Physician's Weekly: Tinnitus & Subjective Hearing Loss More Common in Migraine

Published by: Hamid R. Djalilian, MD

“Tinnitus is a condition that affects approximately 10% of the adult population in the United States and can diminish one’s quality of life,” explains Hamid R. Djalilian, MD. “To date, there are no definitive or FDA-approved treatments for tinnitus, and many patients must resort to sound therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy. My colleagues and I hypothesized that there is an underlying pathophysiologic connection between migraine and ear issues, which we call otologic migraine. We discovered that migraine medications can improve certain types of hearing loss (HL) and tinnitus in a selected population. This is also true for sudden sensorineural HL, with which a recent study of ours showed that many patients who are refractory or late to traditional steroid management can benefit from migraine medication. However, the understanding between migraine and ear disease is poorly understood by the medical community.”

To test their hypothesis, Dr. Djalilian and colleagues sought to investigate whether migraine is independently associated with tinnitus and subjective HL by utilizing the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database. For a paper published in Otology & Neurology, the researchers retrospectively queried the de-identified 1999 and 2004 NHANES database for patients aged 18-65, among whom HL and tinnitus were subjectively reported....

Read the full article on Physician's Weekly here.