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How Headaches Can Cause Hearing Loss

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Many hearing disorders share the same underlying mechanisms with non-migraine headaches. The Digital Artist/pixabay

In a Tawainese population based study the risk of developing a hearing impairment was found to be higher in those with a history of non-migraine headaches.

By Patrick James Hibbert 

10 Apr 2020

Hearing is described as the process by which mechanical energy in the vibration of sound waves traveling through the air are converted into electrical signals that the brain can process and understand is called hearing. In short, it involves the processing of sound through the auditory system. Specifically the tympanic membranes, ossicles, oval windows, cochlear fluid, hair cells, sensory neurons, brain stem neurons, thalamic neurons, and auditory cortex neurons. 

This complex system allows sound frequency, intensity, and point of origin to be each, separately, transmitted to the brain. Damage to the auditory system can occur either mechanically or neurally. Mechanically, by damage to the tympanic membrane or ossification of the middle ear bones. Neurally, as in the case of headaches, by shearing off or sticking of hair cells, cilia, and damage to the auditory nerve, CN8. 
  
Headaches are common in people of all ages and they involve increased activation of the sympathetic nervous system in multiple regions of the brain. The common headaches include migraines, tension-type, and medication overuse headaches. Poor sleep, hypoxia, neural inflammation, and oxidative stress can all lead to headaches and, ultimately, hearing loss.

A recent study found that having a history of migraines increases the risk of tinnitus, sensorineural hearing impairment, and sudden deafness. Also, several other studies have connected common headaches, cluster headaches, tension-type headaches, and mixed tension migraine headaches with tinnitus and hearing impairment.

Studying the medical records of Tawainese people, researchers looked for a connection between headaches and hearing loss. Remi Yuan/Unsplash


A team of researchers, in Taiwan, used data from their country’s 2005 National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) to analyze whether non-migraine headaches increase the risk of tinnitus, sensorineural hearing impairment and/or sudden deafness. The database contains comprehensive medical information for all residents of Taiwan and it uses codes to classify diseases. 

The prevalence of chronic daily headache in Taiwan (3.2–3.9%) is very similar to that in western countries.


First, they found 43,294 people who had non-migraine headaches and no pre-existing conditions. Next, they found 4 people for each person in their study group who did not have headaches to serve as controls; which gave them 173,176 people without headaches of any kind to analyze. Their average ages were between 13.5 years old and 43.3 years old. Going back 7.79 years, they reviewed the medical files of the non-migraine headache group, and they went back 14.49 years for the control group. 

They found that patients with non-migraine headaches had a significantly higher risk of developing tinnitus, sensorineural hearing impairment, and sudden deafness then people who had no history of headaches. 

Also, those three hearing disorders were previously found to share the same underlying mechanisms with non-migraine headaches; increased neural activation of the sympathetic nervous system in the limbic and autonomous brain regions, central sensitization, and cortical hyperexcitability. 

Headaches damage the hair cells on the basilar membrane in the cochlea of the inner ear, while the auditory nerve is not affected. Like spinal cord nerves, humans cannot regrow these hairs, interestingly birds can though. As common as headaches are, tinnitus is quite prevalent too, up to 15% of the UK population is believed to suffer from persistent tinnitus.

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