My Tinnitus Is Completely Gone

skeptical, but I bought the Tebonin. will report back in a few weeks.

 

Good luck, @Tom Cnyc ! I returned mine, but I was wishy washy about it to begin with. So many people claim that it helps, therefore it seems there would be something to it.

 

I heavily doubt it will do anything. Very little to lose here, it isn't all that expensive.

 

Following this thread for awhile...

 

@Boy Helios
For how long have you been taking egb761 before noticing improvement? I read in the study 2 weeks is too short to notice any improvement. In the trial the participants took Tebonin for a few months.

My Tinnitus hasn't been improving the last few weeks. I had a first bout of Tinnitus in 2010 which gradually disappeared on its own after about 2-3 months with complete noise abstinence, but after a new recent noise exposure I acquired the one I currently have. I decided to try something this time.

I'm currently combining 120mg Tebonin daily with DIY Acoustic Neuromodulation. I read the Gingko also has the property to increase neuroplasticity, one could argue this might mean the effects of the retraining with ACRN could be noticed somewhat earlier.

A few days ago I woke up in near silence, and more often the pronounced high-pitched tone is a slight hiss now. I don't know if this is due to natural improvement, just the turbulent nature of Tinnitus, Tebonin alone, ACRN alone, or the combination of ACRN and Tebonin. It makes me feel it is doing something though. I am combining the methods for about a week now. Daily ACRN for 4-6 hours and Tebonin 120mg.

 

ACRN is a habituation protocol, and cannot change the tone of your tinnitus.

One may hypothesize that a reduction from tone to hiss is a less inflames nerve, and as such a good thing - but there aren't studies to back this up.

 

ACRN is not a habituation protocol. If it works it will decrease your T loudness (maybe down to 0?) by breaking the synchrony in neighboring cells (which is thought to be responsible for T). It can be an actual cure for some types of T.
Read more here.

 

I use the general fuzz site 2 hours a day at my desk - don't expect a miracle but for both of us I hope it works. It does distract me well.

 

while on the topic of ACRN - I find it somewhat difficult to pin down my tone. Essentially, my main symptom is a hissing electric kind of buzz in the forehead. This comes and goes at various intensities, and occasionally at night becomes a high pitched tuning fork sound if my ears have had a rough day.

If I plug my ears I get a pure tone, but I can't hear said tone 95% of the time unless my ears are plugged. This tone is very easy to "tune" to. The main symptom is not.

Advice on what I should be doing?

 

As far as I understand correctly, you should try to find your tone by using short bursts of a continuous tone at a time. When you come close to your tinnitus frequency, Residual Inhibition (RI) should happen, meaning the pure tone Tinnitus will not be perceived for a short moment after the continuous tone is stopped (thats usually a good sign). Then you should start ACRN for this frequency.

I know it's hard to do, I have my doubts sometimes as well as to using the right frequency. I have had some relief though while using 9500hz for a few days, even though I believe my Tinnitus to be somewhere around 13khz. I believe @Steve also posted some files which should account for a lot of frequencies at once, however it was an experimental approach if I remember correctly.

EDIT: I was looking up a study I read earlier regarding the Tebonin. 2 weeks is too short to notice an improvement for chronic Tinnitus. Most patients in this study were treated for a longer period (12 weeks), so don't expect improvement too early (if it happens). I'll be trying this for at least 12 weeks. I'm taking the daily 120mg now and will be upping to 240mg shortly.

The full study is a good read at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3157487/pdf/ndt-7-441.pdf

 

I've also gotten some tebonin, started taking 80 to 160 mg a day starting last week around Thursday. We'll see how it goes.

 

There's also this stuff, Tebofortin intens. It was available in Swiss pharmacy's, contains 120 mg ginkgo, and is also EGb 761. They're both made by Schwabe.

 

I can't find my frequency because I have no hearing at that frequency?

 

I had to import it from Germany, because at first glance it doesn't seem to be available in my country. I'm currently using this one, also 120mg:
http://www.apo-rot.de/details/tebonin-120-mg-bei-ohrgeraeuschen-filmtabletten/4369222.html

 

I believe one of the prerequisites of ACRN is to be able to hear around the frequency of the tinnitus tone. I guess you don't have to pinpoint it exactly though.

 

@Vinnitus i have bilateral maskers on now for TRT, but I can still hear my T above it, I have been using them since 6/29 so far no better, audiologist tell me treatment will last up to 24 months !

 

Then the frequency you are looking for is the one you can't hear. Seriously: when I went to do a hearing test a few months ago, the audiologist told me, at the end of the test: "I bet you your T is at this frequency", and I asked "how do you know?", to which she replied "that's the one you seemed to not hear well".

