Tinnitus and Visual Symptoms: A Definitive and Evident Correlation

Guys, I’m 22 years old, I had my acoustic trauma in June 2019 and developed tinnitus since that day. Before that, floaters never bothered me and I can’t even remember clearly seeing them when I was a kid. In October/November I started seeing them when it’s a sunny day, but they were not bothersome and I forget about them when I returned inside. March 2020, nothing changed, until one day, I went out on a sunny day and I started seeing them more clearly. Since that day, they became huge, I can see them everywhere, it’s a nightmare when I go out, some of them become bright and flashy, some of them seems huge cause they’re really close to the retina. Went to an optometrist and an ophthalmologist, nothing to declare in my eyes. I thought after that I just had more vitreous floaters than average.

Despite floaters, I started seeing very mild visual phenomena like after images and higher sensitivity to light. The snow is only present at night but I don’t think it’s a new thing and it doesn’t affect my vision. So my researches began, trying to know if my tinnitus is somehow responsible of this visual phenomena, the results left no doubt, THERE ARE SO MANY CASES OF PEOPLE EXPERIENCING BOTH TINNITUS AND VISUAL PHENOMENA, not only in Tinnitus Talk, French forums, VSS forums, etc. Generally, people started seeing them months after getting tinnitus, the link is obvious and this huge number of similar stories CAN’T BE A COINCIDENCE. I think that all of these symptoms are linked: Tinnitus, VSS and visual disturbances like floaters. The theory of tinnitus changing something in the brain that was filtering these visual phenomena seems logical. Even people who got floaters before tinnitus, probably the same neurological problem is happening.

Visual snow syndrome research showed regions in the brain not functioning in a normal way for Visual snow patients (knowing that tinnitus is one of the common symptoms of this syndrome). All of this are linked, we just need to fund the right people to find the answer, and maybe, I hope, a cure. Visual Snow Initiative is doing really great job in terms of awareness and research, but they need so much funding to accelerate things, I think that we can all work together for this, even people that only have tinnitus, because probably the same problem is happening in the brain, it just didn’t reach the visual cortex.

 

Yep. I didn't have VS until my tinnitus worsened. My tinnitus has faded a bit since then, though. And thankfully my VS isn't really a problem unless I'm in dark interiors.