Tinnitus and Migraine: Ringing and Headache in One Entry

Updated 10 October 2026

People who live with tinnitus and migraine often notice that the two seem to visit on the same days, and then wonder whether they are imagining it. One clinician may ask about the ringing and another about the headaches, so the pattern that you see across both can go unrecorded.

This guide sets out what the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the Vestibular Disorders Association, Cleveland Clinic and two journals say about tinnitus and migraine, then offers a table of the figures, one daily entry, a list of words, four steps and a one-page summary. It records what you notice and when. A clinician decides what the ringing or the headaches mean, and nothing here says that one causes the other.

What NIDCD, the Vestibular Disorders Association, Cleveland Clinic and two journals say about tinnitus and migraine

The NIDCD says tinnitus is common, with surveys estimating that 10 to 25% of adults have it. That is the background against which the other figures sit.

A paper in the World Journal of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery says studies have reported a high prevalence of cochlear symptoms in patients with migraine headaches and that up to 45% of tinnitus patients have been shown to concomitantly suffer from migraine. A study in Otology & Neurotology reports that people with migraine were more likely to have subjective hearing loss (25.0% against 16.6%) and tinnitus (34.6% against 16.9%) than people without migraine.

Cleveland Clinic describes migraine aura as any number of sensory disturbances, such as dots, sparks or zigzags in your vision, ringing in your ears, dizziness or difficulty speaking clearly. The Vestibular Disorders Association says significant factors associated with mild tinnitus may include meningitis, dizziness, migraine, hearing loss or age.

The sources describe an association in groups of people and an overlap in symptoms. They do not say that migraine causes tinnitus or the reverse, and they do not say what the link means for any one person. That leaves your own days as the place where a pattern can show, and a clinician as the person who can say what the pattern suggests. For someone who has long wondered whether the ringing and the headaches were connected, it can be reassuring to see that researchers have noticed the same overlap, and it can also be a reason to keep better notes than memory allows.

Questions about how your ringing and headaches relate can be written in the Daily Journal of Tinnitus Journey (by Health Journey Labs), ready for whichever clinician you see next.

The numbers on tinnitus and migraine: what 45%, 34.6% against 16.9% and 10 to 25% each measure

Four figures appear in these pages, and each answers a different question. The table sets out what each one measures.

Migraine overlap table, by Tinnitus Journey

The table shows that the figures start from different groups. One begins with adults in general, one with tinnitus patients and two with people who have migraine, so the percentages cannot be set against one another directly. The Otology & Neurotology figures compare people with and without migraine, while the World Journal figure counts migraine among people who already have tinnitus.

For a person keeping notes, the lesson is that the figures describe groups and cannot say what happens in one person. Your own record of ringing and headache on the same dates is the evidence that a clinician can use about you. It also helps to check which group each percentage describes before comparing it with another. The guide to starting to track tinnitus without building ten systems describes a light way to begin.

Dates of hearing tests and other results can be kept in My Labs of Tinnitus Journey, so the test dates sit in one list beside the daily entries.

Headache and ringing in one daily entry

A single entry for each day lets a clinician read the ringing and the headache together. The columns below follow what the sources mention, with room for your own notes.

Table of headache and ringing, by Tinnitus Journey

Write the ringing with a number from 0 to 10 for loudness and a plain word for the sound, the same scale each day. Write the headache by its place and kind, or none. The Cleveland Clinic page lists visual changes, dizziness and ringing among aura symptoms, so a column for other symptoms lets you record anything that arrives with the headache. Sleep and context hold whatever the day involved, in your own words.

Keep each entry short. After two or three weeks, read down the rows. A clinician may see days when ringing and headache rise together, days when only one does and quiet days between them. The entry shows when things happened, and what they mean is for the clinician who examines you. The guide to getting through a loud tinnitus flare day without losing notes describes a way to keep an entry short on a bad day.

The columns of this entry have homes in Tinnitus Journey: the Daily check-in for loudness and sleep, the Flare Tracker for a day clearly worse than usual and the Daily Journal for headache and other lines.

Words for ringing, headache and what comes with them

Ringing and headache each have their own vocabulary, and a clinician may want to know which words you use for which. A short list helps.

Words for ringing and headache

Tinnitus Journey offers words for ringing and headache.

• Ringing words: ringing, buzzing, hissing, high-pitched, low hum, steady, pulsing.
• Loudness words: faint, moderate, loud, louder in the evening, a number from 0 to 10.
• Headache words: throbbing, dull, one-sided, both sides, behind the eye, mild, strong.
• Companion words: light bothered me, dizzy, zigzag lines, hard to speak clearly.
• Your own words: whatever suits you, written your way.

Choose words that match what you went through and date each one. For a word that suits only in part, put it in quotation marks as a reminder that it was a best guess.

The companion words come from the Cleveland Clinic description of aura symptoms, which includes ringing, visual changes, dizziness and difficulty speaking clearly. A clinician may choose other terms and will tell you. Keeping the same words and the same 0 to 10 scale from week to week makes patterns easier to see. Some people add a short phrase for what the ringing was like on waking, since the first hours of the day may differ from the evening, and a clinician may find that detail useful when asking about timing. If you can, note whether the ringing came before the headache, with it or after it, since the order is something a clinician may ask about. The guide to preparing for a short ENT visit with tinnitus notes shows how to use such a list in a brief appointment.

