My Success Story! (Cut Out the Coffee)

My success story!

Suffered for 10+ years. Like most everyone else, tried everything imaginable and unimaginable for relief with no profound permanent outcome.

Tried the masking noises, hypnosis, sound therapy, herbal medicine, etc Some had very minor short term relief at best. Even talked with a doctor, said not much can be done. Really?

Tried to find a source of the problem with no luck.

After several more years of suffering. kind of learned to live with it. Until my dentist noticed that I grind teeth at night, she suggested do I have tinnitus? Wow, that was an enormous insight, like as a heavy weight removed from my shoulders. Could this really be related? Finally, a source of the symptoms had been located.

Did the research of Bruxism, TMJ and how tinnitus fits into the picture, finding out that the sleep disorders had contributed to it. Came down to couple of simple diet factors.

Cut out a half of sodium, sugar and especially caffeine intake. Now I sleep so much better, reduced the Bruxism and TMJ issues down to almost zero.

Thou, can not say the tinnitus has completely gone away. Let’s say the issue is like 90% gone.

Typically can go 3 to 4 days of complete clear hearing, then may slightly creep in for a day or two then cycle back down to zero. Nevertheless, this is a huge step into a very positive result.

Made a lot of sense by looking at diet. Foods that are loaded with the caffeine, sugar and sodium are stressing the body to a point that something's not right. A cause and effect cycle. The reaction with me was the result of TMJ and a terrible night’s sleep, then eventually tinnitus kicked in.

Never thought that I was a ‘heavy’ coffee drinker, typically 2 to 3 cups only in the morning. Soon as I stopped the caffeine, things instantly changed, like if a switch clicked in my head. That alone was a huge result.

Been doing this for 2 months now, and no major issues came about with tinnitus.

So, hopefully this may help out others who are in the same situation.

Thanks for reading.

 

The best for you, it looks like not only your T is improving, but your overall health wich is amazing.

Related with the TMJ, do you know what frequency your T is (was), or an example of the type of your sound. That could help alot to people trying to figure out if TMJ is the cause of their problem.

Regards!

 

For me it is the opposite when it comes to coffee. I always had the feeling when i drink coffee it helps my T. But i pehaps that's just me.

 

I am wondering if there may be something else in the coffee besides caffeine affecting the T. I just drank a really bad cup of decaf Keurig coffee and in 5 minutes my left ear began to ring pretty loudly with a strange sensation to the left side of my head. Sometimes sugar does the same thing but none of it is consistent. It may be because I had an empty stomach or it reacted with something I ate earlier. Spinach salad with pecans and 3 glasses of tea.

 

Ah Jim, any news? How are you doing these days?

 

I can relate my symptoms to the same problem. I am attending this highly competitive busienss school and in order to constantly perform top I was abusing red bulls, to the point at which I was drinking 5-6 per day. Plus chooclates etc.

I started having sleeping disturbances. Out of nothing I will just wake up completely randomly just 2 hours after falling a sleep, I would be with racing heart and would have troubles falling a sleep, just to have to wake up 3 hours later for classes. Tinnitus and Visual Snow kicked in soon after. My Tinnitus is mild, I mean, 2 at most , moslty when I wake up and when trying to fall asleep I notice it, during the course of the day I do not notice it and does not bother me and I cannot say I had a single night in which I was prevented from falling a sleep. At some nights I have problems but not to the point at which I cannot actually sleep.

Nevertheless, the sleeping disturbances and the exorbitant amount of energy drinks can be contributed to the problem. I don;t have a noice damage, I mean, I never really was a music fan, never went to a concert.. so it must have been sth else.

 

The only things that affect my T are sugar and spicy food. They spike it a bit but going off them only returns me to my baseline which is pretty loud anyway. Life with T is so shit anyway I'm coming round to thinking why not just enjoy the coffee and spicy food. F@#$ the spike

 

Yea im also a bruxism, and must say a champion at it, and my right TMJ (right ear T) does a click when i open my mouth to a certain point. Bought a night guard to stop grinding teeth and have an appointment with my dentist to work this issue. Hope it helps me too. By the way glad you are having it controlled, way to go!!

