Alcohol Quiets Down My Tinnitus

@BuzzyBee
@Louise
There is a thread about Susan Shore's work here:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...igan-tinnitus-discovery-—-signal-timing.2805/

 

Thanks @lapidus

 

@lapidus thanks for the link! I've been following her work, but I haven't been on in a while and missed the last couple of posts. @linearb Thanks for updating us on your experience in the clinical trial and giving everyone hope. @Louise, I guess we should just drink up for now . Kidding, but not kidding.

 

Whatever mechanisms make tinnitus lower the day after heavy drinking, if tinnitus is going up again as the alcohol leaves the body, it wasn't a permanent solution to cure the tinnitus. Instead it was a solution to very easily become permanently addicted to alcohol, in addition to already having permanent tinnitus.

We should rather look for methods that lowers tinnitus permanently. Complete silence seems to me the only candidate at the moment. Lack of input signal due to hearing loss must be the key to address the problem. Why does silence help? Silence turns up the volume of our senses. It helps us focus on sounds. If there are no sounds, the brain keeps turning up the volume. I we have a radio which is in between two stations, it also turns up the volume until it zeroes in on a signal from a third station in between the two bigger radio stations.

Could it be that the brain by turning up the volume could eventually pick up a signal that was not picked up by the brain in a more noisy environment where the brain has no reason to increase its sensitivity to sounds? If so, then silence leads to more neurons being activated, more diverse signals are going into the cochlea and tinnitus activity is lowered.

 

Alcohol is great. Lowers tinnitus. Good sleep and a pleasant feeling of euphoria. What's not to like? Mind you I limit it to the weekends because I like to get my work done.

 

Hmmm... the list is long.

 

I suppose I'm lucky. Got none of that stuff. Unless the booze gave me tinnitus?

 

Sounds okay to me.

 

@MountainCreek I was not for one second suggesting that anyone use alcohol in the volumes that I find it necessary to reduce Tinnitus. I was asking what the mechanism is which is resulting in it lowering T so that I could home in on what's going on for me and find a healthy alternative.

I'd never suggest alcohol in anything but moderation.

 

A few drinks brings my T down a notch immediately, but too much makes it spike the next day, probably due to poor sleep. So this reaction actually helps me moderate how much I take in, but does make me take in a couple of drinks each evening.

 

Happened to me last Friday. Went to a beer tasting the night before, consumed a fair amount of alcohol. Wouldn't say excessive, though, but enough to make me tipsy (I don't drink much anymore, so it doesn't take much). Almost complete silence in the morning. Good thing I wasn't stupid enough to think I'd been cured permanently.

Surely it must be possible to replicate this effect without alcohol.

 

Exactly @Newloud. Whatever the alcohol is doing needs investigating and a drug alternative made. Maybe they are investigating it?

 

I think it's the calming effect that does it. And I have a lot to learn as far as calming myself goes.
Even though the relief is only temporary, it's really a great boon to know that it's actually physically possible for me to have no tinnitus. It's even within reach somehow.

 

Its the affect it has on Glutamate that does it. It knocks out Glutamate so that the overexcited neurons in the auditory cortex calm down. Its supposed to be those neurons which we can hear. If T was caused by hearing loss that is.

Anti-convulsants work by reducing Glutamate too and thats why some people find they help T.

Same mechanism as alcohol I think.

If they could make a drug that reduces Glutamate only in the auditory cortex then I think a lot of us coukd be helped.

As you say though, its good to know that there is some mechanism which silences it.

 

Same here.. A full on hangover usually puts my T in a very calm state.. although then it later creeps up in annoyance one's the "mental hangover" starts increasing towards the second day after..

When intoxicated it's a mixed bag though. I do think about it less, and even if I sometimes perceive it as very loud when drunk, my not-giving-a-F-attitude is usually high enough to not care about it emotionally.

 

Exactly the same here. A smaller, more normal amount makes my T worse at the time of drinking (blood thinning effect I guess), but the brave attitude is there and so it counters this effect.

If I drink a ridiculous amount then it's the next morning I get near silence. Then that day it gradually rises to be back to normal the next morning. I guess that's the Glutamate reduction the alcohol makes wearing off.

I hope the boffins are investigating this.

 

I've had a few beers and a few shots occasionally since acquiring T but didn't really notice much difference. Yesterday afternoon I drank 4 glasses of red wine, my T was imperceptible after the finishing the first glass. In the evening, even after the alcohol had worn off, it was maybe a .5 on a scale of 1-10. When I woke up this morning it was back, but no worse than usual. I'm not much of a drinker but thinking alcohol may be the closest thing to a miracle drug we have.

 

I haven't touched a drink since T came on two months ago because all the 'official' advise seems to be to avoid alcohol, but I'm tempted to give a few beers a try as beer seems to be the drink of choice for a few on here in reducing their T. It's certainly a better option than the current regime I have of panic and valium.

 

Where does it say to not drink alcohol?

 

Alcohol might cause a temporary spike but it will not have a long-lasting permanent effect on it.

 

@Sam Bridge This is what I've read, that it is advisable to avoid alcohol, however I just visited the British Tinnitus Association's website and came across this;

"It is often recommended that people with tinnitus should abstain from alcohol, with red wine frequently coming in for special criticism. Once again, there seems little hard evidence to justify these statements. The majority of the evidence that is available suggests that alcohol is more frequently helpful rather than harmful with respect to tinnitus. There have, however, been some pieces of research that have identified particular groups of people such as teenagers for whom alcohol does seem to be associated with increased levels of tinnitus. As with foods, a trial withdrawal and reintroduction would seem to be the sensible way for an individual to establish whether alcohol is related to the level of tinnitus.

A word of caution needs to be sounded here: some people find that alcohol actually helps their tinnitus. We should all keep our alcohol consumption within safe limits and people with tinnitus are no exception to this rule. The government advises that people should not regularly drink more than 3 to 4 units of alcohol per day for men (equivalent to a pint and a half of 4% beer) and 2-3 units of alcohol per day for women (equivalent to a 175 ml glass of wine)."
Source: https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/food-drink-and-tinnitus

Very interesting, especially coming from the BTA.

 

@Paul10 thanks for posting. I always find alcohol helpful, i only drink on weekends though.

 

If the beer doesn't work, see if a hard alcohol or wine does. Beer did nothing for my T. Hard alcohol took the edge off T, but didn't seem to lower it much. Red wine obliterated it and gave me the sweet sound of silence for a good 8 hours. Seems like it's different for everyone.

 

If that is the case, then there must be a solution for you, no? Have you said this to an ENT or neurologist?

 

Thanks @BLane , I'll give it a go!

 

Your Brain on Drugs: Alcohol

 

Thanks. Explains the really lucid, clear thinking times I've had when I've had too many.

You'd think though 7-8 hours after cessation of alcohol that the Glutamate inhibition would have worn off? But that's when I have near silence, almost total suppression of Tinnitus.

Still not sure if the reason is due to Glutamate suppression, though I still haven't been able to read the information others have posted above.

 

Same for me. I too think it's a bad sleep issue. I had to give up drinking. Xanax provides the same calming effect. But you can't just pop into the Xanax store on the way home from work.

 

They should run a trial on alcohol's effects... should be simple?

 

You would think so. But then they might have, we dont know what they are doing do we? Maybe they know how it reduces Tinnitus but cant yet come up with a drug to do same which only affects the Auditory system.