Like a Fly Buzzing Around the Room — Could Cutting Out Sugar Help Me Get Rid of This Tinnitus Sound?

I’ve had tinnitus for 1 year and 4 months now. I was not habituated to my baseline, yet I was making small steps like sleeping without a fan. One day after, like a sick joke, I got a new sound which is still with me 4.5 months later. It sounds like an inconsistent buzz. Like a fly trying to escape a lightbulb. It is a horrible sound.

I don’t have acoustic trauma, even my original tinnitus isn’t from acoustic trauma. So why do I have this new sound? I never get spikes, or tones. I don’t know what’s causing it. All I can think of is before the new tone I had an extreme period of sugar binging. I had like 2 Monster energy drinks a day, chocolate for lunch etc because of exam season. I’m now trying a strict no sugar diet with Turmeric pills and other anti-inflammatories.

I guess what I’m asking is has anyone had tinnitus disappear from cutting out sugar? And is there anyone who had new tones appear and which lasted 4+ months but it went away? I really need some hope because I feel like this is a sickening joke (how I got it one day after I slept in total “silence” and finally felt like I was habituating).

Life’s a joke and unfair. I’m only 21 and I feel 80 with the constant stress I’ve been under this past year... and even more so with this new tone. I want a fucking break.

 

Can I just ask - since you were sleeping with a fan before the new tone - does this mean that you also had a low buzzing tinnitus sound (since fans are usually only good at masking low frequency tinnitus)?

 

I hear ya. We all do.

All you can do is give it a shot.

Cut on the sugar for a month or two and see if it helps you.

 

@Ben Winders, no I’ve never had a buzzing sound. My original tinnitus sounds like tinkles, like if you imagine you’re walking past a lake and the sunlight hits the water and it glistens, turn that sight into a sound and that’s what my tinnitus sounds like (a bit faster).

 

Hopefully it will work. I don’t know if I can handle this sound, I wasn’t even fully habituated before to my old one.

 

I had a sugar binge and I got a new shrill tone

Could sugar cause more nerve hyper excitability? Like too much so as to damage hearing and causing sensorineuronal death?

Life sucks now. I want my old tinnitus back.

 

I think this would only happen if you have uncontrolled diabetes type 2. Since normally your body regulates the amount of sugar, at most it would cause inflammation. Nerve damage is a long term effect of diabetes because of elevated sugar levels.

 

For me loud sounds, stress, caffeine, sugar and salt all give me spikes (in that order) but I still have tinnitus/hyperacusis if I go weeks without them. Spikes for me last from a few hours to a few days.

The most relief that I have gotten personally so far is to change my emotional reaction to the whole thing. It doesn't make it go away and sometimes its still a PITA but I get through every day easier and with much less anxiety. If you read a lot of the technical literature about the work being done in this area its a combination of physical manifestations like inflammation, hearing loss, damaged hair cells and acoustic neuroma, nerve processes like auditory nerve function/excitation and brain center analysis of both the areas that process sounds and areas that process emotions. It is that last area that we have the most control over so that's where I have concentrated my work for me.

There is no way for any of us to understand what someone else means by a mild, moderate or severe case of tinnitus sounds because we can never hear what the other person hears. What we can asses is if the person has a mild, moderate or severe total impact to the person's life from tinnitus which is a combination of the perceived sounds and how we react to them. My brother in law says no big deal for the last 30 years. The largest thread here talks about suicide so there is clearly a wide range of total impact to ones life. We do have control over part of this process. Can getting "our heads right" make every case of tinnitus go away? No, but it can make it better for many if not most people, I believe. I also have cancer, debilitating joint arthritis, ... Will I ever make my hip arthritis go away? No, but have I learned coping methods to be able to get back to about half of my prior activities? Yes. It's not perfect but it's way better than being stuck on the couch all day long or barely able to walk.

All the best.

George