Tinnitus sufferers: ever find anything that helps?

Didn't expect a lot of replies! Thats only a fraction of what I've learnt about T. I should really make a youtube channel if get the time. I'd dedicate my life to this if I could but I'm already trying to live several!

For me it is affected by:

1) Stress
2) Sleep
3) Diet and hydration

@drawnacrol Interestingly I do use a lot of turmeric, including drinks and plenty of curry, and I take a daily b supplement (we vegetarians need b12).

Are you taking a B-Complex. B12 on its own is often not enough because it needs the others to be properly absorbed and utilised in your body. B12 deficiency is a common cause of T and as you are well aware Vegetarians can have trouble meeting their targets. Are you taking a Tumeric supplement? it depends how you got your T. I've read testimonials where someone with stress induced T cured it with Tumeric, another where a war veteran cured his noise induced T with Tumeric, magnesium and Ginko in a night.

@drawnacrol thanks for the comprehensive explanation. I will try some of these.

I also have found that stress and sleep are major factors, I don't know though if they actually contribute to alter the perceived volume or just being more mentally fit helps on managing the burden.

I think mine is also affected by bruxism and some problems in my neck, at least it is what my ENT told me, apparently my audiometry is normal for my age.

Some treatments are on the verge of being approved by FDA, I hope in less than two years we have a solution.

No problem at all! Tight muscles in your neck and jaw can cause T but its also the one most people recover form quickly once they discover the root cause. I presume you can change or modulate your T by moving your jaw and neck around? Have you ever had a neck massage?

Honestly I'd say we are about 10-20 years away from really solid treatments because of lack of funding and hearing aids dominating the market. At the moment there are companies experimenting with neurostimulation devices. The results have greatly varied but a certain percentage have had very promising results. The tech is still in its infancy but this how devices grow.

Normally I’m all in favor of folks doing research for most things in life, but I almost always advise my patients to stay off the internet.

Hard disagree. If a person got Tinnitus from ototoxic medication like Aspirin. A quick google search will show up how aspirin can cause T by salycates coating the inner ear hair cells causing them to misfire. Aspirin is a big cause of T and stopping it in the majority of cases will allow the ear(s) to recover. If they keep taking Aspirin it can cause permanent hearing loss and T.

there are folks who certainly can use help, but for a majority of patients sometimes it is best to just leave it alone, as odd as that might sound.

No I disagree again and its thinking like this how medical scientists and professionals have utterly failed tinnitus sufferers. Tinnitus is a symptom and not a condition. Telling people to just deal with is like telling someone with depression to just deal with. There are so many mechanisms that cause T and many forms can be cured. Doctors lack so much education about T and most ENT's are just as un-educated if not even more so. They just want patients out of their office as quick as possible. With such apathetic medical professionals it leaves people with the only option of looking to the internet for answers.

There is no burden of proof to any claims that people make, many of which are based on completely fallacious "theories".

There is mountains of proof. You need to really spend some time on the internet researching into Salycates, nitric oxide, mineral deficiencies, ear wax compaction, TMJ etc. but hey what would I know? I only went from jet engines and dentist drills to 95%+ silence from researching these "theories"........

All the supplements under the sun, along with things like salt intake, BP control, etc would have little if any effect on the pathophysiology of what is actually wrong. It is feasible that dehydration may exacerbate tinnitus to a small degree, but the amount of dehydration would need to be life threatening before it actually affects the ionic concentrations and gradients of the endolymph and perilymph that bathe those damaged hair cells.

You need to stop looking at T being solely caused by damaged hair cells. Again Tinnitus is a symptom and not a condition and noise damage is only one of many ways to cause T. There are so many mechanisms that cause T. Ear wax compaction can cause T and no surprise getting your ears cleaned can eliminate your T. Poor blood flow is a major cause of T and increasing nitric oxide production helps a lot of people which is why bioflavanoids like Ginko Bilbo are enough to cure people's T. Salt is a vasodilator meaning it restricts blood flow. If your T is caused by poor circulation(which is mostly down to nitric oxide production) it will exaggerate T. Anyone with Meniere's or blood flow caused T will attest to how bad salt can be. There are countless testimonials from people who's T was cured by taking blood pressure medication. B12 deficiency is also a big cause of T and supplementation is an easy fix. I could go on and on.

I've never understand the really negative thinking that so many T sufferers have. They get caught in a cycle convincing themselves nothing works and refuse to try or believe T can be cured. I get there are scams but if something that works for someone else doesn't work for you its not a scam, its a closed path and you need to move on to something else.
 
