What Precautions Should Be Taken to Prevent Tinnitus from Increasing?

I feel I'm slowly transitioning from denial into acceptance of my T, but still, the last thing any of us want is the noise getting louder, so other than wearing ear plugs around loud noise, is there anything else that can be done to ensure T doesn't get knocked up another notch? This would be very important information!

 

Anecdotal:
My best friend has had tinnitus for 13 years. He's a musician and stopped wearing ear plugs 10 years ago. He plays in loud big bands. His tinnitus hasn't increased.
Another member on this forum posted yesterday (sorry, I forgot the name) that his tinnitus has increased once every year from noise exposure since he got it.
Some people have their tinnitus increased by colds, by sinus infections, by food poisoning etc. Some people never experience an increase.

The point? Well, as with every other thing with T this is very individual. Try avoiding medications listed as 'ototoxic' and try to stay healthy. Besides from that, protecting your ears, though not too much, is probably a good thing.

 

How do I know if a medication is ototoxic or not?

Also, has anyone heard that coffee should be good at preventing tinnitus?

 

There was one study which showed that women who consumed a really excessive amount of coffee (9 cups a day or something as I recall) had lower-than-normal tinnitus risk; what that actually means is hard to say. Rat studies have shown that chronic administration of caffeine in very high doses leads to increased GABA receptor density, so it may be that caffeine is neuroprotective to some degree in a way which helps prevent tinnitus -- but it may also be that people who are prone to consuming huge amounts of coffee are also less prone to tinnitus for some other reason. No one knows.

Basically I think it's wise to protect one's hearing any time you're in an uncomfortable loud situation, not consume obviously ototoxic drugs like mycin antibiotics (or benzos, if you can avoid them). Beyond that, basic stress hygiene is probably helpful, meditation and exercise especially. Beyond all that, just try not to worry about it, maybe your tinnitus will get worse, maybe it won't, maybe you'll get metastatic pancreatic cancer next year, maybe you won't.

 

This study reports that caffeine intake is associated with a REDUCED risk for tinnitus:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/caffeine-may-reduce-tinnitus-risk/

The study concludes that “no evidence was found to justify caffeine abstinence as a therapy to alleviate tinnitus", but noted that the acute effects of caffeine withdrawal might actually make tinnitus worse:

http://psychcentral.com/lib/experts-challenge-caffeine-tinnitus-link/

 

Avoiding loud sounds ( i mean dangerous ones), and avoid Stress!

 

Here ya go....i recommend u get a decibel meter for your phone or get one off amazon.
http://www.dangerousdecibels.org/education/information-center/decibel-exposure-time-guidelines/

 

As others have said , tinnitus is caused and spikes caused by lots of reasons so its up to us to protect ourselves when we can.
Noise,stress,anxiety,virus,colds,sinus problems,jaw and neck problems ,middle ear problems,tumours ,medications,loud sounds,ear operations ,cold and wind ,short naps in the day,after a busy sleep with busy dreams ,loud music and alarms to list a few so we can only do our best at times to protect our ears.

We went on holiday by train recently and while standing in the train station they did a fire alarm test and there was only me with my fingers in my ears.
As we have tinnitus we have a advantage to protect our ears from further damage than others without tinnitus. ..lol glynis

 

I just saw that report on FB - that coffee actually HELPS tinnitus! I have been off caffeine for five years with no relief and now I'm thinking I should try and go back on? But my doc has prescribed xanax and it has reduced by half. Common sense tells me that would counteract itself but maybe science says differently? Maybe it's a property of the caffeine that helps?

 

Hi @Glutenphobic,
I have just started a stress management course. One of the first topics was caffeine and its effect on anxiety. I guess it may be ok in moderation. They gave us this reference to check out how much we have in our drinks, foods and even tablets. http://www.caffeineinformer.com. Hope this may help. Regards Phil

 

Thank you @Phil-O I will check it out!