Tinnitus and Mobile Phone Use

[Carlo]

I found this article on the BTA site, probably the matter has already been discussed here or maybe not...

Last updated on 22 May 2013

A recent study has claimed that four or more years of mobile phone use could double the risk of developing tinnitus.
Any mobile phone use made the risk rise 37 per cent while those who used their phones for an average of ten minutes per day were 71 per cent more likely to have the condition. The findings are published in the journalOccupational and Environmental Medicine, and are based on a study of 200 people.

It is thought that the microwave energy produced by the phones might be the cause of the problem.

Veronica Kennedy, Consultant Audiovestibular Physician and member of the BTA's Professional Advisers' Committee comments, "The association between tinnitus and electromagnetic fields is not a new idea with electromagnetic fields being put forward both as a cause and treatment for tinnitus. Some people have attributed their tinnitus to the sounds generated by electromagnetic fields within modern electrical wiring or power plants. Electromagnetic therapy has also been used to treat tinnitus. This is an interesting study but there are a number of complex factors underlying tinnitus which have not been addressed in the study. The link between mobile phone use and tinnitus remains unproven with further work still needed."

Dr Hans-Peter Hutter, of the Institute of Environmental Health, at the University of Vienna in Austria, one of the authors of the study agrees: "I was actually surprised that we found [a pattern]. This is the first study that has been done, so more work needs to be done." [1]

References
1 Tahir, T ' Mobiles 'double risk of tinnitus', Metro, 20 July 2010

Hutter, H-P et al. 'Tinnitus and mobile phone use', Occupational and Environmental Medicine, online.

This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2010 issue of Quiet.

 

[Sherri786]

Yes around the time I got T , I had been using my cell phone and cordless phones a lot, due to some family emergency. I do believe that the phones contributed to my T besides aspirin.

 

[erik]

well, we are going to have millions more with tinnitus then that's for sure since 6 Billion people on this planet have access to cell phones which is 1.5 Billion more than people have access to working toilets

 

[Steve]

I can't use my mobile without getting a dulling sensation of my hearing and my tinnitus getting worse, I only use speakerphone now, or on-ear earphones if I cant. I've always felt that heavy use of mobile phones made my tinnitus a lot worse, but I couldn't escape them with my work.

It'll be interesting to see if they can replicate the results and if there is a link, it could just be the way the speaker reproduces the voice that doesn't agree with my ears.

 

[latestnight]

I can't use my mobile without getting a dulling sensation of my hearing and my tinnitus getting worse, I only use speakerphone now,

Same here for the most part. Great description of how my ears feel if I hold my phone against my ear for more than a few minutes.

 

[Relic Hunter]

well, we are going to have millions more with tinnitus then that's for sure since 6 Billion people on this planet have access to cell phones which is 1.5 Billion more than people have access to working toilets

An interesting subject.. I am old school. Mobile phones in my youth were the thing of science fiction and I for one wish they had stayed science fiction. I think it says a lot for our current civilization when more people feel they need a mobile phone than a good place to sit and take a crap. Looks like I am starting to rant a little so I will shut up.

Is it that the usage of mobile phones in themselves that can cause tinnitus or is it just old fashioned noise exposure due to the prolonged usage. It would be interesting to know the amount of time the average person spends on a mobile phone.

 

[Carlo]

I regret that in the past I often used my mobile without on-ear earphones. Usually anyway I always made short calls, now I only wear one earphone in the ear opposite to that where I have T, or I use speakerphone.

 

[AdamB]

Wow... 71% with only a 10 minute phone call a day. That's usually considered a pretty short call too

 

[Karl]

... As for treating the tinnitus, there are many effective therapies that can alter or alleviate it. Such therapies may use inner ear devices to lessen the impact of tinnitus, retraining of the brain to ignore the sounds, anxiety reduction therapy, or medications...

Adam -
"Inner ear devices"? Not sure what you mean by that. Also, "there are many effective therapies", I'm unclear what you mean.

Someone once told me that a lot of AT&T telephone operators have teveloped tinnitus. If so, I think that it may be due to listening to an earphone in one ear, rather than both ears. The same could be said about listening to a cell phone in one ear, rather than naturally with two ears.

I've read that the auditory system is naturally fairly balanced in volumes between the left and right ears. Animals use subtle differences in sound volumes coming from left and right ears to locate sounds. But if one ear becomes constantly more dominant than the other, this sets off an imbalance, which some say is the cause of tinnitus.

Hearing loss in one ear obviously makes an imbalance in volume levels between the ears. But, it would also seem possible that "one eared listening" (from one earphone or a cell phone) can also create an imbalance. This is a modern thing. Only in the last 100 years or so have people been listening to headphones.

Again, that's just my theory, for lack of an "official position" from most of the medical community.

 

[Carlo]

Thanks to Markku for having added the poll. Could be interesting if there will be any significant statistic development...

 

[Darren Knight]

Not sure. I'm not saying they help, but Tinnitus has been around a lot longer than mobile phones. Also deaf people have T as well, so as I say I'm really not sure.

 

[awbw8]

unfortunately my mobie phone and i spend quite a bit of time together (my family lives 3k miles away), but i try to cut down on some of the radiation by using one of these. it actually has some studies behind it, it doesn't eliminate the radiation, but directs it away from you head

The Pong Case by Pong Research

 

[Jiri]

Hello there, I just have a quick question and didn't want to start a new thread so I thought I'd ask here.

