Tinnitus - treatment, etc

FWIW: I have pronounced tinnitus myself. However I have discovered that by regularly taking lots of vitamins and antioxidants that I can significantly lower the noise floor inside of my brain.

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which supplements work for you?

I donā€™t want to derail this thread with another discussion, but to answer your question as quickly as I can I will say that I take a bunch. Among the most critical though are lots of Vitamin B, niacin, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Bioflavinoids, and the antioxidants NAC, and Acetl-L-Carnatine. It takes taking all of these for a couple of weeks before much of a difference becomes noticeable. But it really seems to help.

Do you take these all individually?

Mostly. Good vitamin B caps usually contain several different forms of B complex, including niacin. You want ones that contain as many types of vitamin B as is possible. Some of the best Vitamin C capsules will contain bioflavonoids. I take everything I have listed above every night in addition to multi-vitamins and Vitamin D (just for general health, not for hearing, and because in the PNW we get so little sun). And in the mornings I have found that drinking a packet of a powered supplement called ā€œEmergen-Cā€ helps to supercharge this technique, and my tinnitus levels seem to go even lower.

As I said, it really takes weeks to take effect at first. But when I occasionally have forgen (or have been too sleepy to bother) to take all of these for just one day I really notice a very significant increase in the volume level of my tinnitus within 12 hours.

If you guys want to learn more about my experiences, PM me. I donā€™t want to keep going OT like this inside of Tedā€™s Thread.

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These seem to help and they contain all of the ingredients you mentioned within one pillā€¦

Those do appear to contain some of the ingredients which I recommended, but not all of them. Unfortunately these have none of the advanced antioxidants (which help to actually preserve your hearing). But these should suffice for the vitamin B portion of my regimen at least.

FWIW, I was misdiagnosed for years with tinnitus. Turned out the clicking sound I was hearing was being caused by palatal tremor (formerly known as palatal myoclonus). Palatal tremor is much less common than tinnitus, and relief is available . . . albeit in the form of periodic Botox shots into the back of the roof of the mouth via what is perhaps the longest needle the universe has ever seen.

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Have you ever tried using a floating tank? It is a VERY effective way of reducing stress and repair minor ā€œpartsā€ in the body.

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Thanks for the suggestion, it sounds great and I might try it (I question whether it would have any effect on involuntary palatal muscle spasms, though).

Hi

Sorry to hear about your tinnitus.

Iā€™ve found that B-complex helps. It just ā€œmutesā€ it a bit or makes it less piercing (in my case anyway). All these over the counter ā€œtinnitusā€ meds are all mostly just B-complex anyway, at 3X the price.

Also, for what itā€™s worth, when I first developed tinnitus I thought it was the end of the world. Now I donā€™t even care, I still hear it, but it doesnā€™t even bother me at all. :crossed_fingers:

Oh, and wear earplugs at concerts!

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I never leave the house without a set of earplugs on my person. One really needs to protect your ears from all kinds of environmental noise if you want to keep your hearing for as long as possible.

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Tarnishedears- Now that this conversation has been given its own thread I wonder if you might be willing to share more details about your regimen. Iā€™d also be curious to know how you discovered it.

My tinnitus is what they call ā€˜moderateā€™ ā€” it doesnā€™t keep me awake or anything, but it is often the loudest sound I hear, even in somewhat noisy environments. I went to the hearing clinic through my health care provider and was told there was nothing to be done about it. If I could turn down the volume of the ringing in my ears, that would be wonderful.

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Those of you who donā€™t suffer from any degree of tinnitusā€¦ Are your black backgrounds completely, absolutely black? No noise whatsoever to be detected from your brain?

That is hard to imagine for me. I either have tinnitus or my hearing is acute enough that Iā€™m picking up the temperature-dependent whine of air molecules hitting the ears. Probably the latter as I also hear a fluorescent lightā€™s ballast humming from over 10 meters away. Gets a bit disturbing sometimes.
So thereā€™s always at least a faint whine of something like 20kHz. It doesnā€™t allow black backgrounds - it is heard even over moderate volume active passages of music if they donā€™t contain much very HF information to mask it.
Interesting is that the whine is fully modular - I can at will change its modulation frequency from what feels like DC to radio spectrum. Itā€™s even modulated automatically by moving body parts.

Itā€™s easily masked by listening to Autechre or Venetian Snares. (Heh)

What are your experiences of tinnitus, and its relation to the music experience?

(Merged)

I had something similar and it was driving me nuts.
For me, it was a combination of things.

  • Went to the doctor, no problem with my hearing.
  • Had a tube problem. Replaced the tubes, then the bad tube sound disappeared.
  • Had to much gain in the system so I installed Roswell attenuators to improve the SNR

That took care of all the mid range noise.
I then had a very high noise above the 12k area. That turned out to be my LG OLED TV. Even when being turned off, it is still doing something in the background plus it injects DC into the mains.
A DC filter solved thatā€¦

My problem was then that I always heared this noise because it was bothering me, even though the noise was not there. (because i was in a different room or location)
So it also helps to not focus on your problem too much.

Well, damn, just drank some strong lavender tea. Smoothed out the whine and actually seems to make everything sound more euphonic. The speakers sound more expensive.
Iā€™ve always thought thereā€™s something peculiar to lavender, itā€™s becoming clearer now.

I have had tinnitus about 4 years. My ENT gave me a list of items to avoid that tend to negatively affect tinnitus.

Caffeine
Coffee
Tea
Chocolate
Alcohol
Tyramine (orange, yellow cheese)
Aspirin
Red Wine

I still enjoy beer occasionally and I have to take a small dose aspirin a day for a heart disease issue. I did give up caffeine soft drinks and cheese about 2 years ago when I changed my diet to plant-based foods. I was never really a coffee or tea drinker.

I take all the vitamins mentioned early for genearl health reasons and did so long before I had tinnitus too. My ENT did not push any vitamin therapy.

I am 58 and my ENT does not believe my tinnitus is going to go away or improve. Some days are better than others. I primarily experience it more on my left side and I believe it has gotten a bit louder in the past year. It used to be drowned out with typical conversation, TV, or music listening. My wife has noticed I tend to listen to TV and music a bit louder than I used to. I am likely subconsciously turning it up over the tinnitus.

The ENT has tested my hearing 3 times and any hearing changes have been slight and he did not think it was anything to be concerned about at this time. He has asked me to come back every two years for now to be retested.

no pictures of the needle please :slight_smile:

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pressure from gunk in middle ear via eustacion tubes, regular daily steroid nose spray helps.

also ear defenders for any vaguely noisy stuff (which sometimes includes emptying the dishwasher).

Guys, try the lavender tea and report back.
Make it strong.

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