Kava Kava for Tinnitus — Post Your Experience!

Insignificant as in meaningless. The sounds of tinnitus used to carry a lot of meaning to me. Tinnitus to me meant fear, the end of my life as I knew it, etc. Now that my brain got used to the sound, there is no meaning anymore.

My first few months and year were no different than any other experiences described on this forum. I experienced the usual anxiety, depression etc. I say usual because on this forum I have read that this is very common.

If I pay attention I can hear my tinnitus in an airplane in flight. At month 4 I flew for the first time with tinnitus and heard my tinnitus on all plane rides. But by then it was already bothering me less so I was OK.

I don't experience silence, but then again, I don't experience tinnitus either. The point is that my tinnitus does not bother me, and therefore I am mostly unaware of it.

My story might be inspiring but it is just the same as many others. On this forum or in general, you don't get to hear these stories because once tinnitus gets to the point that it is not an issue, people don't think or talk about it. I decided to come back here to help others, as I used this forum to read success stories of others when I needed them. But many don't ever return, they just read until they feel OK and you never hear from them again. I can relate to that, because once you are over it, you tend to forget that you have it.

 

Just curious, how are you doing with the Kava Kava?

 

That really is amazing - an amazing achievement. Can I ask: how did you start zoning it out at bedtime in order to sleep? I really want to find some solid sleep again in order to move forward - and your tinnitus sounded quite disturbing...

Thanks for sticking around and supporting - it's great that you are so giving of your time and wisdom - like so many others on here.

 

I've had some interesting results. I'm going to clean up and share my 30-days of data with you all, hopefully in the next week or so.

 

I remember that the main thing about sleeping was that once I was less anxious, I could sleep better. It was the anxiety and raised heartbeat that kept me awake. So I focused on being as calm as possible before going to bed. Exercise in the afternoon / early evening helped a lot. Drinking calming tea etc. at night. Just a side-note: I personally don't believe in the calming effect of the tea, but I do believe in the calming effect of drinking tea.

Once I got a few good nights of sleep, I figured out that the tinnitus was not able to keep me awake, only my reaction to it kept me from sleeping. Once I realized this, I was more confident when going to sleep. With this new confidence, the fear and anxiety faded. Now I can read a book and zone out my tinnitus and fall asleep. Or just listen to my tinnitus and fall asleep. The sound is so natural now that it almost has a calming effect when going to sleep. Weird but true.

Hope this helps!

 

Kava Kava does help - it's really amazing.

Can I just ask: with the anxiety, did you wake up after going off to sleep and hear the tinnitus - and did that arise the anxiety?

 

Although Kava Kava did help as a calming aide before bed, I stopped taking the Kava Kava. I started experiencing very vivid & heavy duty action-movie type dreams. This was too much for me. In addition, the after awakening sense of a hang-over was unpleasant. I lowered the dose, which altered the effectiveness, so that’s it; another experiment that didn’t work for me.

NEXT!

 

Pulled together some data from my own 30-day experiment with Kava Kava.

 

For the love of god, please tell me what brand you've been using that was working for you. A link would be amazing.

I have a new 80 Hz loud as f tone and it's making me want to jump in front of a train here... but benzos aren't allowed this week.

 

Gaia Herbs Kava pills - if you google it it will come up. The drink is more hit or miss - I wouldn’t recommend it although it can work. For that it was Kalm with Kava Loa Waka.

 

I read this whole thread. I had bought some, the other day but had not tried it yet I didn't want to mix it with benzos at night. I've been slowly reducing my dose of lorazepam. I still need it to sleep, but I wanted to try kava in the daytime to see how it works for me. it's only been a half hour to an hour since I took it but I would say I feel a little bit better. Looking forward to seeing you if it's something that will be good for me during the daytime.

 

Which is literally any drug/supplement you take too much of.

How on earth is Tylenol legal. Gasp.

 

Giving Kava Kava a go this weekend, I will keep track of any changes.

 

Day 3:

I took two Kava Kava pills in the morning with 300mg Gabapentin and 32mg Betahistine.

I had coffee as usual.