Both word lists fit in the Daily Journal of Tinnitus Journey with the date, so each clinician hears the words you chose.

Four steps to prepare a visit that covers ringing and headache

Ringing and headache may be handled by different clinicians, and a short visit tends to cover one of them. Four steps help you bring both.

Steps for a visit about ringing and headache

Tinnitus Journey fills the daily entry for two to four weeks.

1. Fill the daily entry for two to four weeks, including the quiet days.
2. Underline the days when the ringing and the headache came together.
3. Write a three-line summary: the ringing, the headaches and how they overlapped.
4. Write two or three questions and list the one that matters most at the top.

From Tinnitus Journey, we recommend finishing the summary the day before the visit (Tinnitus Journey checklist), so the latest days are on the page.

With two clinicians, carry one page to both visits and write each visit's date at the top. Each can then see what the other might want to know, and you avoid retelling the history at every appointment.

Keep the summary short. A page with the standout days and three lines is easier to read than every row, and the full record stays available if a clinician asks for more. State at the start which of the two symptoms bothers you most, so that the clinician can use the time well.

The night before the visit, Tinnitus Journey shows loudness marks, headache lines and sleep notes in one history, so the three lines come from entries you already made.

One page for the clinician: ringing, headache, shared dates and your questions

With a single page, each clinician can see what the other is working with, and no long explanation is needed.

One-page visit list, by Tinnitus Journey

• Weeks covered, and how many days you filled.
• Standout days, with ringing and headache entries for each.
• Words that fit, from your lists.
• Test dates and what each result said.
• What a clinician told you, with the date.
• Two or three questions for this visit.

Slide the page across the desk as the visit opens and ask to go through it together. If a clinician names a possible explanation, add it to the page with the date so it travels with you to the next visit. Hold on to a copy and add the answers you hear, with the clinician's name.

The page records what you noticed. What causes your ringing, whether it relates to your headaches and what to do next are for your clinicians to decide, and the sources here describe associations in groups of people without saying why they occur. A clear record is the most useful thing you can bring, and it keeps its value whichever way the answers go.

Across the desk, the Doctor Report from Tinnitus Journey puts dates, loudness marks and headache notes on one page, and My Care Team holds what each clinician said.

How Tinnitus Journey can help

One daily entry on a sheet of paper is enough to start. If you want ringing, headache and sleep in one dated history, the best tinnitus apps guide compares the options.

Tinnitus Journey is a personal tinnitus tracker from Health Journey Labs on the App Store and Google Play. Two symptoms are easier to explain when they share a calendar. Numbers, places and plain words, written as they happen, leave the interpretation to the clinician. Below is what you can use and how each part helps.

• Daily check-in — Logs physical symptoms, emotional state, nutrition, sleep, exercise, meds, external factors; app-specific items: loudness, pitch or sound quality, annoyance, sleep, stress, noise exposure, concentration; read together with the rest of the logged history.
• Daily Journal — Logs free-text notes, voice entry; app-specific items: what the sound limited, sleep context, partner or quiet-space lines, visit debriefs, leftover fear after a loud night, a look-fine mismatch line; read together with scores and other logged history (adds context).
• Flare Tracker — Logs flag a day clearly worse than the usual hard week; app-specific items: a spike in loudness or annoyance, a night of broken sleep, a day when focus collapsed; read together with history across weeks (one-off spike vs repeating pattern).
• Weekly Goals — Logs one small aim, whether it held; read together with real check-ins.
• My Meds — Logs medicine names, timing, dose; app-specific items: options your clinician already cleared for sleep, anxiety, related care; read together with weeks, sleep, the rest of the tracked history.
• AI companions — Logs Clara (general chat), specialist companions; app-specific items: knowledge, fitness, nutrition, relationships; read together with your logged history (companions already see it); used for: visit wording; a calm partner script about quiet space; a listening ear after a loud night.
• Doctor Report — Logs one-page summary exported from logged history; app-specific items: dates, loudness and annoyance marks, sleep, stress or noise context, how you functioned; read together with the history already logged.
• My Care Team — Logs clinicians, short visit notes; app-specific items: tends to ask mainly about hearing thresholds rather than sleep or annoyance; read together with logged history; used for: visit prep (what to ask and bring); notes during the visit; review afterward.
• My Labs — Logs result dates; app-specific items: hearing tests, imaging, other ENT-related workups; read together with loudness, sleep, function.
• Learn — Logs short education topics, prompts; app-specific items: sleep, stress stacks, visit prep, why annoyance still belongs in the log; read together with your own logged weeks.
• My Assessments — Logs structured check-ins beyond daily scores, onboarding life and social context; read together with ongoing history.
• Food Tracker — Logs meal or drink lines, nutrition; read together with sleep, energy, tinnitus.
• Weight Tracker — Logs scale or body notes; read together with the rest of the logged history.
• Period Tracker — Logs start and stop dates, flow, how heavy or light bleeding felt; read together with tinnitus, sleep, stress, everything else logged.

Everything you log builds one history, and insights get stronger as it grows. Custom symptoms let you add your own labels.

Sources

• NIDCD, National Institutes of Health: Tinnitus
• World Journal of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery (PMC)
• Otology & Neurotology (PMC)
• Cleveland Clinic: Migraine aura
• Vestibular Disorders Association: Tinnitus

FAQ

The answers below draw on the sources cited in this guide, and the app they mention is Tinnitus Journey (by Health Journey Labs).