Tinnitus Got Much Worse After Catching Coronavirus and the Resulting Increased Anxiety

Hello everyone!

My name is Guillaume, I’m 23 years old and live in France. I’ve had tinnitus since February. I also have another condition called Visual snow.

I was in Manchester for an internship and was kinda stressed out most of the time. One day I woke up and I had a ringing in my ear. At first my tinnitus was quite mild and I was able to mask it with white noise or crickets.

However, after the COVID-19 outbreak I had to go back home in a hurry and experienced even more stress. I was happy to be back and my tinnitus seemed to have disappeared, but unfortunately caught the Coronavirus. I’ve always been an extremely anxious person and this was the last straw for me. My anxiety level began to rise to the point where all my muscles were shaking.

I eventually got cured but that anxiety, or the muscle contractions triggered a spike in my tinnitus. It is now very loud and reactive to noise. Whenever I use white noise the tinnitus rises above it. I literally can’t mask it and it’s making my life miserable. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. All my muscles hurt. I feel like I’m watching a movie of my life. I don’t know what to do. I’m scared that things will never get better.

My mother is convinced that if I treat my anxiety it will eventually go away but I don’t believe that.

I’m scared and I feel alone. I used to be happy and I am almost finished with university but I’m afraid that this will ruin everything and that I won’t be able to go out again. Normal sounds don’t bother me, and I can listen to the TV. But electronic sounds make my tinnitus rises. However these sounds do not hurt me, they just prevent me from sleeping.

I’m sorry, this post is very negative but that has been my mindset for two weeks and I need some positivity and support in my life right now from people who understand. I’m scared shitless.

Thanks for taking the time to read me.

 

Hey pal, I'm glad you got over the coronavirus hahaha me and my family haven't left the house and have been getting our groceries delivered for weeks! I have also had tinnitus since mid February and mid January I started developing a bunch of weird health issues and I was in the hospital for 4 days. After that I was borderline bedridden for around a month and I also had a day where it seemed like I was having flashbacks of different points of my life so I thought it was interesting that you mentioned that.

I'll leave out the details but after they sent me home I was extremely anxious for a while. What helped me regarding the anxiety was just sort of "not caring" or worrying anymore because right now there's nothing I can do about it because of quarantine so there's no use in worrying about it. I know it's easier said than done! I lost many pounds at first and I couldn't sleep either (before the tinnitus). I think exercise (just walking outside) will help too.

At first my tinnitus was hell level (and I just randomly woke up with it one day without exposure to loud noise or medications) but I decided there's a reason for everything so there has to be SOMETHING I can do about it. I was prescribed Klonopin (a benzo class medication) and after testing it 3 times, I noticed that within 30 minutes of taking it each time the tinnitus would significantly diminish. I thought this was odd so I read about its chemical mechanism and benzo class drugs bind to GABA receptors in your brain and GABA is a calming neurotransmitter that's supposed to balance out Glutamate, which is an "excitatory" neurotransmitter.

I read that chronic stress could cause excess Glutamate and what do you know- the past year of my life has been the most stressful one and I'm confident that all the stress led to my health issues.

At this point I'd say my tinnitus is like a 2 or 2.5/10 level while the hell period was like a 9/10 and I literally had to use the drug some days to fall asleep. I expect it to be completely gone in a month or two hopefully.

I do believe that anxiety and stress are closely related so reducing anxiety would help (it helped in my case) and other things I've done are change my diet very specifically, take certain supplements, and ceased sexual activity (this is absolutely not a joke and I'm not sure how it's related but this may be the most important thing in my case).

Diet wise will probably not be easy for the average person but I already didn't drink alcohol, don't drink coffee or other stimulants, and don't drink caffeine/coke and stuff. For half my life I've just drank water 95% of the time. On top of this I eliminated as many foods as I could with large/moderate amounts of Glutamate as well as dairy/high sugar. Pretty much I've just been eating organic meat (besides turkey) , vegetables (besides broccoli and mushrooms), fruit (not a ton though), nuts (besides walnuts, peanuts, and cashews), and I actually didn't eliminate carbs but just payed attention to what had a lot of glutamate/MSG.

By the way, my dad said he had tinnitus for 20 years but after he started a diet called the AIP diet, it went away after a few months (although it came back later on).

Supplements I've taken include magnesium glycinate (anti inflammatory/pro GABA), zinc (anti inflammatory), vitamin C (antioxidant), a B12 complex (nerve support/studies have shown B12 deficiency related to tinnitus in some cases), NAC (helps production of glutathione which is the "master antioxidant" and helps regulate Glutamate), L-carnitine (honestly I'd have to read more about this one but there was a study done where a 41 year old woman took two 500mg doses every day for a month and her hearing loss improved as well as tinnitus + it's supposed to be synergistic with NAC), and Omega 3 fish oils.

Lastly, once again this is not a joke and I tested it 5 times- my tinnitus would slowly increase for 4/5 days after sexual activity and then taper off again. After I stopped, I no longer had any super spikes. My theory on why this might be is that my drive tends to skyrocket when I'm stressed, which I don't think is normal for most people. So maybe some neural pathways in my brain tie sexual activity and stress together in a peculiar way. Also when you finish the job, your brain pretty much goes crazy and all sorts of chemicals are released lol.

By the way I'm 25 and I was in my final semester of my masters degree this semester before having to drop my classes because of health issues (not tinnitus) and even when I thought I was dying I still didn't want to drop my classes hahaha so I know how that feels. I can finish up over the summer though since coronavirus made all classes online!

Take it easy and I believe you'll be okay!

-Jacob

 

I have not been tested, but I live in NYC and believe that I had Covid-19, about six weeks ago but I didn't think it was covid, at the time because the symptoms I had were not yet known as being due to this corona-virus.

Tinnitus is an extremely common condition and the reason you don't hear too much about it, is because most people who have it, are not bothered very much by it, after a period of time. There's a very good chance that your's will fade, as you're very new to it. The most important thing, is to take care of your hearing, because severe tinnitus is a different ball of wax, compared to mild and moderate forms of it. There are some videos and other educational resources for help in learning how to cope with tinnitus, which you may want to explore.

 

Don't write this off too easily. Of course there is no guarantee if your cause is unknown, but many cases of tinnitus have a strong relationship with anxiety. A direct link here is in the neck muscles: they tense up when people are anxious, and strained muscles are known to result in tinnitus. My tinnitus is a result from neck trauma, and getting it treated resulted in a massive reduction within two months.

Do not just assume it will fix things (definitely not instantly), but taking care of the anxiety will pay off if there is a relationship there.

 

Were you tested for Coronavirus?

 

I second this. Like Tybs I suffered neck trauma (whiplash) which caused some issues right after the fall, but tinnitus started about 2.5 weeks in... right after extreme anxiety/stress for a few days. Worse than I've ever had in my life, and I'm a lifelong sufferer of an anxiety disorder.

So, try to take it easy, practice good posture, do some careful neck exercises, and do your best to stay calm. I hope you'll turn out all right, but please do give it time.

 

@laetaell How are you doing now?