Also do both of your ears not hear that frequency? If one of them does you can use that ear for the matching process.

 

I will ask my audiologist on next appointment

 

I took 120mg yesterday, and felt "flush" and uncomfortable. I dropped it to 60mg today, didn't get the same effect. @Boy Helios recommended lower dosage, I'm going with that based on my experience. I may try and take 60 2x daily when I'm off the next day; I'm not sure if this affects the ability to sleep.

 

One month with 40 mg 3 times a day (Tanakan, french version of Ginko), no effect so far...

 

@Boy Helios awesome thanks for this story! I was told I had barotrauma, which caused ETD (or so I think), after a flare gun (noise exposure). My hearing is good, excellent even, and can be seen in my hearing tests (my bad ear tests even better than my good), but I still have ETD which drives me nuts. Ear fullness, etc.

When I do the valsalva maneuver, my ear blows up like a balloon. Did you have this? I'll try this therapy, thanks so much!

 

Congrats on the silence!

 

Yikes ... second day taking the EGb 761, 120 mg, and my T spiked! Also, gave me a little bit of a headache. My T has been fairly low lately, and disappeared Saturday night, before starting on this. For full disclosure, I've had T for ~3 months, following an ear infection. Also, I had an extreme emotional reaction to the high doses of Prednisone (did taper) they placed me on for 2 weeks, so I started taking 0.5 mg Xanax at night to sleep. I'm currently down to 0.125 mg, and will be going to zero in a couple of weeks. Finally, I'm also taking 400 mg of Magnesium Citrate. Not a very good experiment with so many variables changing ... ;-)

Just a fyi on the Prednisone: http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2014/06/10/prednisone-withdrawal-symptoms-how-long-do-they-last/

 

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

 

Well, it's still a "little" broke ...but it's gone from 10/10 (screaming after I opened my ears up with the prednisone, after messing around with antibiotics for the first 3 weeks with the GP) to about 2/10 worse case now. Like everyone else on here, I certainly don't want to make it worse ... but it still annoys me ... and it reacts to noise, so I can't mask it very well. It's more of a hiss. By the way, I do have tremendous empathy for all the people on here who have it really bad. I feel a little lucky, since I started out in a place were I wasn't sure I really wanted to live. I'm generally happy and laid back, and have physics and electrical engineering degrees, so I guess if it had stayed loud I would have regrouped and approached it as a problem to be solved. But it's beyond me some of people like @Cityjohn, who have it so bad, can focus so well on the technical aspects of this problem. Kudos to you and all the other fighters!

 

I agree with GregCA, if it's a 2/10 worst case, only a few months in consider that a blessing! You know it could get a lot worse. I would give anything to get to a stable 2/10, to me that would be as good as a cure. My advice would be take care of yourself, stay away from ototoxic meds and protect your hearing around loud noises, but other than that stop trying to get rid of the mild tinnitus and get on with life! It may go away on it's own for you.

 

Audiologist told you that an unproven "treatment" (TRT) would last up to 24 months?
The patience... What are you, a Buddhist monk?

 

TRT doesn't treat symptoms, its a habituation protocol. Nothing is really proven to treat symptoms though. We all just take shots in the dark and hope that it works. If it does, its hard to know if correlation or causation.

 

@Alue ... thanks for the advice. Most of what I've done to try to reduce the Tinnitus has been rather conservative, but I understand your points. The 3 things that helped me most, besides the prednisone (which opened the ears), have been the Xanax (T disappeared when I first used it, but developed tolerance, hence tapering off), Magnesium Citrate (actually also got rid of muscle cramps I use to get), and massages (neck/shoulders). The massages cut the "intensity spikes" from ~4/10 to ~2/10 . It could be argued I would have gotten better anyway, but I saw results in close proximity to starting each of these ... so that's my best guess. The only other items I'm really considering are B12, Ginkgo Biloba and Hearing Aides (had mild to moderate hearing loss). And as you mention, I need to take care of my hearing moving forward. In any case, I'm not trying any off label usage of drugs to treat what I have left, so I'd be a little surprised if I made things worse, but it is in the back of my mind. By the way, the reason for the B12 is to see if it helps with the GABA after I get off the Xanax, and the I was hoping the Ginkgo might help with the the healing process. I still have occasional mild pain in my ears that randomly appears for short periods of time. I asked he PA about it, and she just said it takes a long time for ears to heal ... but that really a vague answer, even if true (which I believe is true).

 

I just read that in Mr. T's voice in my head.
Sorry.