Ear wax compaction can cause T and no surprise getting your ears cleaned can eliminate your T. Poor blood flow is a major cause of T and increasing nitric oxide production helps a lot of people which is why bioflavanoids like Ginko Bilbo are enough to cure people's T. Salt is a vasodilator meaning it restricts blood flow.

They say that if you have nothing good to say, then say nothing. So I'm saying nothing. Except to suggest you check what you've said about salt being a vasodilator and therefore RESTRICTS blood flow... Huh? Pardon?
 
Tinnitus is highly subjective and personal. I can only comment based upon on my professional experiences as an audiologist with an area of clinical research and specialization in tinnitus mgmt and a background working in sound disorder speciality clinics and the VA healthcare system. There is no one size fits all solution, but after treating several hundred individuals with significant tinnitus disturbance I can report on what I find to be good mgmt plans and what doesn’t work for most patients.

I certainly can keep my professional opinions to myself and allow everyone to just go on discussing vitamin supplements..... just don’t go thinking that $50 bottle of ginko advertised on the net is going to “cure” your tinnitus.

with a condition that affects 30-50 million people nationwide, if there was a simple “cure” you wouldn’t need to search the internet to find it, it would be everywhere, drug stores, tv ads, you name it. Billion dollar product easily.....
 
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Perhaps the best "cure" for tinnitus is to prevent it? Why mike up a drum kit in a pub or club setting, for example? Drop the volumes, use ear protectors to protect whatever is left of your hearing. Volume is what has killed a lot of venues, at least here in Australia. Used to be a lot of pub, restaurant, club type venues. Even weddings, functions etc. Now they hire DJs or simply play Musak in the background so that people can talk.

I speak not only as a medico who has been a lifelong musician, but also thanks to my army days, someone who has constant tinnitus. Now I'm very careful to protect what's left of my hearing, and I just have to ignore the tinnitus. And for the record, I've tried numerous vitamins, supplements, and even acupuncture, all of which did absolutely nothing - zip, zilch, zero. So I have - or at least, had - an open mind.
 
Yes, I take a B-complex.

You can rule out B12 then. A B-complex also helps with blood flow. I find it isn't really noticeable on its own but if I take it an hour or two after NAC then I can definitely feel, or hear the affects.

They say that if you have nothing good to say, then say nothing. So I'm saying nothing. Except to suggest you check what you've said about salt being a vasodilator and therefore RESTRICTS blood flow... Huh? Pardon?

Vasoconstrictor'. So many terms to remember but that should have been obvious from saying salt restricts blood flow and I mentioned in my original post how Nitric Oxide is a vasodilator.

I certainly can keep my professional opinions to myself and allow everyone to just go on discussing vitamin supplements..... just don’t go thinking that $50 bottle of ginko advertised on the net is going to “cure” your tinnitus

Ginko is one of the most common ways of treating T caused by blood flow problems. It's not for everyone and needs other vitamins to increase nitric oxide production to work, reducing anything that restricts blood flow but its worked for a lot of people. I can say Ginko has or had before I ran out a very noticeable affect when I used it. I've tried other bioflavonoids but they gave me temporary pulsatile tinnitus and a headache.



I'm just trying to help people. I know how frustrating it is and I told myself I was going to get rid of it and I nearly have so I'm just passing on what worked for me and what I've learned because there's so little information readily available.
 
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I think that since tinnitus is subjective and the medical community can most of the times provide no effective help, searching for alternate reliefs elsewhere is perfectly valid as long as you keep your expectations accordingly.

Since I got the condition and researched a bit, I have realized tinnitus is also an industry, with many health professionals making money of desperate people with therapies also of doubtful effectiveness like acupuncture, phicotherapies of any kind, selling proven failures like Desyncra and other useless stuff.
 
BP taken several times recently due to a surgery. That's about the only thing on me that's consistently good. I should mention I've been dealing with it for over 20 years. I'm getting a bit "long in the tooth" as they say.

Stiff hands/fingers is another thing I'm dealing with. Advice there also welcomed. Any supplements or anything that help with that? My right hand flies but the fingers on my left stiffen up horribly. Granted it's only been several months since I started playing again after a long layoff but it's not showing much improvement with practice.

