I Have 12 Months to Recover from Tinnitus: What Treatments Can I Try? Budget $450,000.

[cjbhab]

I would say tinnitus rarely goes away for those of us who are on this website for a long time because there are millions of people attending loud events (concerts, sporting events, ...) who get short-lived tinnitus. They are lucky that it goes away for them.

I have also seen many people who, no matter what they do, never end up with tinnitus! And those people never join us here!

This tells me that loud noise alone does not cause permanent chronic tinnitus. If it did, the entire world would have what we have and everyone would be in panic.

Loud noise may cause temporary shift in hearing or ringing sounds - but something else is at play when it becomes permanent and chronic.

 

[RunningMan]

I think 3 years is a good starting point, but the longer it goes on, the more resilient you are most likely to become. My tinnitus hasn't changed, but for most of the day, I don't pay attention to it in the slightest. In other words, it has no impact on me at all.

It seems whether I pay attention to my tinnitus or not, it still makes a huge impact with anxiety, depression, insomnia going on 18+ months since a worsening of tinnitus. From what I read, this is because the brain subconsciously senses the tinnitus as a threat and activates the sympathetic nervous system and gets stuck in the fight or flight response. My tinnitus is variable along with hearing loss, hyperacusis, and TTTS, so it's not easily ignored for long.

 

[Ed209]

It seems whether I pay attention to my tinnitus or not, it still makes a huge impact with anxiety, depression, insomnia going on 18+ months since a worsening of tinnitus. From what I read, this is because the brain subconsciously senses the tinnitus as a threat and activates the sympathetic nervous system and gets stuck in the fight or flight response. My tinnitus is variable along with hearing loss, hyperacusis, and TTTS, so it's not easily ignored for long.

Yeah, it's the response of you feeling it's a threat which you cannot control. You can't just say to someone "Just relax and don't let it bother you" and expect them to go "Oh right of course, silly me, I'll be fine now thanks to this sage advice." You also have to factor in that you may also have real depression and anxiety thrown into the mix making it hard to differentiate between the two and to know what's triggering what. It's a minefield.

My tinnitus is also variable and changes intensity all the time. The baseline is always considerably worse than how I had it before, though. Some days I can wake up and it's just off the scale. I used to absolutely dread waking up in the night and immediately hearing the cacophony of noise. It would send me into a depressive spiral where I'd start thinking of ways to end my life, whereas now, in stark contrast, it just washes right over me. I wake up and hear the intense noise and just go right back to sleep with no shits given. I don't mask it; I just let it do whatever it wants with absolute acceptance. I can honestly say that I have gone from being completely and utterly obsessed with it, constantly checking it against other sounds whilst fearing every sound around me, to hardly ever thinking about it.

I have other issues that have superseded my concern for it, and I don't believe we are capable of being able to obsess over two or more different things at once. There is always one issue that is the primary focus that we end up ruminating over.

 

[GBB]

@GBB, you say you can listen to music and TV now. How long, from onset, were you able to do this?

Also, did your sound distortions subside? Does music sound ok?

I was able to do this around 18 months consistently - particularly the music at louder volumes. Distortion is not really there but my reactivity to fans/showers is still really bad. If I take a "cheat day" by trying to sleep at night with masking, like white noise, I still get the same huge spike I used to. This aspect remains almost unchanged for me.

I have this exact same thing!

It's one of the first times I've seen it come across here on Tinnitus Talk. For me the sound is more like a light sabre, but when I look left or right, that light sabre is now swooshing through the air (faster and louder).

It's not there all the time but probably more so when I am very tired.

Do you still have this?

I have been getting eye lid spasms, and spasms around my eyes, throat and chest. I assume these spasms contribute to this effect, but I haven't seen many case studies of it.

This aspect actually went away for me.

 

[Cmspgran]

Yeah, it's the response of you feeling it's a threat which you cannot control. You can't just say to someone "Just relax and don't let it bother you" and expect them to go "Oh right of course, silly me, I'll be fine now thanks to this sage advice." You also have to factor in that you may also have real depression and anxiety thrown into the mix making it hard to differentiate between the two and to know what's triggering what. It's a minefield.

My tinnitus is also variable and changes intensity all the time. The baseline is always considerably worse than how I had it before, though. Some days I can wake up and it's just off the scale. I used to absolutely dread waking up in the night and immediately hearing the cacophony of noise. It would send me into a depressive spiral where I'd start thinking of ways to end my life, whereas now, in stark contrast, it just washes right over me. I wake up and hear the intense noise and just go right back to sleep with no shits given. I don't mask it; I just let it do whatever it wants with absolute acceptance. I can honestly say that I have gone from being completely and utterly obsessed with it, constantly checking it against other sounds whilst fearing every sound around me, to hardly ever thinking about it.