 

Jim, I have the exact problem. I grind my teeth at night and drink coffee in the morning. I only have maybe 2 cups in the morning so I didn't think it would be any problem. I guess it is. I"ll cut it out and reduce the salt too. I have high blood pressure so no salt will help that too. I'm going to start using my mouth piece again to save my teeth.
This gives me some hope!

 

I Googled Caffeine and Tinnitus, and came to this article. Here is a small snip-it from it. Totally goes against what you guys are saying about caffeine but hey....... what would I know?



>>Coffee can cut risk of getting tinnitus: Caffeine may have a protective effect against constant ringing in the ears. It is a problem that affects some five million Britons. But tinnitus – or at least the risk of developing it – could be tackled by drinking three or more coffees a day.

 

I've mentioned it before, but caffeine helps curb my T. What spikes it is sugar. I love sugar, but over the past week have been cutting down and have noticed a slight reduction in the T.

 

@BuzzyBee & @Kotve

I also feel like my T is reduced after drinking coffee.. can you come up with an explanation why this is the case?

 

Salt, sugar, and coffee spike my T, however, when I am hungry or don't eat a snack, my T spikes.

I am going to go off coffee and salt for a week and see what happens. -- I cut down sugar a lot on the last year which has helped with my mood swings but not with T.

Sounds like (pun intended) I need to cut out the other two as well.

 

Both of my ears click when I open my jaw. Was told I had a Mandibular disfunction (probably because of many punches playing basketball, lost a couple of teeth too). My TMJ specialist gave me a night guard but in 1 month no improvements so far, will have to wait a little longer. How is yours going? Hope you are ok

 

Can't say this is for everyone. Suppose everyone has a unique situation.

Been 6+ months of drastic caffeine intake with really good results. Not perfect, but way better than before. My main concern is tmj at sleep and stress reduction. A really good night's sleep goes a long way.

In addition of a diet change, getting into yoga. Usually have a class in the evening, couple hours before bed time is amazing!

 

I also have T caused by bruxism + TMJ - a very high pitched whine at 9 KHz. I brought the volume from a 6/10 to about 3/10 in three months with bite-plates. But I also cut out caffeine when the T first started - went cold turkey down from 2-3 cups in the morning, but it was easy to do since I was in a constant state of anxiety when the T first started.

Not long ago I thought I would experiment with coffee again since things seem to be getting better. I made a cup of coffee and....OMG it was soooo good. But sure enough my T spiked from 3 to 4 within a few moments of my first sip. So there is no doubt in my case that coffee=more T.

I have been experimenting with small cups of tea - not the same dose of caffeine (or good as) coffee, but it does seem to give me a little pick-up without raising my T. So for me it seems to be a caffeine dosage issue.

 

Glad to see the success stories related to TMJ treatment.
I could have been listening to my music too loud all along, but I hadn't changed my listening behavior prior to my T's volume increase.
What did change though was the degree to which TMJ affected my jaw. I did hear an extremely loud CRACK in my jaw one day while yawning, and I believe its timing coincided with the elevated T volume.
I may be being overly hopeful, but my dentist and I are focusing in this area to see if improvement there will also improve the T volume.
I'm wearing my night guard every night now. If no improvement over 2 weeks, he's going to change the design so it works on a different part of the bite, I believe.

 

Hello JIm. How long after quitting caffeine, did the TMJ stop ?

 

Hi @Emmi ! Sorry I'm so late in responding. I don't know why caffeine helps, but I suppose it has to do with enhanced cognition and focus. Maybe it makes the brain shift gears a bit? In other words, our brain is not paying attention to the T because it is honing in on other things? Wine also helps, but probably for different reasons.