Getting old sucks. :tonguewink:

Turmeric with Curcumin (a vitamin supplement) works great for me on the stiff hands & finger issue
 
Turmeric with Curcumin (a vitamin supplement) works great for me on the stiff hands & finger issue

I forgot I even mentioned the hand pain/stiffness in this thread. I actually started taking CBD not too long ago and it fixed that up pretty good. Now I got a new thing going on. Thumb and index finger in my right hand has been tingling and half numb for about three weeks and there's a pain in the wrist when bending it back too far. Not sure if it's from playing or if I just hurt my wrist without realizing it and it's causing a nerve thing or something.

The tinnitus is still the same as it always is. It gets worse for a while then goes back down to normal but my baseline is pretty bad.
 
Like most of us, I’ve got it.

For another reason I take a supplement (And I am not much of a supplement guy) Citrus Bioflavonoids which I believe provide some relief from tinnitus. It’s benefit Is not quantifiable.

I have both tinnitus which generally as the doc and lqdsd address very well; it just blends away into the background. How long and loud I play matters. 6 hrs at 101 dB = no bueno.

Also, not mention is hearing loss/attenuation. (Thank you so much Eric Johnson.). Again amplitude and duration. I believe that’s permanent as well. No answer for that other than avoid further damage.

Thanks for the discussion guys! Looking forward to some kind of help.
 
I think that since tinnitus is subjective and the medical community can most of the times provide no effective help, searching for alternate reliefs elsewhere is perfectly valid as long as you keep your expectations accordingly.

Since I got the condition and researched a bit, I have realized tinnitus is also an industry, with many health professionals making money of desperate people with therapies also of doubtful effectiveness like acupuncture, phicotherapies of any kind, selling proven failures like Desyncra and other useless stuff.

There is plenty of things that help, the most successful is hearing aids. About 65% report a significant reduction in tinnitus perception with properly fit amplification, at least when the tinnitus is associated with high frequency hearing loss, which most tinnitus is. Reduce the auditory deprivation from the high frequency loss and many achieve residual inhibition of the tinnitus. Basically silence is the enemy for most with tinnitus, and if we can provide more high frequency stimulus from common ambient sounds, speech etc, the brain is back to work, so to speak, processing real world stimulus and doesn’t need to create the tinnitus perception.
 
There is plenty of things that help, the most successful is hearing aids. About 65% report a significant reduction in tinnitus perception with properly fit amplification, at least when the tinnitus is associated with high frequency hearing loss, which most tinnitus is. Reduce the auditory deprivation from the high frequency loss and many achieve residual inhibition of the tinnitus. Basically silence is the enemy for most with tinnitus, and if we can provide more high frequency stimulus from common ambient sounds, speech etc, the brain is back to work, so to speak, processing real world stimulus and doesn’t need to create the tinnitus perception.
My tinnitus got worse with hearing aids. My brain had got used to blocking the high frequency ringing, and hearing aids persuaded it to start listening again.
 
Should we be looking into IEMs, as opposed to FRFR/monitors, etc?
From my perspective we need both. IEMs keep onstage volume levels down, and moulded IEMs can reduce the volume which actually hits your ears. The guitar still needs something to react to.
 
Most hearing aids barely reach 10K Hz and there is a great percentage of people with good audiograms until 8K and some damage beyond.
 
Most hearing aids barely reach 10K Hz and there is a great percentage of people with good audiograms until 8K and some damage beyond.

And most people with noise induced hearing loss start to show decreased thresholds around 2khz, with 3 and 4 kHz showing the largest decline, commonly referred to as a “noise notch”.

odds are that a patient who is middle aged or older, and/or has a hx of noise exposure such as military, musicians etc, they are not going to show normal auditory thresholds. It does happen, but not surprising.

working at the VA and with hearing conservation programs for musicians and industrial settings I’ve done tens of thousands of audiograms and high frequency hearing loss is more of an expectation than an exception
 
My tinnitus got worse with hearing aids. My brain had got used to blocking the high frequency ringing, and hearing aids persuaded it to start listening again.

It can happen, when it helps 2/3rds of people that also means it doesn’t help 1/3rd. Still though, something that helps 2/3rds of people is pretty good place to start, especially if there is also benefits of improved communication with soft higher pitches voices etc

Siemens has an interesting technology they call a notch filter which is designed to help with tinnitus perception in cases like yours. It’s basically a very narrow and customizable notch in the amplification matched to the tinnitus frequency, so it’s not providing stimulus at that pitch.

again, most often tinnitus is related to the auditory deprivation with tinnitus usually matching the poorest auditory thresholds, but for folks like you where the inverse proved to be true, it’s a pretty solid concept IMO
 
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