Public opinion about marijuana and cannabinoids have transformed remarkably in the past few decades. THC, cannabinoids, and even marijuana are legal for medical usage in the majority of states. Far fewer states have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, but even that would have been unimaginable even just ten or fifteen years ago.
Cannabinoids are identified as a group of compounds that comes from the cannabis or marijuana plant. New things are being discovered about cannabinoids every day in spite of their recent legalization in some states. Even though we now are beginning to understand the many medical positive aspects of these chemical substances, it has been recognized for a while that tinnitus may be brought about by cannabinoids.
Many Kinds of Cannabinoids
Nowadays, cannabinoids can be used in lots of forms. It’s not just weed (or Mary Jane, or grass… ok, let’s just all agree right now that marijuana has a significant number of nicknames and move on). Pills, oils, mists and other forms of cannabinoids are currently available.
Every state has it’s own laws regarding which forms of cannabinoids you can purchase, and under federal law, many forms are still illegal if the THC content is more than 0.3%. That’s the reason why some people tend to be rather cautious about cannabinoids.
We still require more study and experience before we will really understand the long range and side effects of cannabinoids. Some current research into how cannabinoids affect your hearing is a good example.
Cannabinoids And Your Hearing, Some New Studies
Whatever you would like to call it, cannabinoids have long been associated with helping a wide variety of medical conditions. Based upon information that is anecdotally available, conditions including vertigo, nausea, seizures, and countless more seem to be helped by cannabinoids. So could cannabinoids help with tinnitus? That’s exactly what scientists decided to figure out.
Tinnitus might actually be triggered by cannabinoid use, as it turns out. Ringing in the ears was described by over 29% of participants after using cannabinoids. And these participants had never had tinnitus symptoms before the study. Furthermore, marijuana users were 20-times more likely to report having tinnitus symptoms after 24 hours.
And for individuals who already have tinnitus, marijuana usage caused it to get worse. So, it seems fairly certain that tinnitus and cannabinoids aren’t very compatible.
How Cannabinoids worsen tinnitus
There are a couple of concrete ways that cannabinoids can cause your tinnitus to get worse. First off, the incidents of tinnitus symptoms can become more consistent, you may experience the buzzing or ringing in your ears more often. Cannabinoids can also make those tinnitus episodes more intense. The discomfort from the ringing could become more intense or harder to just ignore.
Cannabinoids have also been shown to lead to the onset of tinnitus symptoms. Or, explained another way: if you didn’t suffer from tinnitus before, you might develop tinnitus after using cannabinoids.
The Causes of Tinnitus Are Unknown
Just because this connection has been discovered doesn’t inevitably mean the root causes are all that well understood. That cannabinoids can have an impact on the middle ear and on tinnitus is fairly clear. But it’s far less obvious what’s causing this impact.
But we recognize that using marijuana, as opposed to other mood altering substances such as alcohol, will cause tinnitus.
Of course, we will continue to do the research. Cannabinoids nowadays come in so many types and forms that learning the underlying link between these substances and tinnitus could help individuals make better choices.
Beware The Miracle Cure
In recent times there has been a ton of hype about cannabinoids by marketers. That’s partly because attitudes are changing about cannabinoids (and, to some extent, is also an indication of a desire to go away from opioid use). But this new research makes it clear that cannabinoids can and do create some negative effects, specifically if you’re worried about your hearing.
You won’t be able to avoid all of the cannabinoid fans and evangelists in the world, the marketing for cannabinoids has been very assertive.
But this new research definitely indicates a solid link between cannabinoids and tinnitus. So no matter how much advertising you see for CBD oils, if you’re worried about tinnitus, you should probably steer clear of them. It’s worth being careful when the connection between tinnitus and cannabinoids has been so firmly demonstrated.