How Do You Deal with Sickness?

I am currently sick with a cold and have a lot of upper respiratory congestion. My left ear feels plugged and muffled, probably due to my Eustachian tubes being blocked. This goes without saying, but tinnitus is obviously all over the place now, which is quite lovely.

I am drinking lots of water, blowing my nose constantly, and taking hot steam showers, but I can only do so much and it just has to naturally run its course.

What do you guys do when your sick? Do you take certain medicines?

Any advice to help me get outta this alive would be helpful! lol

Added a quick questionnaire, because I am curious.

 

I have had two episodes of the cold after getting tinnitus. The first episode it actually lowered my tinnitus... I woke up in the middle of the night on the couple of days, where my nose was very blocked and I heard near silence. Wonderful!

Second bout of cold was different. The tinnitus was mostly unchanged, but I think at one point it spiked it a wee bit. It went back to baseline quickly though.

 

I used NAC, drank fresh orange juice and I drank a garlic and ginger drink with a touch of honey (not the nicest drink btw), cold cleared pretty quick but my ears did take just under 3 months to go back to baseline.

 

I'm hoping this is the case with me too!

 

Just under three months?! Was it a huge spike or little one?

 

It was huge mate, like hear it over the shower loud, it freaked me out if I’m honest but some cool people on here talked sense into me and after the 1 month mark it had lowered a lot then it slowly went back to baseline.

I got a second cold and it spiked again but not to the same extent and cleared up within a month I think.

 

My advice is to throw everything that is good at the immune system. I doubt you will think much of my advice because of my history but this is a topic I know about.

I am practicing what I preach because I am doing everything what I am going to suggest.

Take foods heavy in vitamin C, vitamin C supplements, Zinc and Spirulina supplements.

Drink lots of water to stay hydrated. You can also try herbal teas for colds.

I know that my immune system has weakened because of anxiety and stress due to tinnitus etc. so I am trying to help it. I don't want to get any worse, tinnitus wise but also my overall health.

As long as I am still here, I want to minimize suffering as much as possible.

 

That's a good tea choice.

 

Yeah it’s not the nicest drink and my partner said I stunk while I was taking it haha but it did help and I’m trying to drink it 3/4 times a week now, not sure if I’m getting the full benefit like that though.

 

I should get one soon. My current tea is ginger and turmeric. Try that one. You might like your drink afterwards.

 

Cool I’ll try it, I’ve got ginger and turmeric so I’ll try making a tea with them. Do you make yours from scratch or buy tea bags?

 

Tea bags but from scratch is admittedly better.

 

I’ve got so many different types of teas in the pantry it’s stupid haha I started making them from scratch now, it’s pretty easy and cheaper I think.

 

Hey buddy, hope you are feeling already a bit better. Each time I caught a cold I got a massive spike (new tones, louder baseline). First time it took nearly 2 months to subside, second time just a week or so. I initially always took some OTC medication like paracetamol and nasal spray but in the end I just had to sit it out. I also used some NAC and I kind of think that helped a bit.

Wishing you a fast recovery.

 

I haven't gotten sick yet but recently I took allergy meds for hay fever and my tinnitus went through the roof!! I had no idea how ototoxic those over the counter meds are, so beware of allergy pills! Hope you get better soon Jack!

 

Yeah gunna wait it out. Pretty brutal stuff. Lol

 

Yeah I try to avoid them if possible. I assume the spike settled after taking it?

Cute puppy btw!

 

allergy meds aren't known to be ototoxic; that is, they don't do damage to any part of the auditory or vestibular system.

they can certainly cause spikes in some people, because they are psychoactive drugs that modulate a number of transmitters (often including serotonin as an undesired side effect), and anything that changes brain chemistry can change the noise. they're not going to mess you up long term, though.

I deal with colds by being annoyed and consuming excess amounts of cannabis. If I have a significant fever, then I will rely on Tylenol to help me sleep through the worst of it, but I keep my consumption to like 5 pills a year because that stuff is definitely ototoxic, in addition to hepatoxicity and other nastiness.

 

Isn’t Tylenol the least ototoxic OTC painkiller / fever reducer? @Bill Bauer talked about this in another thread I think.

 

That sounds like dangerously incorrect information to me.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831770/

I don't take any of these things if I can avoid them, but Tylenol is the one which is actually helpful when I have a significant fever (not useful any other time). For routine aches and pains, yoga+cannabis works better for me than any of these pills, and as far as I can tell carries less risks (at least as far as hearing goes; cannabis is a strong psychoactive drug which definitely creates a physical dependence, so I don't necessarily endorse it, but it works for me).

Of course, these studies are assessing regular use; very occasional use of any of them is likely to be fine.

 

I think it is well known that regular use of OTC pain killers are very ototoxic. But occasional use for less than a week isn’t supposed to be.

 

my suspicion, especially with APAP, is that even limited use (mainly meaning over a period of consecutive days, because of its long elimination and toxicity thereof) is probably slightly damaging, it's just that it's so slight that it disappears into the background of someone's general state of health and other more significant risk factors.

 

Hey man, any updates? Are you feeling better?

 

The tinnitus from the sickness has passed. Took a couple of weeks but it finally settled back to baseline or close enough to it. Was pretty crazy ride though. Lol