MOTRIN AND TYLENOL CAUSE HEARING LOSS IN WOMEN
USE OF IBUPROFEN (MOTRIN, ETC) AND TYLENOL ASSOCIATED WITH HEARING LOSS IN WOMEN
From Medscape
by Sharon G. Curhan; Josef Shargorodsky; Roland Eavey; Gary C. Curhan
October 12, 2012
Dr. Pinna says…
It has been well established that men get hearing loss from overusing mild pain pills such as
Tylenol, Aspirin and the the so called NSAIDS such as IBUPROFEN.
Now we have an extremely large study showing that women experience the same loss.
The onset of the loss is associated with a “ringing in the ears” or TINNITUS.
If you hear that ringing stop the use of any pain pills.
Use of analgesics is common and is associated with increased risk of hearing loss in men; however, the relation has not been examined prospectively in women. The authors prospectively examined the relation between frequency of aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen use and risk of hearing loss among 62,261 women aged 31–48 years at baseline (1995) in Nurses’ Health Study II.
The outcome was self-reported hearing loss (n = 10,012), and the follow-up period was 1995–2009.
During 764,247 person-years of follow-up, ibuprofen use and acetaminophen use were independently associated with increased risk of hearing loss, but aspirin use was not.
For ibuprofen, the multivariate-adjusted relative risk of hearing loss was 1.13 and 1.24 for use ≥6 days/week compared with use less than once per week.
For acetaminophen, the corresponding relative risks were 1.11
In this study, use of ibuprofen or acetaminophen (but not aspirin) 2 or more days per week was associated with an increased risk of hearing loss in women
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Hearing loss manifests in many different ways. With mild hearing loss and frequency hearing loss, the only symptom might be subtle difficulty with word understanding, particularly in situations where there is competing noise. Certain voices or conversations might be sound garbled, as though others are mumbling. With severe and profound hearing losses, most conversational speech is inaudible as well as loud safety signals might not be heard. With some hearing loss, the general volume of all sounds is reduced. The tv and radio are played at louder than usual volume levels, and hearing around the telephone is difficult. Many people with hearing loss also notice a distortion of sound, especially speech. Music could also sound distorted, even if the overall volume of the background music is comfortable, leading to a low enjoyment of music.