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Does tylenol (acetaminophen) affect your hearing?

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I’m a musician who wears hearing aids. I play at low volumes on stage <85dba so I keep my hearing aids in. That way, I can interact with audience members.

I pulled a muscle in my back moving the almost 40 lb speakers so I was taking Tylenol.

After a few days, I noticed a stuffiness in my ears, as if there was internal pressure against my eardrums. I made it very difficult to hear the music on my small 5" monitor speaker.

I’m very attuned to my hearing, and I noticed this is something very different. It seems to affect all frequencies, instead of the usual high ones, and made the music blur (the best description I can think of). It was even difficult to stay on the beat.

So I thought about what has been different in the past week, and I thought “Tylenol”. Googling, I couldn’t find much about it, other than long term use might damage the cochlea in men more than women. But this has only been a week or two. That’s hardly long term.

To either eliminate or confirm it, I discontinued the Tylenol, and the hearing immediately got clearer.

Has anyone else had this experience or even heard of this?

Thanks,
Bob

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This document says it can effect your hearing. It’s not happened to me though. But other drugs can and do effect your hearing… Ciprofloxacin effects my hearing. But other ototoxic drugs can also.

5 Must-Know Medicinal Drugs That May Cause Hearing Loss - The National Campaign for Better Hearing43.

List of Ototoxic Medications - Sound Relief Hearing Center83

Our list of ototoxic medications includes those known to cause tinnitus and hearing loss. Hopefully, this helps you make good decisions.

Paracetamol (U.K. name for Tylenol I think) seems to ‘provoke’ my tinnitus, in that it seems louder and higher intensity. That’s just my perception of it of course, but if I’m taking paracetamol for a day or so it’s noticeable.

I take two 500 mg caplets Acetaminophen morning and night with no apparent effect on my hearing.

Thanks.

Perhaps I’m just unlucky.

Acetaminophen doesn’t seem to affect my tinnitus, but it does ‘blur’ my hearing of the music. (When I was in Australia, they called it Paracetamol too.)

I know aspirin increases my tinnitus. Ibuprofen doesn’t.

I’ve gigged a couple of days without it, and the music sounds normal again.

Are you both sure pain meds increase your tinnitus, or is it pain that increases your tinnitus and you just happen to take pain meds at the same time that you have pain?

Google the NIH study on ibuprofen and tylenol effects on hearing loss in the long running nurses study. Both cause hearing loss with high doses.

In reply to @Neville

For my part, it does seem to be paracetamol. I did my back in quite spectacularly several years ago and was on a range of pain relief, including prescription only stuff, which didn’t increase tinnitus perception. Not using my also induces a spike in tinnitus volume.

In reply to @LawyerFL

@LawyerFL said:

Google the NIH study on ibuprofen and tylenol effects on hearing loss in the long running nurses study. Both cause hearing loss with high doses.

Thanks, I did. NIH/PubMed is one of the more reliable sources of info.

Funny, Tylenol never did anything for an occasional headache, but worked well for the pulled back muscle. However, it isn’t worth it if it damages my most important musical instrument, my ears.

BlueGoo cream helps the back, and doesn’t seem to have adverse effects, other than the smell. So I don’t use it on the gig.

I used to suffer from terrible migraine headaches (stress related from my previous marriage) and the only thing that gave me relief was taking tons of acetaminophen and in severe situations, Acetaminophen with Codeine. I will say that my hearing loss first started around the worst part of this time of my life and I have always wondered if my sudden hearing loss was caused by taking too much medication. That being said…I solved these personal issues and have been migraine free for many years. I still take an occasional Ibuprofen tablet for minor headaches and pain and my hearing loss has remained unchanged for for quite some time. Any drug that is listed as ototoxic (or thought to be ototoxic) should be approached by all of us with extreme caution.

Jordan

@JordanK said:

Acetaminophen with Codeine

My favourite. :laughing: I think it’s controlled in America. For me, if anything it reduces my tinnitus. But triggers for me are fatigue and neck pain, so to the extent that a drug facilitates a good night of pain-free sleep, my tinnitus improves.

Edited

You mean you are referring to your hearing loss being flat,… seems like you’ve got some conductive component,… i’d say go to your and check it out forsure

In reply to @JordanK

Discouraging as it now seems I’m between a rock and a hard place if this is true. What a choice being in intractable pain and hearing loss. I hate the idea of having to choose but I’m reminded of the study decades ago that declared we shouldn’t have more than one egg a week or so that since then seems to have disappeared and/or been rescinded. Who (or is it whom) to believe? Hard to put faith in anything or anyone these days.

If I didn’t notice the difference, I wouldn’t have posted.

I usually don’t take Tylenol. I pulled a back muscle, and in my job, I can’t call in sick, so I have to continue to lift almost 40 pound items. I took the Tylenol daily because it’s supposed to be kinder to the body, and after about a week, I started to notice my ears. They felt like there was internal pressure stopping the eardrum from moving - that’s not a diagnosis, just what it felt like. I was having more difficulty hearing my wife, who takes care to speak clearly for me.

A few days off the Tylenol and they got back to normal.

Every drug has its side effect I suppose. Aspirin makes my tinnitus loud, and is ototoxic, ibuprofin is supposed to be bad for the ears and I think the kidneys, so for my back, it’s rubbing blue-goo on it. I’m sure there is some side effect of that, too.

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