Although we think of hearing loss as the purview of aging rock stars, military vets who have been exposed to loud noises or simply the inevitable effect of old age, one of the most unexpected of the varied aftereffects of Covid is hearing loss—most specifically tinnitus, or persistent ringing in the ears.
As Celeste McGovern reports in this latest issue, more than 29 percent of people who have had Covid report some form of hearing loss.
By far the greatest proportion (14.8 percent, or nearly a sixth of all Covid patients in their sample) suffer from tinnitus, according to a review of the literature from the University of Manchester and Manchester Biomedical Research Centre.
Trawling through the medical literature on Covid, the team, led by Ibrahim Almufarrij of the Manchester Center for Audiology and Deafness at the University of Manchester, discovered some 50 studies reporting audio-vestibular (hearing or balance) disorders. And the two are related, since tiny hairlike sensors in your inner ear are also responsible for helping you keep your balance.
If Almufarrij and his team are even halfway correct, these 171 million worldwide Covid cases could translate into more than 49 million cases of hearing loss, with 25.3 million of them involving tinnitus.
And this side-effect often persists. Dizziness, tinnitus and ear pain are common symptoms of long Covid. They fall under the general category of nervous system disorders, which include loss of taste and smell as well as hearing loss, visual impairment, headaches and more serious concerns such as convulsions, nerve pain, impaired consciousness, paralysis, cerebral hemorrhage and even stroke.
But why would what has been called a vascular illness attack the inner ear?
The link may go back to one of the side-effects of a viral infection—and also a vaccine for a virus. It’s long been known that viruses can cause certain neurological damage, including Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS). The association of GBS with Covid-19 was first reported in June 2020, but GBS has long been linked to what is called ‘auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder.’
As we know, Covid is an enabler, stimulating inflammation and causing the body in certain cases to produce too many cytokines, which in turn cause immune-mediated disorders, of which autoimmune disease is the most well-known.
GBS is just this kind of disease—caused when the immune system overreacts and starts attacking the body’s own cells. The hearing mechanisms get affected when these kinds of inflammatory cells bind to certain receptors in the brain.
Other theories emphasize that Covid-19 causes blood clots, which diminish blood supply, and affects an enzyme called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, which is abundant in the brain. A suddenly limited blood supply could cause the hearing system to go awry.
We also know that many of the symptoms of Covid include systems of the body controlled by the cranial nerves: the olfactory nerve, which controls our sense of smell, as well as our acoustic nerve, which controls our hearing.
So ringing in the ears may ultimately start in the brain.
Perhaps most worrying, these effects are showing up with the vaccine, too.
In May, the European Medicine Agency, which tallies side-effects from all four vaccines given in Europe (Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen) reported a total of 11,182 cases of ear and labyrinth disorders (including three deaths), plus an additional 138,095 nervous system disorders, which could also include hearing, and 1,179 deaths from the same.
In the UK alone, there were some 3,497 reports of tinnitus (2,663 following administration of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine), plus 119,058 general nervous system disorders as of April 2021, just four months after the vaccine rollout.
Medicine doesn’t have much to offer people with tinnitus other than hearing aids, machines that try to mask the noise with other ‘white noise’ or relaxation aids and the recommendation to “learn to live with it.”
But in our experience, like many degenerative diseases, tinnitus isn’t a life sentence. Studies show that tinnitus is made worse by free radicals in the body, and many of the primary antioxidants plus the B vitamins, particularly B12, have been shown to alleviate symptoms. Herbs, energy medicine, body work to heal locked fascia and more have also healed many cases of tinnitus, as Celeste McGovern reports.
Our late friend Beth discovered this when trying to help her husband treat his prostate cancer. After changing their standard American diet to one that was strictly organic, wholefood and low-carb, her husband recovered, but to her great surprise, she was able to throw away her hearing aids, too.
The hearing problems she suffered disappeared simply with a healthy diet.
We now know that people who are overweight or obese, have diabetes, heart disease or hypertension or have very low levels of vitamin D account for the overwhelming number of serious or deadly Covid cases.
All of which suggests that tinnitus, just like severe cases of Covid, starts and ends with what you are feeding your body.
