Imagine that the “eeeeeeee” sound sounds in your ear or ears. This is what tinnitus can look like. And with a Facebook organization called “Tinnitus and Hearing Loss/Impairment After COVID Vaccination” that has more than 3,9,000 members, one question that has caught people’s attention in recent years is whether tinnitus can be a side effect of COVID-19. 19 vaccines.
Tinnitus is the sensation of ringing or other noises in one or any of your ears, assuming you have no more than two ears. Tinnitus occurs particularly when there is no external sound that others can hear. So, the status next to an answering machine that helps keep repeating “leave a message after the beeeeeeeeee” or a user who constantly yells “eeeeeeee Tinnitus is not an unusual problem, in general, affecting about 15 to 20 percent of people, according to the Mayo Clinic.
A PubMed search for “tinnitus” and “covid-19 vaccine” returns a handful of case reports, studies, and literature reviews, such as the one published in the Annals of Medicine and Surgery in March 2022 and a few others published in the European Review. Pharmaceutical and Medical Sciences in June 2022. One of the studies is a review of medical records from an otology and otolaryngology practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, conducted by Doris LinArray MD and Anne Morgan Selleck, MD, both are assistant professors of otolaryngology. They published this study in the American Journal of Otolaryngology, a respectable peer-reviewed journal that focuses on, you guessed it, otolaryngology, which is the medical specialty that covers the ears, nose, and throat. This chart review found that of 1,254 patients, 16 patients had tinnitus after the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 mRNA vaccine, seven after receiving the Moderna Covid-19 mRNA vaccine, and 4 patients after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 mRNA vaccine. janssen. These are not massive numbers and the publication said that “a correlation cannot be shown with this hindsight examination with so few cases. ” So essentially you can say “little” about the effects of this test.
Another similar study conducted at an ENT clinic in New York-Presthroughterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center through Stephen Leong, Bing M. Teh, MBBS and Ana H. Kim, MD, the latter of whom is an associate professor at Columbia. This study also published in the American Journal of Otolaryngology. The study team found that of 500 patients evaluated, 61 patients (14. 5%) reported one or more symptoms related to hearing or hearing within 4 weeks of vaccination, adding 21 (5. 0%) with hearing loss, 26 (6. 2%) with tinnitus, 33 (7. 9%) with dizziness, and 19 (4. 5%) with dizziness. Now, the frequency of patients reporting hearing loss is comparable to that of the general population, so it’s not entirely transparent how many of those cases may be due in particular to covid-19 vaccination. If he said “little” to the examination of 1254 patients, the same would apply to this examination of 500 patients.
That’s why it’s not very unexpected that the CDC has indicated that there’s no evidence detailing a link between covid-19 vaccines and tinnitus, as NBC News’ Erika Edwards reported here:
But, and this is a big but we can’t lie, the fact that studies so far haven’t shown a transparent correlation between covid-19 vaccination and tinnitus doesn’t necessarily mean there’s rarely a link. Studies to date have been limited. Experiences in one or a few clinics are not enough to rule out an imaginable correlation. It can be like going out into your garden, not noticing any rhinos and then concluding that rhinos don’t exist. Instead, firmer conclusions can only be drawn after something has been studied in a wider swath of the population. Also, you can’t just dismiss reports from other people who insist they developed tinnitus after the covid-19 vaccine like, “Oh, you’re just hearing stuff. “
In fact, it is not unimaginable that vaccination against covid-19 can cause tinnitus. As you’ve probably heard before, the vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Janssen are designed so that your cells produce the spike proteins of severe acute respiration. Coronavirus syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2). These spike proteins are meant to make your immune formula say right, “What’s this? It doesn’t smell like a teenager” and generate an immune reaction to the spike protein. This immunological reaction may vary from one user to another. For some, this can potentially cause inflammation in other parts of the frame, adding various nerves and blood vessels. If such inflammation around the frame parts is similar to hearing, it can eventually lead to hearing problems. Whether this is an imaginable early effect remains to be noted.
Another option is what’s known as “molecular mimicry,” which may resemble a board game Jimmy Fallon would play on The Toevening Show. The user is dressed in a red suit, ends up chasing all night in a red suit and then realizes at the end that he is not the user he first saw. “Molecular mimicry” occurs when an overall component of your framework is sufficiently similar. To the spike protein that its immune formula mistakes that frame component for something to react to. There have not been enough studies to rule out or rule out this Covid-19 vaccination option.
Hearing disorders can occur when there is inflammation around or damage to any of the ear structures or nerves that come and go from the ear. (Illustration: Getty)
A third option is whether something in the vaccine reacts directly with ear cells or leads them to and from the ear. Vaccines contain fewer ingredients than many things other people put in their mouths every day, such as Cheez Whiz, many breakfast bars. , and many types of frozen waffles. Therefore, it would be helpful to see if any of the ingredients in the vaccine can react with the ear and other hearing-like cells.
