Thousands of people have reported developing tinnitus after getting the COVID vaccine. Although there is no clinical proof of a relationship, researchers are proposing theories that may establish a link.
Shaowen Bao, an associate professor in the physiology department of the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona, Tucson believes inflammation, mostly in the brain or spinal cord, may be responsible for the condition.
Bao is a representative of the American Tinnitus Association scientific advisory board and a long-time tinnitus sufferer. He has studied the condition for over a decade.
A Facebook group comprised of people who developed tinnitus after getting the COVID vaccine asked Bao to research to determine a possible relationship. He complied by surveying 398 of the group members.
The participants reported experiencing a range of symptoms including ringing in their ears, vertigo, ear pain, anxiety, and depression.
More people developed tinnitus after their first dose of the vaccine as compared to the second dose. Bao believes this suggests that the vaccine is “interacting with pre-existing risk factors for tinnitus. If you have the risk factor, you will probably get it from the first dose,” he said.
Action Against the CDC
As of last week, 16,183 people have filed complaints with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stating that they developed tinnitus after receiving the COVID vaccine.
After internally reviewing reports, the agency “did not find any data suggesting a link between COVID-19 vaccines and tinnitus,” an agency spokesperson stated.
However, the CDC did not make the results of its study public as it did when researching other vaccine side effects such as myocarditis (heart inflammation).
This is frustrating to Dr. Gregory Poland, vaccine expert, and founder and director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group in Rochester, MN. Poland also developed tinnitus after his COVID vaccinations. He feels the CDC is “unconcerned” about the tinnitus reports.
Poland has spoken publicly about his condition and how it has affected his life. He receives emails from strangers “almost daily” recounting their struggles with COVID vaccine-related tinnitus.
What is Tinnitus?
Tinnitus is a phantom noise that develops in a person’s ear that no one else can hear. It is often a ringing sound, but it can also sound like pulsebeats or ‘whooshing’.
The condition can be caused by various factors including medications, age-related hearing loss, ear infections, certain medications, and high blood pressure. The CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System has received reports of tinnitus after other vaccines, and because of infections including the COVID virus.
A study published last fall found that there is a low risk of developing tinnitus after the COVID vaccine, but that doesn’t mean it’s nonexistent.
Poland believes the virus’s spike protein may play a role in tinnitus development.
“After mRNA vaccines, there is some level of spike protein that circulates,” Poland says. Like the spike protein that causes myocarditis, it may produce a similar reaction in the inner ear.
More studies are being conducted to establish a connection.