Distortions are still there, just quieter (50%?). Thudding distortions are still very loud.
Starting to think it's the Gabapentin providing the benefits. Kava Kava itself so far makes the thuds louder and me lethargic and that's all.

Tinnitus is also quieter.

I'm trying to get my doctor to give me Pentoxifylline as I think if it's autoimmune then it's based on a TNF-alpha and interferon gamma upregulation issue.

 

What do you think is quieting your tinnitus?

 

The synergistic effect. On each of their own not much happens. I'm taking things away slowly from most intense to least to see the crux.

I read Gabapentin and benzos worked well, so I traded benzos for Kava Kava which will be first to go.

I'll do another 3-day Kava Kava spurt later this week.

 

I've had to take a break from Kava Kava as I'm trying to see if anything to my low frequency tinnitus is benzo related.

What can I say. The last couple of times I've tried solely pills 75 mg x2 Kavalactones adhoc and 300 mg Gabapentin together... it didn't do much of anything to tinnitus or dysacusis, shitty thuds and low frequency lightsaber buzzing are still there. Perhaps my receptors just aren't responsive to PAMs anymore. I tried on no food, but just seems to make me a bit loopy and ADHD. Does nothing for the sounds really, sad to say.

Also it tastes like hot garbage water (which if it worked I'd happily chug).

I may try again eventually.

 

Interesting data.

Eyeballing it, looks like for most of the metrics, Kava Kava was a material help? For example, in the “Tinnitus Loudness” column I see that all the scores of 1 (the best / quietest score) occurred on Kava Kava days. And on non-Kava Kava days you never reached a 1 score.

How would you net out your experience? Did you continue beyond January, in light of the good results (if I am interpreting the results correctly?)

Also, with regard to the dose, is 250 mg the amount of Kava Kava, or the amount of kavalactones?

 

Yeah it did seem to quiet the tinnitus down. Not sure if it was the relaxing effect, or an effect on the tinnitus specifically. Or, maybe both. It definitely did seem to take the "edge" off of louder days, either as a result of a small spike or maybe something I ate. So, my thought is that it made spikes more bearable.

Overall, I'd say my experience was positive. I still drink it on occasional days when I feel the tinnitus is just not bearable / distracting. Or, If I am expecting a stressful work day, and tinnitus is always bad on stressful days. So, it seems to help.

The measurement was the amount of Kava Kava.

 

It is amazing. You say you "don't experience silence". But you also said that you are not aware of it when you read or when going to bed. Is that right? You can relax in bed, not think of anything to distract your mind and still not be aware of it?

 

I was trying to lay off benzos for a while but after reading feedback from others saying that they didn't need weeks worth of breaks interim, I'm giving Kava Kava a go today. I'm going for three pills.

 

Until he gets new or epic loud disturbing seashell sounds, I think this apathetic solution doesn't apply to major sufferers. I had static once... I actually enjoyed it in bed and wish that's all I had.

 

The drink is not as effective as the pills, just saying.

 

I can confirm there's definitely less wavering and distortion and lower tinnitus when wearing earplugs after having 3x Kava Kava in the morning. It probably won't last past a few hours. I did some yard work and it was almost quiet in earplugs which is crazy. I wasn't disturbed at all.

I had it with water and hot coffee, no food.

 

Nice, happy you are getting relief either way.

 

Great news. Can you keep us updated please?

 

Massive spike of lower thuds and buzzing once the Kava Kava wears off.

 

Yes, that is correct. I am just not aware of it. Same as I am not aware of the sounds of cars passing by which I can hear from my bedroom. Or dogs barking. Or any other familiar sound.

 

Great to hear Cruise. I find the "not being aware" language hard to process. Being used to something, not paying it much attention and therefore not consciously acknowledging it for certain periods of time I get. Did you mean to say for periods that you are not aware of it?

How long did the effects of Kava Kava last? How much louder were the spikes and how long did they last?

 

Kava Kava taken in the morning with just coffee, no food, worked okay for about 4 hours.

The tinnitus crept back up to baseline by night. I then woke up to a tinnitus spike in the morning, which came back down to baseline about 2 days later.