Then there’s the fact that your ears are connected to the rest of your head, at least they deserve to be. Possibly there would be a close interaction between what you think and feel and tinnitus. The authors of the Columbia University study noted that the occurrence of tinnitus has arguably been higher overall since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. This may also be due to Covid-19 itself, which can alter your senses such as taste and smell. It could also be due to tinnitus can be related to stress, depression and stress-induced disorders such as teeth grinding and TMJ (temporomandibular joint) syndrome. And, as breaking news for many people, the last few years have been stressful. But also, many politicians have continued to make a fuss about random upheavals like what Big Bird says, like a bunch of cats trapped in Spanx.
A number of other situations unrelated to COVID-19 vaccines can cause tinnitus. These come with age-related hearing loss (presthroughcusis), exposure to loud noises, other medications such as erythromycin, Meniere’s disease, TMJ, foreign bodies lodged in the ear, excess earwax, allergies, acoustic neuroma, other growths, anemia, atherosclerosis, and high blood pressure. So, if tinnitus increases, don’t automatically assume it’s caused by the Covid-19 vaccine. For example, you may first need to check if a hot dog has lodged in your ear. Of course, time is everything in life. Although the progression of tinnitus may be a coincidence, if the symptoms appeared some time after being vaccinated, the question arises as to whether vaccination was to blame.
It is not yet known how many of those tinnitus cases might have occurred after covid-19 vaccination. It’s also hard to say how long those symptoms tend to persist. Covid-19 vaccination has only been around since 2020, which would possibly be a lot of Scaramuccis, but not necessarily enough to assess how long tinnitus can last; Again, this implies that there may be a link to COVID-19 vaccines.
Research on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is co-sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Provocation (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), produced 18,709 reports of other people suffering from tinnitus after contracting Covid-19 vaccines as of April 14. The problem, however, is that an alleged adverse event can be presented to VAERS without offering actual evidence or verification. And there’s evidence that anti-vaxxers treated VAERS like the inside of a bathroom, writing all sorts of random things into it. So you have to take everything at VAERS with a fanny pack full of salt.
There is also no transparent consensus on how to deal with these cases. Doctors have tried corticosteroids, which can suppress the immune response. But will this, in turn, diminish the protective effect that the vaccine against covid-19 is intended to have?
There are other conceivable techniques raised through the review article in the Annals of Medicine and Surgery, such as counseling, tinnitus rehabilitation therapy, sound therapy, auditory belief training, sodium channel blockers, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, benzodiazepines, and other medications. But more studies are needed to determine which method would be most effective, assuming there is a link between covid-19 vaccination and tinnitus.
What he hears is a common refrain: he wants to see ever deeper studies done on the imaginable link between covid-19 vaccines and tinnitus. Additional studies want to be larger and use a wider variety of methodologies covering larger sections of the population. And studies can’t be done through brands like Pfizer and Moderna alone. It would be like asking Elon Musk if Twitter is working well or Jared Leto if he deserves to see the movie Morbius instead of burying his head in a vat of popcorn. Vaccine brands have a vested interest in making their products look good.
At the same time, vaccine brands deserve to disclose all their knowledge about clinical trials to the clinical community. All this is knowledge in CAPITAL LETTERS. These brands have gained abundant investment and from the federal government, which in the end is through taxpayer money. Therefore, independent scientists deserve not to be asked too much to be able to review all knowledge.
One of the difficult situations around this pandemic has been separating the noise of anti-vaxxers from genuine questions about covid-19 vaccines. There have been a number of unfounded conspiracy theories, such as the use of vaccines to depopulate the world, control other people. , or turn other people into 5G receivers, recorders, or refrigerator doors. At the same time, COVID-19 vaccines have not been perfect. The efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines has not been as high as initially reported. Some threat of side effects, ranging from a pooping sensation after vaccination to other imaginable allergic or autoimmune reactions to inflammation of the heart. Fortunately, the most serious side effects to date seem quite rare. Covid-19 can lead to a number of disorders ranging from prolonged covid to that little thing called death. So, so far, the threats of contracting covid-19 seem to far outweigh the threats of getting vaccinated.
This does not mean that there should not be more independent studies on the imaginable side effects of the Covid-19 vaccine. There have been enough credible reports of tinnitus following vaccination as opposed to Covid-19 to merit further investigation. People who obviously claim that vaccine supporters are unlikely to claim just for laughs that they heard something resembling a dog whistle after being vaccinated. That would be a dog whistle claim that just wouldn’t sound right. Therefore, this tinnitus challenge deserves to be taken seriously. The question is how many other people listen to what those other people with hearing problems have to say.