Intermittent Fasting for Tinnitus Relief

Hi all,
FWIW, there might be something to fasting that minimizes T loudness.
But, I'm only 8 days new to the T-world of a aloud 12kHz screeching sound arising from a dentist drill a week earlier.

Day 3: I was so stressed out from it, I hardly ate.
Day 4: No noticable T symptoms. Hooray! I'm out of the woods. Had pizza and sangria
Day 5: T returned with a vengance
Day 6-7: Fasted 40 hrs after stumbling on this thread searching for link to why T went into remission on Day 4.
Day 7 (mid day): T disappeared! So, I celebrated my son's birthday with birthday sweets.
Day 8 (Today): T has returned.

I'm wondering if combining fasting with Keto diet (no sugar/low carb) will reduce the volume.

Anyone with experience combining fasting and Keto diet?

Or might it be better to just focus on learning to live with T (because temporary T remission will only frustrate me)


I fear I'm stuck with this the rest of my life -- it is debilitating.
It will be interesting to read this early post in my years to come.

In the Kübler-Ross 5 Stages of Grief model (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance), I'm probably in the Bargaining stage.

 

hang in there bud. there is a chance it goes away completely, but i guarantee you that your situation will get better.

since you have intermittent t, you should look into tmj / neuomuscular etiologies.

i am on keto in my 3rd year of t, and i think it helps - the diet is neuroprotective and also curtails neuro-inflammation.

 

Salt can have a huge influence on tinnitus symptoms which explains the pizza but not so much the birthday sweets.

If you can follow this diet and you feel that it helps without too much grief then stick with it but if it's causing stress to follow it, it may be worth finding more specific t triggers rather than cutting entire categories of food out of your diet.

 

Thanks for the reply. Not sure I'm intermittent. I suspect my twice 1 day remission/near remission was due to fasting which means my body was relying on blood sugar from body fat (which doesn't require insulin) in lieu of sugar/insullin from food.

Am I learning correctly that avoiding carbs, sugar and salt could minimize the effects of T?
That's quite a diet trifecta to aim for.

 

I believe the fast mimicking diet has the best science for neuroregeneration. Google: Valter Longo or fast mimicking diet. 72 hours of reduced calories showed nerve regeneration using damage from MS as a model.

 

Salt seems to affect t volume for more people than carbs or sugar. Most who have T that is affected by their diet say that salicylates are the thing to watch out for. I spent ages trying to figure out whether they affected my T. Have decided they do ... then decided they don't, then changed my mind again. It's incredibly difficult because so little research has been carried out on sal levels in food - we have to rely on stats from long ago derived from food grown on foreign soil. After 5 years I'm certain that a low sal diet plus avoiding all non food items with high sals would turn down the volume of my T - the hard bit is figuring out how to do that whilst avoiding an incredibly unhealthy diet. When I have managed it, the difference is amazing. Sals are used to induce T in lab animals so at least there is a scientific basis to it rather than just guesswork. Having said that, as T is a symptom, rather than an illness, reducing sals isn't going to work for everyone.

 

Hi all,

I would like to confirm this. I started an intermittent diet a couple weeks ago and I have noticed my tinnitus which I have had for seventeen years has decreased dramatically. In fact I was completely shocked and ecstatic when I found this blog. I thought my military background was the sole cause, but now I'm not so sure.

 

I've practiced IF for three years (lean gains protocol 16/8) and honestly haven't noticed a difference in T intensity on days I've broken the rules (usually special occasions). If your T is truly noise induced it's not gonna do anything.

 

Hello everyone,

I started IF as well as cut my carbs a lot. I've lost about 20 lbs in the last year, about 15 of those in the last 2 months and am not a big guy. The main reason I changed my eating habits is one particular morning I woke up with my head raging with T. The night before I had been at a party where I had eaten a lot of carbs and drank a lot of soda. I'm a big believer that diet and sleep are hugely impactful to one's well being (when I did not think so much before). My T is still very high on many days, but I'm getting better at ignoring it, and I just feel a lot better having changed my eating habits.

The whole idea that the body heals itself when the digestive tract is taking a break, and bad cells are being replaced with new cells while in a fasted state, rings true with me. Also, since people with epilepsy improve while fasted or low-carb, one might think there could be a correlation with people with T. But having said that, I have not gone more than 24 hours without eating.

Regarding salt, there are a lot of people who believe that if you are eating a low carb diet, or are IF, that you need to actually increase your salt intake. Everyone is different, salt, I don't believe, impacts my T much but I think that eating unhealthy foods does.

 

I have been on Keto diet since Sept 1, 2017 with IF (intermittent fasting) and have lost 30 pounds and never felt better. However, my T which is a constant 10.5Khz is unchanged.

