Low Steady Tinnitus for 15+ Years from Loud Music, Made Worse by COVID-19 Infection / Booster

Hi everyone, I am a fit 55-year old New Yorker and suffering from variable tinnitus.

I've had a low level steady tinnitus with hearing loss for 15+ years that didn't bother me much. This was caused by overexposure to loud music. I kind of accepted this as a hangover of so much fun at festivals (and not being wise enough to wear good earplugs, something I only started doing since the tinnitus started).

However, early 2022 I had COVID-19 (which was like a 5 days flu) and then 4 weeks later a booster. That's approximately when a much louder tinnitus started. Plus - it dominates in the left ear and it is rather variable, with sometimes a loud 'ping' that then dies away.

Like others have written, it is that variability that makes it so much harder to get used to, partly because you keep searching for the cause (COVID-19 infection, or booster, is just a hunch). Since I am a scientist, I started to keep a "loudness diary" over the last couple months to look for any sort of correlation but haven't found any I believe in. At one point I was hoping nightly jaw clenching or teeth grinding could be the cause but wearing a night guard doesn't change the variability so far. The fact that the tinnitus is sometimes at really low levels makes me hopeful, but then waking up again with loud tinnitus is depressing. The worst is that I enjoy listening to music less than before (especially relatively silent music).

My ENT doctor is understanding but wasn't able to help me beyond a useful audiogram documenting the hearing loss.

I find reports on this forum about alcohol and chocolate really interesting and will experiment with this. I would also like to join some clinical trials looking for causes and remedies because that would give me a positive focus, making the tinnitus a quest rather than a problem. The 'observer' attitude helps me a lot coping with it. I am hoping this experience may give 'fellow sufferers' another handle too.

 

Sorry to hear you've got this to deal with. It sounds like you have a good chance of reducing further damage or impact on your life by finding advice on this forum. Earplugs are a musician's friend, although we resist them at first. If I had used them more consistently when I first got signs of hearing damage, I would probably still be able to enjoy live music now.

On COVID-19 / boosters, I read a report that the NHS in the UK have received around twice as many cases of self-reported tinnitus following COVID-19 infection, compared to the vaccine. Both are a risk unfortunately, so as with many things it's a case of weighing up the lesser risks in life.

Do you find breathing exercises useful? I have variable multi-tonal tinnitus, but I find slow deep breaths help to settle the mid-range tones and also helps me get to sleep.

 

Thanks for reading and responding to my story! Likewise, I am sorry to read that your ability to enjoy music has been impacted as well. When I grew up earplugs were not even around, but even if they were, probably "not accepted" at the punk/metal concerts I attended... We thought we needed to be wild and cool right?

I have not yet considered breathing exercises, I did not know these could help. Thanks for your suggestion, I will look into this. In general I don't (yet) seem to be able to influence the tinnitus sound or loudness e.g., with jaw movements.

 

@Blom, nice to meet you, so to speak. You are a fairly similar story to me. Is your tinnitus bilateral?

I also am a science graduate. I'm afraid it's ingrained in our way of thinking to want to understand and find ways to bring things back to a healthy state. Not sure whether it helps or not?

Being a scientist, the question must be asked if having a vaccine against COVID-19 is necessary a month after recovering from COVID-19? Immunology would say not so!

In the current UK policy, AstraZeneca was pulled in July 2021 due to safety concerns.

All other vaccines for COVID-19 have been pulled for under 50s since February 2023.

 

Hi Blom, welcome to the forum no one wants to be a member of.

You said you had COVID-19 and then 4 weeks later a booster. I'm assuming having the booster means you'd already been jabbed at least once prior to getting COVID-19 and the subsequent worsening of your tinnitus?

It'd be good to know the exact timeline of your situation, especially if you're considering entering various trials regarding tinnitus causes/remedies.

 

Hi Nick, yes, the hearing loss and tinnitus are bilateral but my perception is that it dominates in the left ear. The left ear is also where I have the transient 'ping' sensations more frequently.

You are right that I may have taken the Moderna booster too soon (I think the advice is to wait 3 months). It was a requirement for international travel because my two vaccinations were "expired". Getting "proof of recovery" seemed more cumbersome and possibly not accepted anyway. I needed to do that trip badly... Perhaps that was a mistake and I've overdone vaccination? Unfortunately I don't remember exactly when I really started to notice the enhanced tinnitus.

 

They never should have been mandated, however that's another story. If you have hearing loss, have you tried hearing aids? You could do this in combination with sound therapy.

The transient pings are called fleeting tinnitus. I had them a couple of times a month for a minute or so. They have reduced now.

 

From what I understand, the COVID-19 virus keeps mutating, so what worked some time ago may not work now.

