Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem, autoimmune disorder. It is a disabling and painful condition which can lead to substantial loss of mobility due to pain and joint destruction. The disease is also systemic in that it often also affects many extra-articular tissues throughout the body including the skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs, and...

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Angelpuss 02/17/2011

I know a few people here have RA and Tinnitus.
I'm wondering how many people here have both and which was diagnosed first.
Thanks for sharing your experiences
Cheers

Joyssis 09/07/2011

I have tinnitus too but never thought about it being related to RA.

HandedGuy 09/08/2011

I developed tinnitus in 1987 which, ironically, was when I was in the middle of my speech, language and hearing pathologies studies. Thought I had sophmoritis at first but it's persisted up to the present. I was diagnosed with RA in September of 2006 so I'm thinking they're unrelated.

deleted_user 09/08/2011

Yes, my joint pain started at the same time I had a sore throat, echoing/fullness in ears, and tinnitus. Also had significant hearing loss in both ears and a blood test recently finally confirmed that all these problems are auto-immune related. I'm on 40mg of prednisone and will begin tapering off tomorrow. The ear specialist I saw said there's a chance the hearing loss will return once I stop the pred. But for now my hearing is back to normal, the tinnitus is gone, I just have that echoing feeling when I swallow.

deleted_user 09/09/2011

I just saw an ENT about my tinnitus and he thinks it's from taking Plaquenil. I didn't have it before being diagnosed with RA, and it's just developed since May.

lace2684 09/11/2011

Hi -

I've also noticed ringing in my ears recently. It also started after I began taking plaquenil. I stopped the plaquenil for a week and didn't notice it - at least not as much - so maybe they are related? I don't know much about tinnitus though!

I'm sorry to hear about everyone's experiences with it here!

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