Poll: Do You Think Stress Can Lead to Hearing Loss and Tinnitus?

I found an interesting article on the web here about stress and hearing loss:

https://myhearingcenters.com/blog/stress-could-lead-to-hearing-loss/

In it, it says:

"The fragile hair cells in the inner ear rely on a steady stream of blood to receive sufficient oxygen and other nutrients. However, stress disturbs blood circulation throughout the body. When your body responds to stress, the overproduction of adrenaline reduces blood flow to the ears, affecting hearing. Without a constant blood flow, the ear cells are damaged or even destroyed. It can even cause immediate hearing loss if you become so stressed that blood flow to the ears is stopped entirely."

Do you agree with that? I remember getting tinnitus when I was really stressed but I also was taking medication at the time which I think caused it but perhaps it could have been a combination of the two. Another time years ago, I had a long period of normal tinnitus, got stressed temporarily and it went up. After I calmed down it went back down.

Does anyone else have a story to share if this happened to you?

 

Then everyone would have tinnitus if that was the case.

 

For me the cause sure was stress.

 

Stress can definitely exacerbate tinnitus!

 

Excuse me commenting, but you're telling me your cause was stress when you live in one of the nosiest cities on the planet, New York City. Really?

 

I live in a quiet place but the issue is the work environment in NYC, crazy city, everybody runs 100 miles per hour all the time.

I knew stress can do a lot of damage but never thought something like tinnitus. I hope it will go away with time.

 

You are right @NYCGuy, stress can cause tinnitus. Once it reduces and there are various ways this can be achieved, the tinnitus should improve and eventually go away. However, I think you should consider a few things to make sure stress did cause the onset of tinnitus.

One of the most common causes of tinnitus is exposure to loud noise and typically, it is listening to audio through headphones at too high a volume often without realizing it. If at any time you were a regular user of headphones, earbuds, AirPods, headset, bone conduction or noise cancelling headphones, then it's likely any of these devices caused the tinnitus and not stress. Similarly, if you worked in a noisy environment, or listened to loud music at home or in the car. Went to concerts or clubs where loud music was played regularly, any of these could be responsible for the onset of your tinnitus.

If you haven't had your hearing tested at ENT yet, then I think it's a good idea that you do.

All the best,
Michael

New to Tinnitus, What to Do? | Tinnitus Talk Support Forum
Tinnitus, A Personal View | Tinnitus Talk Support Forum

 

For me, stress has always exacerbated my tinnitus, but not caused it. Stress can do many things, effect many parts of the body, even kill. If they can make medications for "imbalances" in the brain, then I don't understand why they can't just make a medication to calm the firing neurons from the damage rather than use antidepressants to suppress people's reactions to the noise.