Can Prolonged Stress and Lack of Sleep Make Your Tinnitus Permanently Worse?

Hello,

Unfortunately me and my wife are going through some rough times and we are probably going to divorce shortly.

Of course this comes with a lot of stress, guilt and feelings of doubt, I barely slept for 2 nights and have not eaten very well and started to pretty much chain smoke, it's not a good time for either of us.

Now I noticed my tinnitus is also a lot worse, the upside from this whole mess is that even though my tinnitus is going through the roof, I don't care about it as I got a lot of other things to worry and think about,

Can prolonged stress and lack of sleep make someone's tinnitus permanently worse?

 

Oh my heavens yes. First off, I am so sorry to hear of your marital problems.
Stress, lack of sleep and being tired all makes my tinnitus much worse. I feel like I carry a lot of stress in my head. When I relax and get good sleep and eat better, it's still here but not as loud. I have had mine now for 3 yrs and still have days where it gets me down. But praise God I get thru.. hope yours improves as you try to work out yr marriage..you can do it..it's hard but you can persevere!

 

Stress and lack of sleep will surely make tinnitus worse in my experience, but it is temporary, and improved when caught up with sleep. Tinnitus for many of us bounces around quite a bit.

 

Spot on.

 

A year ago I had an awesomely busy two months, working 12-14 hours a day 7 days a week in full concentration. Near the end I developed an ultra high pitch sound. However once the period ended and I got rest, the sound went away.

Based on this experience, I agree with the previous posters - stress and fatigue can definitely worsen T, even cause new sounds, but these seem temporary.

However please do what you can to stay well-rested. I think this is an excellent time for short-term sleep aids. A few weeks on Ambien/mirtazapine/whatever and decent sleep is much better than constant fatigue and sleeplessness.

 

Stress is perception involving hormones, cortisol and adrenaline, but what matters with tinnitus is how the body responds -metabolism, muscles, joints and digestive. Quick changes in circulation and heartbeat known as being hypertense is more concerning as that can spike tinnitus.

Fear can change personality for anyone and it's hard to place this into psychology content.
I'm sorry Bart.