It means that my body is insulin resistant, and when I eat anything that raises my sugar levels, the body starts pumping out more and more insulin till it reaches a point where the sugar levels fall below normal. So the body is hit by bad effects of high sugar, and then with bad effects of low sugar.

In my case the solution was to avoid sugars and refined carbs in breakfast. As Indians our breakfast contains a lot of carbs.

If I have eggs for breakfast, I can pretty much anything the entire day and not feel it. On the other hand if I have pancakes with syrup, I know I am in for an episode of hypoglycaemia.

Also if I have sugar or refined carbs, having a fibre supplement (psyllium husk) with it helps.

Overall adding more salad and protein is what I would recommend if you also have this.

PS: For diagnosis go to an endocrinologist.

I've realised the following about what triggers and helps me -

1. Exercise: Regular exercise helps. When I regularly play tennis, go to the gym, or do yoga, the tinnitus increases right after the exercise, but is much lower throughout the day.

2. Stress and a proper schedule: If I drink more, eat garbage, or work during odd hours, my tinnitus increases. Instead of feeling bad about it, I use it as an early feedback mechanism to help me diagnose when my life is not in the right direction.

3. Weather: Tinnitus increases in the winters.

My aunt told me that regular yoga helped her mitigate her tinnitus symptoms too.

I felt quite sad and depressed during my early months of tinnitus, but over time I've tried using it as a motivator. If a slight ringing in my ears makes me feel so depressed, there are other things that could happen that could completely destroy my life. So I should remember that life is short, use the time I have left wisely, and do things that I've been putting off.

I've also tried using it as a feedback loop. If the ringing increases, there might be something wrong with my diet, daily routine, or stress. So it helps me recognise unhealthy patterns earlier.

I valued my hearing very highly, protecting it at all times. I carry hearing plugs any time I go out. I won't even use a hammer without hearing protection. Then I suddenly suffered hearing loss and tinnitus. I immediately made an appointment with an ENT, who wanted to give me a bunch of steroids and call it a day. I can't take those, however, so he referred me to one of the top hearing clinics in the country.

One of the first questions they asked was if I'd had a COVID vaccine recently. Yes, I had a second Pfizer booster. It turns out that hearing damage is a known side effect... but of course you don't find out about it until it's too late. This clinic had started seeing an influx of patients with sudden hearing loss after vaccinations, enough that they wrote a paper on it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8443418/

And a vaccine researcher also got hit with it: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/tinnitus-rare-sid...

Another one about trying to treat it: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220523/Pfizer-COVID-19-v...

It's irresponsible as hell not to inform people about this risk, and also to claim that it's rare. The more-likely fact is that it's vastly under-reported, especially with people afraid of being "canceled" for speaking out. The benefits of that second booster were negligible, and the results disastrous and life-degrading. And now people are coming out of the woodwork saying, oh yeah, that's a "known thing." Well WTF then, LET IT BE KNOWN.

They conclude there is no link from current data.

Using your logic you could blame any new reported medical condition on COVID.

The reality is that with such a huge vaccine rollout all over the world, there should be data by now.

There are also things that happened during the covid outbreak not related to the disease itself, such as more stress, people were in online meetings more, sharing workspaces at home which could have caused an increase in headphones usage, etc, etc.

> that's a "known thing."

Please show me the data! Because I looked and its not there.

And I didn't blame it on COVID.

It's irresponsible to ignore the likelihood of under-reporting, not to mention the fear of being "canceled;" this was mentioned in the article about the vaccine researcher getting it.

In fact, according to the Cleveland Clinic:

"But on April 29, the American Academy of Audiology, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the Academy of Doctors of Audiology issued a statement regarding the matter.

The groups said that based on a recent study conducted by The University of Manchester and Manchester Biomedical Research Centre that was published in the International Journal of Audiology, scientists estimated that 7.6% of people infected with COVID-19 experienced hearing loss, 14.8% suffered from tinnitus and 7.2% reported vertigo. This study also conveyed that there is an urgent need for additional studies regarding the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the auditory system."[1]

So just getting infected by Covid-19 might give you a ~15% chance of getting Tinnitus.

I started having noticeable, permanent Tinnitus myself in September 2019. If it were a few months later I might have thought it was because of Covid-19, but it wasn't. It might have been a side effect to an antibiotic I took a while back (Cipro) that I had a bad reaction to (full body neuropathy after a single pill, lingering neuropathy off and on for a few years after) and some studies suggest could lead to Tinnitus, or because I had to wear headphones at work to block out noise at an open office (fuck open offices, I'll never RTO to those), or something else, hard to say. I got my hearing tested by an ENT doctor six months ago and I don't have any hearing loss, though.

By the way, since you specifically said hearing loss in yours, at least according to this study[2], there's no increased risk of hearing loss following a Covid-19 vaccination.

"Our data suggested no increased risk for SSNHL [sudden sensorineural hearing loss] following any COVID-19 vaccination. In particular, adjusted incidence rate ratios, with 95 percent confidence intervals (95% CI) for the BNT162b2 vaccine’s three doses were 0.8 (95% CI 0.6 to 1.0), 0.9 (95% CI 0.6 to 1.2), and 1.3 (95% CI 0.9 to 2.0). SARS-CoV-2 infection was not associated with an increased incidence of SSNHL either."

Not saying it's impossible yours wasn't caused by the vaccine, but it seems like it's so incredibly rare and Tinnitus can have a bunch of causes (and effects a large number of people eventually) that it's more likely to be coincidence than not.

Regardless of its origin, I'm sorry you're suffering from Tinnitus. I know firsthand that it sucks, and wish there were better treatments for it, because it gets damn annoying, and fucks with your concentration and ability to sleep at times. I hope at some point there's a breakthrough that lets there be some treatment (besides that stupid 'this one trick' on reddit and youtube of thwacking the back of your head with your fingers that relieves it very little for like 30 seconds that everyone keeps passing around as if it were a miracle cure).

[1]: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/can-covid-19-cause-tinnit... [2]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.10.22277380v...).

The auditory artifacts started before I ever had COVID, though. And the acute case didn't start during, or within months after COVID... it started after a booster.

It is only when you think back that you realise how bad the situation was back then and how much had changed.

Some teams might prefer being in office 5 days straight and then 25 days remote in their hometowns.

This type of journalism works well if the backstories are tied well together to the main story, and is done by a good writer. But when average writers do it, the stories are tedious, and hard to read.

It's not that. It also happens in written media. It's not just as filler either. They have the dellusion that this makes the story better...