PMID: 33212444Nov 20, 2020Paper

Comorbidity of Chronic Tinnitus and Psychological Stress - Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

Psychiatria Danubina
Jure Pupić-Bakrač, Ana Pupić-Bakrač

Abstract

Subjective tinnitus is a frequent, debilitating hearing disorder causing severe emotional stress and psychological suffering. Likewise, many reports show that the onset of tinnitus occurs at the time of high stress or after a period of stress. It is also common for existing tinnitus to become worse during exposure to stress. However, in clinical practice the association between tinnitus and stress is often neglected. Extensive search of the Web of Science database has shown a low ratio of scientific articles about coexistence of stress and tinnitus compared to other stress-related conditions. Specifically, there are about sixteen times more articles investigating comorbid stress in chronic pain, about six times more in chronic fatigue, and about four times more in fibromyalgia. Previous studies of biological markers of stress in tinnitus patients showed normal diurnal levels of stress hormone cortisol. However, experimental studies of tinnitus subjects showed a blunted reactive cortisol response after a psychosocial stress test, exposure to noise in the laboratory and a dexamethasone suppression test. In addition, tinnitus subjects showed increased sympathetic tone, and weakened sympathetic response after exposure to mental ari...Continue Reading

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