'New' to tinnitus and today when I was searching for my phone I used another one with a loud dialing sound effect. That "beeeep" sound when waiting for the other person to answer. I put the earphone close to my better ear and it was loud. That freaked me out a little. Do you think that one loud "BEEEP" sound could cause me another spike later on?
Or worsen the tinnitus like in a couple of days time?

Perhaps a stupid question, but I'm wearing earplugs most of the time now and every loud sound scares me much.

@Steve @erik Anyone?

 

[leledany]

Hello there, I just have a quick question and didn't want to start a new thread so I thought I'd ask here.

'New' to tinnitus and today when I was searching for my phone I used another one with a loud dialing sound effect. That "beeeep" sound when waiting for the other person to answer. I put the earphone close to my better ear and it was loud. That freaked me out a little. Do you think that one loud "BEEEP" sound could cause me another spike later on?
Or worsen the tinnitus like in a couple of days time?

Perhaps a stupid question, but I'm wearing earplugs most of the time now and every loud sound scares me much.

@Steve @erik Anyone?

From my experience i can say that if you have high frequencies T it is probably that you have damaged high frequencies hair cells like in my case. I have spike when I hear high frequencies loud noise like siren or fire alarm. I can say you do not worry too much for such sound as phone "beep" but it is my personal opinion

 

[WaqasVic]

Nope my tinnitus is on the other ear, recently gotten louder. And today got a very very messed up flu. Can't even sleep even with a half of Rivotril

 

[jer]

I always use my phone on speaker and on a low setting. That works fine for me. But ermm, who is really calling much these days anyway!

 

[TheDanishGirl]

I mostly use speaker phone these days. Mainly because of my Hyperacusis but also because of fear of making my T worse by having sound directly go into my ear.

 

[buzzythedude]

At one point I was worried that using the mobile phone too long would cause vestibular shwannoma to grow or form or cause another kind of tumor..I had all the tests done (and I have spent hours on end with a mobile up to my ear) and there was nothing. Not saying it is safe for other people to do it but in my case there was no problem. I would imagine very sensitive tinnitus might be aggravated by the up close sound

 

[VRZ78]

In my opinion it's more the shity sound quality of phone calls and people putting the phone directly to their ear at max volume that give T than the radiations.....

Sometimes you can clearly hear the conversation meters away it's like having loud headphones.

 

[GregCA]

Sometimes you can clearly hear the conversation meters away it's like having loud headphones.

That's an indication of loudness, not quality.
I don't doubt that phone speakers aren't the best at reproducing sound (they have space constraints that limit their quality anyways), but I doubt that "quality of sound" (what is the definition of quality when it comes to our cochlea?) from a phone speaker has much influence on T. The volume, on the other hand...

 

[Jomo]

its in both but focuses more in my right ear

 

[Suzerman]

Does this also apply to just cordless phones? Because I use a cordless phone at work quite often because I have to make calls to customers and stuff, but barely use my cellphone

 

[Darkener]

Does this mean that restricting or stopping mobile phone use could help to make the tinnitus go away?

 

[JRchief]

i use my speaker phone almost exclusively. and i have no idea what ear i used when i had a rotary phone but it's most likely both. phones make my ears hot which annoys me so i remember switching back and forth between ears.

 

[Lilah]

I use cell phone on my right ear but I have tinnitus in both ears. However, I've had a dull pain/ache sensation in my right ear before when I used cell phone too long. Can this be caused by TMJ?

 

[Frédéric]

Headache, tinnitus and hearing loss in the international Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Health (COSMOS) in Sweden and Finland
International Journal of Epidemiology, dyz127, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyz127
Published:
13 July 2019
Abstract
Background
Mobile phone use and exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) from it have been associated with symptoms in some studies, but the studies have shortcomings and their findings are inconsistent. We conducted a prospective cohort study to assess the association between amount of mobile phone use at baseline and frequency of headache, tinnitus or hearing loss at 4-year follow-up.

Methods
The participants had mobile phone subscriptions with major mobile phone network operators in Sweden (n = 21 049) and Finland (n = 3120), gave consent for obtaining their mobile phone call data from operator records at baseline, and filled in both baseline and follow-up questionnaires on symptoms, potential confounders and further characteristics of their mobile phone use.

Results
The participants with the highest decile of recorded call-time (average call-time >276 min per week) at baseline showed a weak, suggestive increased frequency of weekly headaches at 4-year follow-up (adjusted odds ratio 1.13, 95% confidence interval 0.95–1.34). There was no obvious gradient of weekly headache with increasing call-time (P trend 0.06). The association of headache with call-time was stronger for the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network than older Global System for Mobile Telecommunications (GSM) technology, despite the latter involving higher exposure to RF-EMF. Tinnitus and hearing loss showed no association with call-time.

Conclusions
People using mobile phones most extensively for making or receiving calls at baseline reported weekly headaches slightly more frequently at follow-up than other users, but this finding largely disappeared after adjustment for confounders and was not related to call-time in GSM with higher RF-EMF exposure. Tinnitus and hearing loss were not associated with amount of call-time.

Full text: https://academic.oup.com/ije/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ije/dyz127/5532178