How Can a Cigarette/Vaping Trigger Tinnitus? Help Me Understand the Cause of My Tinnitus

Hi everyone! I’m Denis, 27 years old. I live in Serbia. I want to understand the cause of my tinnitus.

Sometimes I went to clubs. I never noticed afterwards that it had any effect on the ears. No ringing or pain ever.

4 months ago I had a sore throat. I took the antibiotic Azithromycin for 3 days at 500 mg. The instructions say "On the part of the organ of hearing and labyrinthitis disorders: infrequently - hearing loss, vertigo; unknown frequency - hearing impairment up to deafness and / or tinnitus."

I did not notice any negative effects. Angina is gone. For a week after starting the Azithromycin, I did not consume any alcohol and I was not in noisy places.

Exactly one month after taking the Azithromycin, I smoked a cigarette in the evening after work and almost immediately there was ringing in my ears (I had not been to any noisy places, didn’t listen to any loud music or use headphones). I stopped smoking and, when I searched for “cigarette ringing”, I didn’t find anything interesting, so I listened to some music and went to bed.

The next day I did not smoke all day, but in the evening my friends and I had to go to a club. I lit a cigarette in the evening before going out and again the ringing suddenly began. This alarmed me very much, but my friends were already waiting. I drank some alcohol and went to the club. In the club I drank and smoked a lot. I went home in the morning. There was no ringing before going to bed. I woke up with a hangover - everything was fine. I sat down to work at the laptop. I took a vape, took a drag - the ringing started again. I stopped working. I started reading a lot.

That same night I began to take high doses of Prednisone from 250 mg per day. The next day I went to an audiologist, a 40 dB hearing loss was measured at 8 kHz, otherwise the hearing is excellent. I started taking Betaserc and Milgamma the next day too.

Can anyone explain how a cigarette/vape triggered tinnitus 3 times in a row? I haven’t been able to find a similar story.

 

Hi Denis, it's unlikely that the hearing damage is from the Azithromycin you shortly took.

Can you post your hearing levels from the audiogram up to 6 kHz? It's unlikely that you have such high thresholds in 8 kHz, and up to that everything is in normal range (up to 10 dB).

 

That doesn't mean anything. Your ears could have still been quietly damaged over time and then at some point you went over the threshold and the tinnitus began.

Smoking causes blood vessels to constrict. It could have been the final trigger.

 

Hi @Denis G -- It seems pretty clear (to me) that it would be best for you to quit the smoking--and never begin again. Once ears are injured to the point of bringing on tinnitus, they will be forever vulnerable afterwards. Playing around with smoking appears to be a big risk factor for you. -- Take care!