Autoimmune diseases linked to hearing loss and tinnitus – Healthy Hearing

Did you know hearing loss can be related to an underlying condition—not simply age or noise exposure? When this happens, the condition is often an autoimmune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or lupus.

Research indicates that hearing loss, tinnitus and other hearing problems are more common among people with autoimmune disorders, so much so that audiologist Trisha Milnes encourages all her patients with autoimmune diseases to request hearing tests.

Her clinic even makes a point of reaching out to patients with certain autoimmune-related illnesses, asking about their hearing, said Milnes, chief of Audiology and Speech Pathology at the Charlie Norwood Virginia Medical Center, a Veterans Health Administration facility. “It’s very necessary,” she explained.

What is an autoimmune disease?

The immune system is our body’s way of fighting off microorganisms that can make us sick. When functioning normally, the immune system can correctly identify and overcome infections. But sometimes, the immune system incorrectly identifies tissues in the body as dangerous, causing harmful types of inflammation when no actual threat is present. This malfunction can happen spontaneously—without a clear cause—or it can sometimes occur in reaction to an infection.

Autoimmune illness is becoming more common, according to studies. One well-known autoimmune disease is type 1 diabetes. Other autoimmune diseases you may have heard of include RA, Hashimoto’s autoimmune thyroiditis, Sjögren’s syndrome, celiac disease, ankylosing spondilytis, Graves’ disease, vitiligo, lupus, and psoriasis. (Note that allergies are not considered an autoimmune disorder.)

How are autoimmune diseases linked to hearing loss? 

Not all autoimmune disorders affect hearing, but many of them do. Often the hearing damage is related to harmful inflammation in the delicate ear anatomy, or disrupted blood flow to the ear. The severity of the hearing loss can vary. Depending on the underlying disease, it can affect one or both ears, may develop suddenly or slowly, and may affect different frequencies (pitches). 

Given how complex both hearing and the immune systems are, it’s not always possible to know what role an autoimmune disorder played in hearing loss. Autoimmune disorders can flare up and then go into remission, and a person may not ever realize the link to their hearing loss.

“In many cases, though the hearing loss is permanent, the cause of the damage can be transitory, so there’s no way to diagnose the cause of the damage after it has happened,” explained Aaron Abend, executive director of the Autoimmune Registry, Inc.

Treatment may include corticosteroids that limit blood vessel inflammation and the immune attack on the inner ear. For some autoimmune diseases, plasma transfers can clear the antibodies that attack phospholipids from the blood. Other treatments increase blood flow to the inner ear or suppress the immune system. When the …….

Source: https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/53317-Autoimmune-diseases-hearing-loss-tinnitus-ra-lupus