The covid vaccine may have given me tinnitus, but I’m getting vaccinated again. Here’s why.

Like so many of us, I was thrilled when the COVID-19 vaccine came out. The months (or was it decades?) of isolation were draining, and cost me so much emotionally. So, it was with great anticipation and excitement that I got that first jab.

That night, I ran a fever and had the usual side effects people were noticing at the time. One of my ears also closed up for several hours, which struck me as strange, but it dissipated, and I forgot about it.

I got the second jab with no weird side effects, and started to enjoy life outside with my adult kids. My daughter and I made up a game called Two Vaccinated Ladies Go to The (fill in the blank). We referenced our silly new titles every time we went out to enjoy shopping, movies, and life in general.

When it was time for boosters, I was more than ready. I had to wait a bit, because I got an ear infection for the first time in my adult life before I was scheduled for the shot. A round of antibiotics cleared up the infection completely, and off I went for my third jab. Within hours, my ears clogged up to the point where hearing became challenging. I thought the ear infection had returned, and dashed off to urgent care for another round of antibiotics. No infection could be found, but I was prescribed meds anyway. They didn’t help, and the clogged, thick feeling remained. No matter what I tried, the stuffiness refused to dissipate, especially in one ear. I felt like I was underwater, and sinking fast.

Two weeks to the day after getting the booster, I came down with the COVID-19 virus. I only got mildly sick, thanks to the shot. But my ears refused to unclog. And about a week later, the unrelenting ringing in my “bad” ear started.

This was my worst nightmare. A friend of mine with tinnitus didn’t leave her home for a year. My symptoms weren’t as bad as hers, but I couldn’t pull my attention away from the unending ringing that wouldn’t let me sleep or watch TV.

Along with that were the questions that plagued me: could it have been the vaccine? Was the virus at fault? Did the early ear infection have something to do with my new, constant companion? There’s no real way to know. And herein may lie the problem.

COVID-19 vaccines and tinnitus: Is there a link?

As we’ve reported in the past, approximately 16,000 people reported getting tinnitus after receiving a COVID-19 shot to VAERS, the official Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, run by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. I’m not part of that statistic. I was unsure of the underlying cause of my condition, and I didn’t want to skew the data.

I found out after talking to friends, neighbors, and other assorted Brooklyn, NY types that tinnitus after vaccination often goes unreported. So, the VAERS data may be low. It may also be high. VAERS does not require people to receive a medical diagnosis, prior to reporting an adverse event. So, there’s no way to know from these numbers what the actual impact of COVID-19 vaccination on hearing health is.  

Scientific research is also lacking on the connection between COVID vaccines and tinnitus. What we do know is where there’s smoke, there’s fire. We just don’t know for sure what’s causing those flames to spark.

Causes of tinnitus – vaccine, or?  

The flu, Tdap, and pneumococcal vaccines have all been shown to cause tinnitus in very small numbers. These underlying causes are rare.

Tinnitus has a wide range of much more common causes, including age-related hearing loss, ototoxic medications, and loud noise exposure. That’s one of the reasons why scientific data hasn’t been able to tweeze out a direct, causal relationship between COVID-19 vaccines and tinnitus, or any other hearing-related condition.

To jab or not to jab

In my case, I’ll probably never know if it was the vaccine, virus, ear infection, or all of the above that gave me tinnitus.

Francisca Yao, M.D., my wonderfully pragmatic ENT doctor, gently steered me away from obsessing about the root cause of my condition. That let me breathe. It may sound counterintuitive, but not having to worry about the whys was very freeing. It eliminated blame (how could they?) and self-blame (why did I?), which isn’t helpful. That being said, research on the links between vaccines and vaccine reactions of all kinds is urgently needed and must be ongoing, in order to achieve the highest possible levels of public safety.

So now, believe it or not, I’m about to get my next round of COVID shots. Yes, I’m nervous that they’ll exacerbate my symptoms. But I also know that the COVID virus can cause or worsen tinnitus. Not getting vaccinated doesn’t shield me from this possibility. Most importantly, I don’t want to go back to the dark ages of huddling isolated at home, because COVID and other viruses are running rampant out there.

You do you, but if it was up to me, I’d ask you to get and stay vaccinated, too. Billions of people – over 81% of the total U.S. population – have gotten vaccinated against COVID-19. Less than 1% have reported tinnitus as a possible side effect. So, if you haven’t gotten the shot and are avoiding it for fear of tinnitus, please don’t let my story sway you against vaccination.

Life is full of calculated risks. There’s just no way to ever make sure we’re completely safe from everything. If only! I’ve learned to live with tinnitus. It’s not the first thing I think of when I wake up anymore. And, I have learned to sleep with it. Tinnitus is a small part of my life, but it’s not the defining part anymore.

What I know I can’t live with is being stuck at home without people, the outdoor sounds of nature, special events, and travel. I want to stay in the game of life. So, despite the soft, intermittent ringing that sometimes haunts my left ear, I know what my next step will be.