[bagsvaerd70]

I suffer from pretty strong tinnitus.

I have also had episodes of extreme eye dryness. Furthermore, I got floaters whose onset matches my tinnitus onset. Additionally I have very mild sporadic joint pain. I'm HLA-B27+.

Altogether, this is quite obvious evidence for autoimmune arthritis or some related autoimmunity. I know this because I do autoimmune genetics research in a top lab. I've gone to a few doctors and they never even suggested the possibility of me suffering from autoimmune disease, which is scary.

I'm in the process of being diagnosed only because I explicitly decided to go to a rheumatologist myself. The rheumatologist facepalmed when he heard the whole story.

I suspect a significant proportion of tinnitus phenotypes are mild autoimmune ones.

[spdustin]

I'm also HLA-B27+ and have psoriatic arthritis, psoriasis, occasional iritis, and fairly constant tinnitus.

I'll be curious to see what you learn.

[bagsvaerd70]

I've heard from my doctor and from other patients about cases where some steroids helped or even resolved tinnitus completely. I'm currently investigating this option.

In my case, years before my tinnitus onset, I started having a lot of discomfort on my right ear (my tinnitus is mostly one-sided, just like my floaters).

Firstly, my right ear started getting clogged with wax really frequently. Then, I developed extreme sensitivity to cold. So, cold air would give me acute ear pain.

Immediately before and after my tinnitus onset I had mild vertigo quite frequently.

Ever since I developed tinnitus, my ear feels full and clogged.

[ricardobeat]

If you wouldn’t mind, what is “HLA-B27+”?

[riahi]

The Human Leukocyte Antigen complex is a protein complex that immune cells use to determine self from non-self cells. There are many many many possible alleles, some of which are thought to be defective and contribute to auto-immune disorders. The most notorious (for medical students studying for standardized tests) is HLA-B27.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HLA-B27

Specifically, check out the section on disease associations.

And

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_leukocyte_antigen