Re:Chronic pain and tinnitus may share a common source
by dazc on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @03:15PM
(#10267398)
The short bursts, lasting a minute or so are reminiscent of my childhood (early teens) experience. As I got older I thought it was something I'd grown of but then in my 30's it came back. Short bursts again at first but now permanent.
I think that tinnitus is one of those ailments with many causes but the low dopamine theory is an interesting one I've not come across before.
I also have ADHD, but wasn't aware of that for the longest time. When I started treatment for it, the tinnitus went away.
If I stop taking my ADHD medication for any length of time, the random bursts of tinnitus-noise come back.
I mention this because an interesting thing about the dopaminergic system is that stress makes dopamine run out faster, because your body needs to convert it into adrenaline. Tyrosine, a dopamine precursor nutrient, is often marketed in pill form as "for coping with stress, lack of sleep, or prolonged cold", because these are all things that make you use up dopamine.
The question being: is tinnitus symptomatic of low dopamine?
There are alternate explanations, of course. ADHD medications usually have the side-effect of being vasoconstrictors; vasoconstrictors, along with their effect on the diameter of your circulatory system, also seem to fiddle with the diameter of your lymph channels and sinuses, including your ear canal. Decongestant drugs (which are also vasoconstrictors) frequently carry a warning that, in rare cases, they can cause sudden and permanent deafness!