Thousands of Covid vaccine recipients have reported persistent ringing in their ears after being vaccinated and scientists are still studying the link.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim the data doesn’t support a link between the vaccines and the condition known as tinnitus, but the problem is persistent and widespread enough to deserve more attention.
Over 16,000 vaccinators in the US have reported some form of tinnitus after vaccination, while a Facebook support group called Tinnitus and Hearing Loss/Disability Post COVID Vaccine has gained 4,000 members.
The risk would be small even if there was a link, given that 675 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the United States, according to the CDC.
The occurrence of tinnitus after vaccination is not unknown and has been reported after influenza vaccinations. Most of the time it sounds like a continuous ringing, hissing, roaring or screeching at low or high volume
Tinnitus is a very common condition, affecting up to a quarter of American adults
dr Shaowen Bao, a neurophysiologist at the University of Arizona, Tucson’s College of Medicine and a longtime tinnitus sufferer, set out to investigate the link by surveying nearly 400 members of the Facebook tinnitus group.
While the ringing-in-ear complaints may sound superficially like anti-vaccination propaganda, the Facebook, which Dr. Bao has gleaned from his sample that it is “pro-vaccine” and parrots no anti-vax sentiments like claims shots cause numbness.
Many of those affected reported other symptoms, including dizziness and lightheadedness after their shots.
This, according to Dr. Bao, suggests “that the vaccine interacts with pre-existing risk factors for tinnitus. If you have the risk factor, you will probably get it from the first dose.’
Tinnitus after vaccination, most often after the first vaccination, could be caused by inflammation in the brain or spinal cord, said Dr. bao
dr Bao said: “Vaccination is an immune response; it could cause inflammation – peripheral inflammation – and peripheral inflammation could affect the brain, where the tinnitus is triggered.
Tinnitus is a common condition that affects up to 25 percent of American adults.
Patients report a phantom noise in the ear, which can be both mild and extremely disruptive to daily life.
It may sound like a continuous ringing, hissing, roaring, or screeching at low or high volume.
dr Bao found that the tinnitus was severe in many cases, including one man who experienced ringing so persistent that he could no longer hear his radio.
The unpublished study is one of a few studies examining the link between vaccinations and tinnitus.
A 2022 study published in the journal Laryngoscope found that the risk of developing tinnitus after the first dose of the Covid vaccine was low – and indeed the risk was higher after receiving other vaccines such as the flu shot. But just because the risk is low doesn’t mean it’s zero.
dr Gregory Poland, founder and director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group in Rochester, Minnesota, has detailed his ordeal with tinnitus after receiving his Covid vaccines, telling NBC News last year that he thought the sudden noise was “a dog whistle, which starts right next to me.’
A lack of CDC-approved research on the poorly understood after-effects of vaccinations has affected sufferers like Dr. Poland, who said the leading health authority was “not concerned” about the reports.
The true total number of people with tinnitus linked to a Covid vaccine is murky at best. In addition to the Facebook group of 4,000 people, the CDC’s voluntary reporting database contains at least 16,000 entries of people who have had tinnitus at some point after vaccination.
The times of onset vary, with some sufferers saying the ringing started 36 hours after vaccination while others said around a month.
Some sufferers experienced tinnitus after the second vaccination, but most after the first.
The effect can also be a product of long Covid or the ongoing symptoms even after recovering from the disease. The most commonly reported among them are fatigue and brain fog, but Yale University researchers have started enrolling participants in a study of long-term Covid symptoms that includes tinnitus.
dr Harlan Krumholz, a Yale University medical professor and longtime Covid clinical researcher, said the tinnitus could be caused by internal vibrations in the ear.
Researchers have not found a cause for tinnitus in general, although various theories exist. A team from Stanford University’s Medicine Molecular Neurotology Laboratory suggested that forms of tinnitus reflect damage to the inner ear.
dr Konstantina Stankovic, an inner ear expert and head and neck surgeon at Stanford, said the brain tries to compensate for the damage in the inner ear “and starts making its own sounds.”
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