My Positive Story

First, my English is not perfect and I'm sorry for that. Instead of coming here to share my despair only to never come back when the problem goes away i wanted to share a story of 80% actual (volume related) recovery in the 3 - 4 months range, to give people some hope in this hard to cope situation.

I got T in early June, months ago, after watching a VERY loud movie with some friends (San Andreas earthquake), it started few days after the movie but I'm sure it was the cause, I even blocked my ears with paper in the middle of it..

My ears were sensible, I had H for 1 month prior to this event, because I was taking Isotretinoin (Roaccutane), which is an aggressive and sometimes ototoxic drug, since last year (H is a quite rare side effect of it), it was my last box. I was the only who complained about the movie being too loud tho, but it sure was. Unlike my two past T experiences, this time it stayed for good, and almost got me mad. I never really liked clubs and went to very few concerts in my life.

I care a lot about my health and the idea of having some weird noise forever was killing me, plus I always loved to sleep in dead silence and spend time alone, indoors. My T was a 14khz frequency noise, with some other tone mixed in when i plugged my ears (a 6khz one) only within the right side of my head.

In the beginning it was LOUD almost maddening, couldn't study to college exams at all with that kind of sound 24/7... so I went to the first ENT, he told me my ears were blocked by a lot of wax and I had a moderate inflammatory process caused by dry skin build up in the area, which was sucking the water in (Roaccutane causes this to thin skin, like lips and eye).

Cool, I used some drops med he gave me, had my ears cleaned and the noise didn't disappear... so I had an audiometry and for my surprise my hearing was perfect, not even 10db of loss. He said it could be labyrinthitis, and prescribed meds for it... not only the problem did not get solved by those drugs, but they messed with my inner ear making me hear a diesel engine and crickets for a week, caused by an artificial and provoked labyrinthitis crisis. I was done with this ENT.

Second ENT made another hearing test and, again, same perfect results. She even played some high frequency sounds to me after I asked, I could hear all perfectly. She said my ear drum was rugged by the drops med prescribed by the first ENT and also it could be my jaw, neurological issue or stress causing the high frequency tones. She couldn't help any further, as expected.

I was hopeless, but my mother was always there for me, she kept telling me it would go always even in the darkest moments, it helped a lot. I searched the web and TT for a treatment (reading sad and depressing stories in the process) I ended up taking a mix of ZMA, NAC, cat claws, Ginkgo and massive amounts of water.

I was 2.5 months into T and started to notice the noise wasn't as loud and H was greatly reduced, almost gone. Since then it only got better day by day to the point where its only a 2 out of the original 10, which led me to habituate quite easily to the remaining sound, as it was only there if I looked for it in a silent room.

Keep in mind all the stuff I took could be only a big placebo or not work in your case because T has different causes. I wish you all to wake up one day and hear only silence again, I really do. Best of luck to you!!! Never give up, the permanent cases are not the 99% it seems at first...

 

I forgot to mention, in the middle of it all the tone changed to a mild radio hiss and came back to the original within 4 days. Im 22 and live in Rio, Brazil.

 

Congratulations! I had a very similar experience actually, with blockage and swelling, and I too don't know if it was a placebo effect or not. I had loud tinnitus in the beginning and my mother suggested I try ginkgo, zinc, and magnesium and also kept assuring me it would go away! lol I skipped out on the zinc as it was giving me headaches, but I kept up with the ginkgo and ate high magnesium/zinc foods. It had dissipated so much that it was basically gone... and then I stopped taking the ginkgo. Suddenly the noise started to come back until it was loud enough to upset me again. I started taking the ginkgo and today I can't hear it at all, even in a quiet room. I'm trying to teach myself not to search for it any longer and to get back to my normal habits.

I am not convinced it is the ginkgo that helped, but for me personally I believe it made enough of a difference for me to try taking it. I also sleep with my head elevated now, because I felt like my ears were having trouble draining, that also eased the pain I had. (as well as making sure my ears didn't get more water in them)

I haven't stopped taking the ginkgo yet, and I haven't gotten to see an ENT yet (the wait here is very long) but my uncle had tinnitus for a year and he took a similar arrangement of vitamins for a while and he claims, now, years since then his is still completely gone.

Thank you for posting your story! I wish I could have seen this when I was scared of my tinnitus because there are so few stories of people who were able to recover from their tinnitus.

 

Nice!! Glad to read you are doing good too! Ginko, Z, M and cat claws are nice not only to T, but health in general, at least im sure its not pure placebo.