Your inner ear is sensitive to changes in pressure and blood flow. If you live with hypertension, you may notice emerging challenges with hearing, tinnitus, vertigo, or a sensation of “fullness” within the ears.
Hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, occurs when the force of blood on the walls of your arteries is high enough to cause damage to your cardiovascular system and other organs.
Since your cardiovascular system is an intricate part of many other structures and systems in the body, high blood pressure can impact many parts of your body, icnluding your ears.
Your ears rely on a delicate internal pressure balance that helps you maintain your spatial awareness in the environment. Parts of the ear essential to hearing, like the cochlea, are also highly vascularized with a complex network of tiny vessels.
When you have high blood pressure, the changes in blood flow and pressure can cause damage to the ear and disruption in its functions.
Hypertension is associated with several ear-related health challenges, including:
- hearing loss
- tinnitus
- vertigo
- ear pressure
Hearing loss
Hypertension doesn’t directly cause hearing loss, but experts consider it to be a significant risk factor, along with things like age, genetics, and exposure to loud sounds.
A 2021 cross-sectional study found that participants who had had hypertension for more than 5 years had significantly greater levels of hearing loss than those without hypertension.
Hypertension may contribute to hearing loss when it interrupts typical blood flow to the cochlea, the hearing organ within your inner ear. Blood vessels of the cochlea bring nutrients to hair cells that convert sounds to electrical signals for the brain.
These specialized cells don’t regenerate if they become damaged by hypertension. As they become damaged, your ability to receive signals from the ears decreases, resulting in hearing loss.
Tinnitus
Tinnitus is the perception of ringing or buzzing without an external source. For some people, tinnitus is pulsatile, occurring in sync with certain muscle contractions or rhythms of the body.
In hypertension, elevated blood pressure can create a pulsating sound strong enough to be perceived by the hearing organs of the ears. According to
Vertigo
Vertigo, the sensation that you or your surroundings are moving when you’re actually still, is a frequent complaint for people with hypertension.
And according to a cohort study from 2019, experiencing frequent, recurrent vertigo may be an indicator of elevated stroke risk in hypertension.
Hypertension can cause vertigo by impairing blood flow to your vestibular system, the structures of the ear responsible for balance and spatial orientation.
Ear pressure
Inflammation and changes in pressure within the ear may create the sensation of pressure, sometimes described as “fullness,” or feeling like your ears are clogged.
Not everyone will “hear” hypertension in their ears, but for some people, hypertension can cause a pulsating, ringing, whooshing, or thumping sound known as pulsatile tinnitus.
For others, hypertension might result in hearing loss. Sounds may seem muffled, or you may not hear well at a certain volume.
Treating hypertension is the first step in managing ear conditions associated with high blood pressure.
Because hypertension can have many different underlying causes, a thorough evaluation by your doctor is necessary to determine a comprehensive management plan. Genetics, lifestyle, and co-existing conditions like heart disease or sleep apnea are all factors.
For most people, hypertension management involves a multidisciplinary treatment approach that focuses on treating underlying medical conditions and achieving symptom management with medications and lifestyle changes.
You may go through a period of trial and error before you find a medication regime that effectively lowers your blood pressure.
Depending on the level of damage in your ear and which structures are affected, some ear-related conditions can improve on their own once blood pressure lowers. Certain structures of the ear won’t regenerate if they’re damaged, however, and auditory devices might be necessary to help you regain full hearing.
Will lowering my blood pressure stop tinnitus?
If your tinnitus is caused by hypertension, lowering your blood pressure
Tinnitus could remain even after your blood pressure improves if other underlying causes are in involved or if hypertension has caused permanent damage within the ear. Age, noise exposure, and other medical conditions can contribute to tinnitus persistence.
Hypertension affects many parts of your body, including your ears. Changes in blood flow and pressure can lead to challenges like tinnitus, hearing loss, and vertigo.
Lowering your blood pressure may help improve ear conditions related to hypertension, but some damage to the ear may be permanent. Early detection can help get blood pressure under control as soon as possible to reduce the likelihood of long-term hearing challenges.