I have recently noticed my tinnitus volume steadily increasing after awakening too. It's as if the sound is coming from far inside a tunnel, then getting louder and louder by degrees. Almost as if the sound were getting nearer and nearer. What (if anything) this means, I don't know. Maybe it's due to becoming more and more awake from sound sleep, but I have no method to test that theory.

 

Since you can still get COVID-19 if you’re vaccinated, this statistic seems a bit nonsensical.

 

For me this is often overlooked. All the discussion centres around the risks, but few seem to centre around the efficacy. I've got friends who have had 3 vaccinations and are on their 2nd bout of COVID-19. So what's the logic now? Hope the 4th vaccination will work even though the first 3 didn't?

 

I tried looking for patterns, levels of loudness and what causes increases, dietary items etc. and I can find no correlation at all - my tinnitus seems to go up and down as it pleases.

 

I actually got tinnitus soon after my COVID-19 booster vaccine (Pfizer). Not sure if it was the exact cause because I don't remember the timeline. I already had fairly bad hearing damage before it anyway, but still.

My tinnitus has been fairly constant for a year and a half now with some variance and also lots of different pain in the ear which comes and goes in varying levels of pain.

Trying to remove stress from my life, eating right and exercising has helped me the most but those things are not easy when you can't sleep too well from the tinnitus.

Short term use of antidepressants is good. I have some Valium I have that I only use if it's really bad. It doesn't get rid of the noise but it stops me from being stressed out by it.

 

@UKBloke, indeed. I had two other vaccinations quite some time before the onset of the enhanced tinnitus. These vaccinations did not cause the enhanced tinnitus, I am sure of that at least.

I think COVID-19 itself is more likely to have caused it rather than the booster but unfortunately that's not something I know for sure because I used to have enhanced tinnitus after visiting a noisy restaurant as well. So initially I was not aware of having a more chronic enhanced tinnitus and it is still variable on top of that.

 

It's true we can't isolate exactly what was the cause of the tinnitus without knowing more about timings, cases with COVID-19 with or without the vaccine etc. But are you really suggesting that the vaccine could be more dangerous than full-blown COVID-19? Do you understand how vaccines work?

 

I would recommend seeing if you could get a medical exemption concerning additional boosters. If one already aggravated it and made it worse, there is no need to take more chances.

 

Sounds like they understand more of how vaccines worked* than you do.

The US literally changed the definition of a vaccine to let this medical procedure pass as one. It was also an EUA - which if you read up on the EUA laws regarding vaccines and treatments, they are supposed to be offered completely v o l u n t a r y during a time of emergency since by definition they have not gone through standard testing in order to be released early to the public for use, at their discretion, in the event of an emergency. Gardasil was also passed as an EUA vaccine.

I've got all my vaccinations but skipped the COVID-19 vaccines. No regrets there. It was just far too sketchy of circumstance and far too bizarre how they were harassing people to get it, coercing with loss of jobs, and attempting to entice with burgers, joints and lottery tickets.

I still haven't caught COVID-19 despite the white house wishing me dead over the Christmas holiday.

But my vaccinated friends and parents have had it multiple times. Very strange indeed.

Tinnitus is also listed as a known side effect for many vaccines including COVID-19.

 

I must have accidentally linked up to FOX News here! This is a tinnitus forum, why are you injecting all this nonsense here? We have an OFF TOPIC part of the forum for that.

 

The phenomenon you are describing is exactly what I and many other people on this website have experienced. I know because so many people have written about it in their profile updates or in discussion threads. (I will have to hunt around and try find some posts to document what I'm talking about. If I can find them, I'll update this post.)

Most mornings, when I start to wake up, I can barely hear my tinnitus at all, and I get excited, thinking that I've been miraculously cured overnight. Then as I wake up a little more, it gets louder and louder. By the time I'm 100% awake and alert and debating whether to get out of bed or lie there a little longer, the tinnitus has achieved its baseline volume.

It's always devastating when I realize that nothing has changed overnight. It's like my brain is a computer that considers my baseline level of tinnitus to be a standard part of its operating system, and when it boots up every morning it ensures that the tinnitus is fully loaded and ready to go. I wish I knew how to "uninstall" the tinnitus program and the bonus hyperacusis program that came along with it.

 

I never said the risk was greater, however, if I can get COVID-19 regardless of whether I am vaccinated, then why would I bother taking the risk of the vaccination? Just seems like common sense to me.

I’ve been really stressed about getting COVID-19. I’m not some hardcore anti-vaxer. It’s just that getting vaccinated is an additional risk I’ve not bothered with. But each to their own.

I only have a basic understanding of how the newer vaccinations work, not really a topic I’m massively interested in, so am by no means an expert.

 

You've said nothing scientific about vaccines but plenty that's political. Where are you getting your information - Fox News and Joe Rogan podcasts?

 

I apologise, I never meant to add to your stress. There are no guarantees in life, I just want to help people weigh up risks and benefits based on the science, not on political chatter.