I have other issues that have superseded my concern for it, and I don't believe we are capable of being able to obsess over two or more different things at once. There is always one issue that is the primary focus that we end up ruminating over.

I can relate to so much of this @Ed209, especially the sleep part and waking up in utter despair at 3 am. How long did it take to get to this point?

 

[Ringingwazoo]

I guess I should ask, how is Florida?

 

[Travis Henry]

Best treatment for tinnitus and hyperacusis is dry fasting and staying in quiet.

 

[Jupiterman]

Best treatment for tinnitus and hyperacusis is dry fasting and staying in quiet.

Do you say this because you have personally had some success from this?

 

[SarahMLFlemmer]

Best treatment for tinnitus and hyperacusis is dry fasting and staying in quiet.

What does fasting do for tinnitus? My friend swears by fasting as a cure for everything.

 

[AnthonyMcDonald]

Best treatment for tinnitus and hyperacusis is dry fasting and staying in quiet.

Sounding a lot like Liam Boehm bruh.

 

[DeanD]

What does fasting do for tinnitus? My friend swears by fasting as a cure for everything.

Having had some experience in dry fasting (not voluntarily) and having my own thoughts, I wanted to dig a little deeper.

There are many anecdotes about dry fasting helping x, y, z but mainly personal experiences. Without much surprise it primarily helps reduce weight - but a study back in 2014 showed that '...fasting reduces the numbers of circulating monocytes in healthy humans and mice' - which are cells partly responsible for inflammation and protection.

A further study earlier in 2012 showed similarly reduced inflammation.

So, if you believe tinnitus and hyperacusis are a result of inflammation, then perhaps this is where others see the link. It's also believed the body goes in to a higher state of repair, although I wasn't able to find any immediate medical evidence or research studies citing this - only from sources where it works to their advantage promoting this.

In my own personal experience - due to another illness - I wasn't able to eat any food for a period of 5 days, and was not able to drink any liquids for at least 2 days. This may have been too small a period to show any effectiveness but it didn't make the slightest bit of difference to my tinnitus or hyperacusis.

@Travis Henry, if you have any other supporting evidence, or anything to the contrary, please share.

 

[SarahMLFlemmer]

Having had some experience in dry fasting (not voluntarily) and having my own thoughts, I wanted to dig a little deeper.

There are many anecdotes about dry fasting helping x, y, z but mainly personal experiences. Without much surprise it primarily helps reduce weight - but a study back in 2014 showed that '...fasting reduces the numbers of circulating monocytes in healthy humans and mice' - which are cells partly responsible for inflammation and protection.

A further study earlier in 2012 showed similarly reduced inflammation.

So, if you believe tinnitus and hyperacusis are a result of inflammation, then perhaps this is where others see the link. It's also believed the body goes in to a higher state of repair, although I wasn't able to find any immediate medical evidence or research studies citing this - only from sources where it works to their advantage promoting this.

In my own personal experience - due to another illness - I wasn't able to eat any food for a period of 5 days, and was not able to drink any liquids for at least 2 days. This may have been too small a period to show any effectiveness but it didn't make the slightest bit of difference to my tinnitus or hyperacusis.

@Travis Henry, if you have any other supporting evidence, or anything to the contrary, please share.

Thanks!

 

[Travis Henry]

Sounding a lot like Liam Boehm bruh.

SUN YOUR BUTTHOLE too lol.

@Travis Henry, if you have any other supporting evidence, or anything to the contrary, please share.

@Jerad did a 5-day dry fast and his tinnitus and hyperacusis lowered, he said. His noxacusis is a little better too, I believe?!

 

[ZFire]

What does fasting do for tinnitus? My friend swears by fasting as a cure for everything.

Fasting supposedly stimulates autophagy. It's a cellular process that helps the body remove damaged cells and cellular stuff. Basically cellular repair.

Now whether autophagy helps tinnitus in some way remains to be seen. Some people here have found tinnitus relief while fasting.

I did a 72-hour water fast not too long ago and it had no impact on my tinnitus whatsoever. Nada. Granted, I only did one round of water fasting.

I doubt it works for tinnitus, otherwise we'd see more anecdotes of it helping. It doesn't hurt to try it though. Fasting is good in general, health wise.

 

[Andrew40]

After reading all the pages of this interesting topic, I wanted to know how @GBB is doing?