Hyperacusis/Tinnitus Caused by Excessive Dopamine from Watching Porn

Hey there guys. I have been following Tinnitus Talk for quite a while and used to post from another account which was linked to my Facebook but I lost that one. I have posted a couple of threads about my severe hyperacusis, that made me very sensitive to sound and made a lot of sounds perceived as a sharp high pitch.

Fast forward a lot of years and I have improved greatly. I have done everything that I can do to calm my nerve system, including avoiding coffee and taking calming herbal solutions like chamomile tea and such. I also take magnesium, well, you know the list.

I've come to realize that the cause of my tinnitus has been excessive dopamine which caused an overly tense face whenever I would watch porn, for example. Something which I sort quit but I have my weak moments, like yesterday. Just one day of this excessive dopamine and I feel my ear tightening up again with a clogged feeling as a result, something I thought was caused by something else but it's actually the tension which is causing it. My jaw is tight, my left eye and temple hurts. This all happened after getting excessive amount of dopamine again.

I am quite sure my porn watching addiction or excessive dopamine (+coffee) has caused my tinnitus and hyperacusis. It is not a healthy tension I get after. I feel like I have been stressing myself a lot with these habits through years and years. I had a porn and masturbation addiction from age 11 till 27. I am now 31 years old.

So this has been my finding based on my experience, and I am quite sure this is the cause. Can anyone else relate?

 

Hi Djadje, great to hear you've made improvements.

Armchair doctor, but allow me to give my take on this.

What do you mean by "excessive dopamine"? Are you sure the issue is dopamine itself and not some physiological issue like increased heart rate or vasoconstriction? Do you still experience these symptoms when you are masturbating without porn or having sex?

Maybe there is a deeper health issue at hand here which needs to be addressed.

 

I'm not sure if and how you can blame it to masturbation and "excessive dopamine". There are loads of activities that release dopamine. Exercising, having sex, listening to music, getting out in the sunlight etc, all release dopamine. Have you had the same symptoms with sex, for example, too? Because masturbation is surely a far gentler (usually) activity for the body than sex in terms of chemicals releasing and body straining.

I think the problem might be more in constricting blood vessels or tightening the muscles around the ear? Surely some stuff gets pressure in there and maybe there are more mechanisms happening all around the body that I don't know of, but I don't think it's documented that sexual activities affect tinnitus negatively. Except if there is some other pathology? I don't know.

 

Do you get these same symptoms when you work out or strain ingeneral?

 

I think it's hard to say with any confidence this is dopamine related, but a useful way to confirm this suspicion would be to take a dopamine-enhancing drug and see if you get the same symptoms (not that this is something I recommend). I am more inclined to agree with others here that this could be a vascular issue as opposed to a neurotransmitter issue.

Out of interest, do you get any vestibular effects as well? That could be useful to know.

 

I'm having the same problem. Everytime I now have an orgasm, my tinnitus spikes and doesn't seem to go down. Like two nights ago when I had an orgasm, I could hear the spike right after; loud thumping, high-pitched ringing. It hasn't gone down and I'm worried. Someone said it relates to the sympathetic system. Which I think might be it along with blood pressure and veins constricting or something like that.

 

Embrace the NoFap movement.

 

Repetitive moment accompanied with bad neck posture is probably messing up your jaw and ear... maybe shoulder too. You should probably visit a physio and have your posture assessed.