Tinnitus After Smoking a Joint — Fears, Doubts and Outlook for the Future

Hello Everyone,

Pleased to meet you all.

For my first post here, I wanted to share my experience with tinnitus and get some feedback from like-minded people, so thanks in advance to everyone who reads through my ensuing ramblings.

To start off, it's important to mention that I've been an avid weed smoker for 10+ years.

Never had a problem with weed and it's been my go-to recreational drug. A joint and a beer in nature, or while watching a movie/playing video games has always been a good time.

Fast forward to this year, where I had COVID-19 for the second time in my life in June. Once I got cured, there were some symptoms that were lingering - chills in my back and after some time a mild paresthesia on the left side of my face.

This started worrying me and I thought it was neurological and connected to my weed smoking habit, so I cut down on it, which wasn't easy, as I was very used to it - it was pretty much like smoking cigarettes. To put things into perspective, my monthly consumption was about 10+ grams.

After a few weeks of abstaining, I had a friend over to watch some anime with and was like "what the heck, a bit won't hurt, so we can both enjoy ourselves".

All was seemingly good, until he left and I decided to finish the leftover joint.

I had quite a bad trip and had a severe ringing in my left ear, I felt like I was having a stroke, so I kind of panicked, but at the same time, tried to remain calm and went into the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face.

This helped me snap out of it a bit and by that point the ringing in my left ear had stopped. I've also had this kind of ringing before and to my knowledge it's common when a blood vessel pops or something similar happens, but due to being high at the time, I feared it would not go away - thankfully, it did.

This was a warning sign I sadly ignored and while my weed consumption dropped, I wasn't ready to quit cold turkey.

I even had a trip to the Netherlands with some friends and smoked quite a lot there - nothing bad really happened, except my paresthesia acting up a bit more.

Then, in August, I was out in the woods and wanted to enjoy a beer and a joint as usual, but after a couple of hits, started feeling really bad. It was incredibly hot outside, so I thought I had a heat stroke or something.

The next few weeks were really weird, because I felt dizzy and had very little energy - I was freaking out that I had some sort of stroke due to the weed affecting my nervous system, so I made an appointment with a neurologist.

After a full examination, he told me I was completely healthy and that the symptoms I've reported were very uncommon - he thought it was some kind of post-COVID-19 syndrome and the official diagnosis was chronic fatigue syndrome or long COVID-19.

I even had an MRI on my head and it came out completely clean, even after all my years of smoking weed.

A month or so passed and I gradually started feeling better and started reintroducing weed to my system - each time though it did not make me feel good and didn't have the desired effects - it made my neurological symptoms worse.

I stopped again for a while and one night I was at a friend's house with some company, watching a movie and a joint was passed around, so I took a few hits and this time it was like the good old times, had a generally great experience, so I was happy.

I started smoking on my own again, but a lot less frequently and it was okayish, I also started feeling better overall, things were looking up.

Though at the time, I started being generally very concerned about my health and had all sorts of tests done - this is coming from a guy who rarely visited the doctor's office for anything. The experience back in August really messed me up, haha.

And this is where tinnitus comes in, one of the times I was smoking a joint in the park, I had a feeling that I was hearing some noises. I put my hands on my ears and I was still hearing them, so this freaked me out a bit. I got home and everything seemed good afterwards though.

I took a break for a week or two again and then did something quite stupid. On a weekend when I went to have some blood tests done for my thyroid gland's hormone levels and diabetes, I decided it would be a good idea to smoke a joint after I got home and had a proper meal. Note that for this test, I had blood drawn two times in a single day and this had to be done on an empty stomach.

After the blood tests I was feeling okay though and after I put some food in me, I thought I'd reward myself with some smoking - at first it was all good, then the weather became sunny and nice, so I went to the local park to finish my joint.

This is when the ringing in my ears returned and it kind of hasn't gone away since - this was near the end of September. My ears also felt (and continue to feel that way for that matter) clogged, but not in the usual sense, as I was perceiving sound normally, they just felt (and feel) stuffed, for lack of a better word.

I stopped smoking again and went to an ENT doctor. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have a lot of professionals that understand tinnitus in my country and the ENT doctor was generally dismissive. I had some built in earwax in my right ear, so he thought this was the main culprit. After cleaning it thoroughly, nothing really changed, so he prescribed Tebokan (Ginkgo biloba), which I am still on today.

Initially my tinnitus condition really freaked me out, especially after reading so much about it online and finding out there is no known cure. It's important to mention that I also enjoy going to concerts and generally listen to music loud on my earphones, though I have been trying to be more cautions in the last few years overall.

The first couple of weeks with tinnitus were stressful, I had trouble seeping and at times my tinnitus was quite loud - though looking back, I think it was the initial shock of having a sound in my ears.

