Does Otterbox have a history of messing with an iPhone s Touch Screen Responiveness?

So for the past two weeks I've been having trouble unlocking my iPhone because the touch screen refuses to work. Today it got extremely worse! Before, I was able to swipe a few times and it would unlock, today it just didn't respond completely and when I did get it unlocked, the home screen was unresponsive, and it would be this way on and off rendering my phone unusable. I decided to take off my otterbox comuter and suddenly, All the problems went away IMMEDIATELY. How could the case affect my phone so severely? I've had it for over a year!

Is it the kind with the clear screen protector? If so, maybe the protector needs replacing.