for some time around that event. Unless stress can damage your ears, I don't feel like anything has changed with my ears/hearing.

I would love any advice or perspective from someone that may have gone through similar struggles. Can this just be one long flare up I need to recover from? I really hope so...

 

I would think once your nerves settle down, the tinnitus will follow. Stress shouldn't cause damage to your ears. I don't know what works for you to sleep better but that's where I would start. Sometimes my tinnitus resets from a good night's sleep.

I hope it gets better for you.

 

Thanks,@Rockman. I really hope you are right about settling nerves down and the tinnitus following. I hate that I'm going through this all because of the actions of someone else.

I have gotten my sleep in a much better place the last week or two, unfortunately I haven't gotten a 'reset' yet. Thanks for your wishes I need them!

 

Hello,

I got depressed too last year, which made everything worse. I can tell you it will calm down when you calm down. It will take some time, exercise, socializing, and taking on more responsibilities (obviously while continuing protecting your hearing from damaging noises)

Being hyperaware of it makes it much worse. There are a few pieces of golden advice I got from this site, which sound kinda dumb but really do work like magic:

1. Pretend you're a person who doesn't have it. Does a normal person wake up and check in on their tinnitus? Does a normal person cover their ears and listed for the sound? Try to focus on the task at hand and your mind will naturally turn away from thinking about it constantly, which will push the sound into the background where it belongs.

2. Adds onto #1. I think its one of the top posts on this site. When you can't turn your attention away from the sound while doing a task, talk to yourself about your tinnitus. "I'm trying to read right now, and the tinnitus is bothering me." or "I can hear the ringing and its bothering me, I'm trying to work"

Just keep protecting your hearing, get your mind off it, and this too shall pass. Works for me

 

I had something remotely similar in terms of pain inflicted by someone I thought was supposed to be my partner. My motto in life now is to minimise all possible stress. I am not afraid to say I’m selfish now to the degree that I always put my interests first (within the ethical constraints obviously), the main of which is to not let anyone stress me out. I would definitely advise adopting the same mentality.

THC is known to spike tinnitus, there have been enough reports of that.

The good news is that the brain plasticity can help us rewire, so there’s a chance your spike calms down. Just do everything you can to help your nervous system: supplements, relaxation techniques etc.

 

Thanks, Johan. Yes I already have that mentality after this - avoid stress as much as possible. Unfortunately, I thought this person was on my side and was a positive force in my life, I had to find out the hard way.

THC always did spike my tinnitus for about 30 minutes, but for 2-4 hours afterwards I would be more relaxed about it. Which is why I was a daily smoker for so long I believe.

There is also mixed research on THC helping, or inhibiting, neuroplasticity so I wonder what sort of effect that really had.

I am going to try hard to relax as much as I can. Thank you.

 

'Someone else.' Please, it is your life. Concentrate on yourself! And friends that will uplift you. Let go of this negative person!

 

When I had to quit cannabis, due to heart health (arrhythmias), I was in a deep state of missing that, it filled a void that I liked. My tinnitus is always very loud, similar to a jet readying for takeoff is the norm 24/7. It did spike but my Ear Specialist upped my Ambien for sleep, which helped. That's my story about ending my love with cannabis. 40 years of rolling. Now gone...

Regards to all...... (Since Iam new my avatar is this little house in Negril. Jamaica, that little hut with white curtains which sits over the cliffs in Negril is the most beautiful place I've ever stayed with my wife.

 

Oh I have Ken. Unfortunately I am still dealing with the repercussions of their actions.

 

I definitely feel more relaxed day to day being a regular smoker, but as I've gone cold turkey before it was not a big void or adjustment for me to stop... until I developed bad tinnitus.

The usual insomnia and such from quitting really messed me up for a while there. Sleep is closer to normal but not knowing if you aggravated something mentally with your tinnitus is a bit scary.

 

Hey Guys, back with issues again...

Two days ago my tinnitus got (even) worse, and I can't help but feel some medication is at play here. I was found to have a sinus infection, and given Prednisone + Amoxicillin.

The day before it got worse, I took one 10 mg Prednisone pill of the course I was given, and I guess I chickened out because I took no more. I've been on courses before, and taken well over 10 mg in a day before, and it never hurt my tinnitus and actually helped. I took it Monday morning and it wasn't 'til Tuesday afternoon when my ears really started going crazy, I think it'd do harm sooner if it did harm...

I'm on day 12 of a 14-day course of Amoxicillin. This seems like one of the safest antibiotics for tinnitus, and I feel like this must not be the culprit.

Two weeks ago, I started taking Prozac. I've been on Prozac more than a handful of times before, without issues with tinnitus, so I figured it was 'safe' again but perhaps I was wrong.

I don't know what caused it to suddenly get worse, and stay that way so far (3 days) but I am very worried. I'm worried something has damaged my ears and like I need to finish the Prednisone course, as I have before, to get inflammation down or back to normal - even though I am worried about the medication causing the issue in the first place.

Can someone tell me if I'm being crazy? I can't help but feel the timing is suspicious with the Prednisone but it's never given me problems the 3-4 times I've done a course before...

 

My tinnitus also flared up pretty bad after starting Prednisone and some antibiotic for a really bad cold. My tinnitus got bad pretty quickly after the first dose so I immediately quit taking them. It's been bad for like 4 days since but I think I'm starting to habituate.

How are you doing?

 

There is a LOT of evidence that weed will cause tinnitus flare ups, or even cause tinnitus. As always w/ any drug, this will affect some individuals more than others, and not necessarily everyone. Speaking from my own relatively recent experience w/ this:

Weed immediately made my existing tinnitus much louder. Fortunately, once the effect of the weed was over the tinnitus would settle down. But would it always do that? There was no way to know, and the risk vs any good effect was proportionately way out of balance. So I stopped vaping/smoking weed. Which improved my diet a lot, and helped my lungs and bank account.

Today's weed is not your mother's weed. It is artificially bred to greatly increase THC levels, so if you buy it from a dispensary, or anywhere for that matter, it's not like growing it in the yard. But the risk w/tinnitus is still the same, at least that was my experience w/ weed from my neighbor's backyard garden.