At first I thought I had tinnitus in both of my ears, but it might've been in my right one to begin with, which is where I feel it now predominantly.

I stopped seeing the ENT doctor and went to have an audiometry, where it was found out I had some hearing loss in my left ear, otherwise my ears were anatomically healthy.

I then went to another ENT and otoneurologist specialist and she confirmed the hearing loss in my left ear, but also stressed me the F up, because she told me to have another MRI, this time with contrast. Her potential diagnosis was otosclerosis.

I'm a guy who has an irrational fear of needles, so an MRI with contrast sounded like a nightmare. The doctor herself was quite rude and unpleasant so I decided to seek a third opinion, so to say.

I went to another otoneurologist, who thought the previous doctor's diagnosis was harsh, based on my previous MRI in August and overall symptoms. His diagnosis was an ischemic stroke of some sort, which made sense to me, based on what I experienced some of the times when smoking weed recently. In his opinion though, the stroke was induced by noise, hence the hearing loss.

I've been on Piracetam, Betaserc and Citizin for the last month, while still taking Tebokan.

Can't say there's been much of a change, but I believe I've definitely habituated to my tinnitus more or less, it doesn't freak me out anymore and it is varying. Very rarely it almost feels like it's almost gone, but it lingers never the less.

It feels like s wheezing sound in the background with a tone on top that can vary in volume. When the volume is low, it almost sounds like a vacuum cleaner, hah. Generally, the volume is lower during the day and increases near my bed time.

Interestingly, the last doctor I saw also told me I should never listen to music on headphones again, but would be okay going to concerts with hearing protection, as long as I don't stay near the speakers, which really doesn't make sense to me, but in any case, ever since September I've very rarely used headphones indeed.

To that end, I did go to a concert recently (with hearing protection) and expected my tinnitus to spike a lot after, even smoked weed before the event and surprisingly, the next day my tinnitus was very quiet.

I have found out that smoking weed definitely spikes it in general though, so I am careful with that, while also being worried that it can suddenly make it worse overall without it reverting back to the levels I am used to, as I've seen similar stories online and on this forum as well.

Another thing that's funny is that while I have confirmed hearing loss, since I've had tinnitus, I've been more aware of surrounding sounds, but I guess this is because I'm focusing on the tinnitus itself and often mistaking external sounds for it or vice versa.

In any case, I hope it doesn't get worse and that I can still occasionally enjoy some weed - I know I probably sound like an addict, but I am really used to using it recreationally and am happy that I've significantly cut it down. If I have to, I might stop entirely as well, but for now I'm erring on the side of caution, I guess.

So, this is where I'm at - quite a rollercoaster this summer has been for sure.

I still don't know where my tinnitus came from. My theory is that smoking weed made me realize I had it and it was there for a while, I don't feel it was induced or triggered by the THC intake, but anything is possible, I guess. Perhaps the fact that I had blood drawn two times on the fateful day also had something to do with it.

As I'm writing this, I feel like there's a very light sound in my left ear as well now, which differs from the one in my right ear - fun stuff. Tinnitus sure is wild.

Anyway, I would love to hear other people's takes on my experience, feedback, advice, questions - anything goes.

I've seen that there have been some breakthroughs in research recently, so here's also hoping that a couple of years down the line, we will know more about this bizarre condition and how to treat it better!

Wishing everyone sound health!

 

If you don't stop with weed, you may give yourself HPPD in the future. Look up what that is.

Your tinnitus definitely came from weed, don't look for any other causes, you mess with serotonin, you get tinnitus and HPPR. There are some people here who got tinnitus from weed.

Up to you to stop or go on with smoking weed at this point but if you want a chance at recovery, you stop weed now and never smoke again.

Good luck.

 

Hey @BB23, thank you very much for your input, I really do appreciate it.

Considering my long exposure to weed and my experience from this summer, it definitely may have something to do with it.

Honestly, I think it's a combination of the hearing loss I've already had, plus the health/neurological symptoms that also got exacerbated potentially by my THC intake.

I feel like smoking might have triggered it or made me realize I've had it for a while already.

It's really hard to tell and know for sure though, it varies from person to person and research is all over the place as well it seems (at least about marijuana).

One thing is for sure though, I'll never get back to my old habits of smoking weed, might not even smoke alone ever again, as I tend to get paranoid, which only happened extremely rarely before.

I'll limit it to a couple of hits with friends very occasionally for the time being and look into quitting completely down the line most probably.

I realize this is probably the addiction talking and I am gradually trying to convince myself to limit my THC intake more and more.

I would be interested to hear from other Tinnitus Talk members, who have tinnitus and smoke/smoked weed.

 

From your story, I would quit smoking. It's not worth the damage.