 

My current fast is going on four days now - nothing but dihydrogen oxide (h20) for four days. My left ear tinnitus was caused by a bad reverberation in a dentist drill about 8 months ago.

Despite the fast, my ears are still screaming at me right now.

For the person who asked about sugar - I agree with the first reply - Salt and caffeine is a much bigger factor for most... The day after eating pizza at dinner is miserable. An even larger factor than salt or caffeine (for me anyway) is lack of sleep. I read that asperin is bad too, (I never tried it since the dentist mishap, so I can't comment on it).

My best guess is that the fasting is causing me to get less sleep... It is hard to sleep when you're hungry and have a slight headache due to the hunger + working out. I think the lack of sleep is making my T worse, not the fasting, but the fasting certainly isn't helping.

Oh and if anyone is wondering this is off topic, but ... I had the idea that perhaps giving my ear nerves a rest by wearing ear plugs for a long time would help. I wore them for 3 days straight (single guy, four day holiday weekend). It was miserable! With ear plugs, tinnitus seems much louder and after the weekend was over there was no improvement. Total waste of time.

 

There is another version of intermittent fasting. Fast for 16 hours everyday and eat using an 8 hour window.That means skipping mainly breakfast. Also do not overindulge during eating window.

 

Hello,

Can someone point to where to view the video that is being discussed here? Thanks!

 

I did see this video here:
How to reverse tinnitus/ringing in ears. Keto is the solution. Other doctors' support linked.

How to reverse tinnitus/ringing in ears. Keto...

I will try an alternative to Valter Longo's Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD) called KetoFast by Dr. Mercola:

Ketofast: Your Need-to-Know Guide – Part...

I am reading his book KetoFast.

 

Hi @Eddy OP -- Thanks for posting these links. You may find THIS STORY interesting (on a different forum). It's a story by a man got rid of his tinnitus after starting a ketogenic diet--after having suffered with tinnitus for 5 1/2 years.

 

@Lane What’s your personal opinion on the keto diet and the all meat diet, have you tried them before? I recently have been thinking about trying different diets to shut up the voices in my head telling me I haven’t tried everything yet. Vegan and vegan + gluten-free didn’t do anything for me.

 

I'm fasting for Ramadan right now, 20+ hours a day. I can't feel a difference for good in my tinnitus at all, it just goes crazy sometimes and becomes really loud for 5-10 minutes, but that happens normally too.

 

Thank you, Lane for the link to the story you shared above.

In the link to the YouTube video above about how to reverse tinnitus using ketosis there is mention of calcium deposits in the inner ear which may be the cause of tinnitus, which I find interesting: I have noticed that my T gets worse when I consume food that is high in calcium. Could there be a calcium (deposits)-tinnitus connection for some of us?

 

It very well could be. I made a post (link below) in which I shared a (long) testimonial by a man who claims sodium thiosulfate (STS) helps his tinnitus. In part of the testimonial, he goes into the calcium chelating attributes of STS, so it seems entirely possible that his tinnitus is improved because of reducing the calcium in his body. But there are other STS attributes that could be contributing as well.

Sodium Thiosulfate — "May" Help w/ Hearing Loss and/or Tinnitus

I think this account fits in with this thread as well:

Ketones Recommended to Me by an MD / Homeopathic Physician

 

I was doing keto for a month with a lot of dry fasting. 3x a 80 hour dry fast. 3x a 48h dry fast. And a lot of 24h dry fasts. The only thing it did was make my tinnitus louder and I lost weight.

Maybe I'll try this again in the future and hope that my tinnitus will stay mild in ketosis.

 

@seppl -- You might want to consider supplementing with ketones. It's apparently been known to improve tinnitus; perhaps in a similar manner to going into ketosis.

 

I have been doing intermittent fasting (IF) for a couple months. My tinnitus and hyperacusis (sound elevates ringing and pain) has definitely not been impacted by IF or anything related to my diet. Nothing. Just one data point of course.

 

Can you take medications while fasting? Like blood pressure or anti depressant meds?

 

I intermittently fast almost every day and that has no effect on my tinnitus. I usually only eat dinner. I am hyping myself up to do a 3-7 day fast because that can put your body into a sort of repair mode so I've read.

 

You’re doing god's work.

 

Hey does that finger tapping Reddit thing work for you?

 

Thanks. I don't feel very successful though.

 

I do the same, it’s easy when you get older to skip breakfast. I have yet to to do a two or three day fast. I will use water, no shame in that. Break the fast smart, no mac and cheese and chicken fried steak.

 

It did when I tried it, but for only like 4 seconds.

 

Intermittently fasting has no effect on my T. I continue to do it a few times a week for fitness benefits only.