Natural Safe Alternatives to Anti-Inflammatory Steroids?

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to ask if you know of any herbal or other natural remedies that could be a safe alternative to oral corticosteroids such as Prednisone or Methylprednisolone?

When your tinnitus starts to spike due to a noise exposure (like clanking plates close to your ear, ambulance siren, a train horn etc.), where I live GPs sometimes prescribe a course of a steroid treatment.

I had two Methylprednisolone (Medrol) treatments in the past - I finished one just recently, and they always seemed to have helped. However, oral or i.v. corticosteroids have unfortunately many bad side effects.

Like the title asks, is any one of you aware of a natural and effective supplement or herb that would act in the same way as steroids (reducing inflammation, calming down immune syst.) but without adverse reactions to it?

My ideas (I hope this is not a snake oil): https://www.biomediclabs.com/blog/3-safe-alternatives-to-the-antiinflammatory-drug-prednisone/

• Turmeric or better yet its extract known as Curcumin
• Lipo-Flavonoid?

Thanks.

 

Oral steroids I believe helped my Tinnitus too.

I took for tuneric and curcumin with black pepper (for absorption) and noticed no difference.

Lipos are discussed in another thread here but don’t seem to help.

I tried Wobenzym N as well which did not help.

 

Turmeric seems to be lowering my tinnitus.

 

This study shows 1 month of magneisum to be more effective than prednisone: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595508002529

 

Thanks for the input everyone.

Ok. May be we should then try out a combo of natural remedies that would be boss in reducing tinnitus spikes like steroids do.

Something like: Curcumin BCM-95 extract of turmeric (7 times the absorption rate of synthetic versions. It does not require any special additive, natural or otherwise, to enhance absorption and is well tolerated) 1 g, 3x daily + ginger root extract + some of the eddible medicinal mushrooms like Shiitake/Reishi/Pleurotus Ostreatus or Lion's mane.

Just an idea...

If that is true, than it is pretty impressive. Also backed up by an actual research paper. I heard that Magnesium promotes nerve regeneration as well.

When I wean myself off Pregabalin(Lyrica). I'll try Magnesium (365 mg/day) + Turmeric/Curcumin + Thiamine and vitamin B12. I'll also look more into the medicinal mushrooms and discuss it all with a pharmacist.

 

N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC) is pretty much the equivalent.
They give it to the military personnel that was or is about to be exposed to noise.
Lots of info out there on NAC if you google it.

 

+1 for turmeric and also cayenne pepper...

Disclaimer: doesn't work for everyone...

 

Could eating foods high in Magnesium be a substitute for taking a supplement? Or does the amount of Magnesium need to be so high that food is not enough?

I recently added organic pumpkin seeds to my daily diet.

 

I don't think food could be a real substitute for Magnesium. You can overdose yourself on Magnesium too if not careful. My neurologist gave me Magnosolv 365 Mg and said to keep taking it for a month once a day.

 

Thought I'd add in my two cents here. What I've been doing is experimenting with medicinal mushrooms lately. @John_415 introduced me to Lion's Mane in one of his posts. It has the unique ability to regenerate nerves by repairing the myelin sheath (insulating / conductive layer surrounding the axon of nerve cells.) Fascinating stuff. So I've been drinking Lion's Mane and Reishi teas. Just got my Chaga in today as well, so I can add that to the mix. All three are very potent in their own ways... all anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-cancer, etc etc. They also act as adaptogens which regulate the immune system. So if your immune system is over-reacting to a trauma, even if it's a moderate one (possibly how my H functions, I'm still learning), it can take a long time to get that inflammation down. These mushrooms help regulate the immune system response, so in theory, if I keep drinking the shrooms, my middle ear muscles won't react so much to slightly above moderate noise, and become inflamed (which causes my T to spike.) Yup, I'm currently in the middle of a bad spike, and am thinking it's a TTTS middle ear inflammation thing after reading posts by @Gman and @sjtinguy. So I'm furiously drinking my mushroom tea, awaiting some noticeable results. But even so, it's improving my health in other ways.

https://www.energytherapy.biz/2017/07/21/the-healing-mushroom-therapy-guide-part-2/

https://www.energytherapy.biz/2017/07/21/the-healing-mushroom-therapy-guide/

 

Also wanted to mention that serrapeptase is not snake oil. It's a systemic enzyme that comes from the silkworm, and is a potent anti-inflammatory. I've used it in the past, and the link in your original post reminded me to get back on it / order some more, so thanks for that. I need to see if it can help out my H again.

 

I found a source that said there's 150 mg of Magnesium in a one ounce serving of pumpkin seeds. That's a lot less than the 365 mg in your supplement, but I also eat other Magnesium-rich foods like spinach, avocado, and banana.

Yesterday I made myself a salad that included raw spinach, avocado, and pumpkin seeds. It was yummy and I think it will be a regular part of my meal plans.

 

@SugarMagnolia Don't worry about 'overdosing' on vitamins / minerals that come from whole food sources. Only if you're taking lots of synthetic supplements should you worry about that. Raw whole foods like you're doing is just fine.

 

Thanks @mattryp. I prefer whenever possible to get my vitamins and minerals from food.

 

Another good source of magnesium is cacao btw
It has 500mg per 100 grams
Source: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/sweets/5471/2

Pumpkin seeds has 262mg per 100 grams
Source: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3141/2

Raw cacao is very bitter but it does have the nutrients.
I also think natural sources of vitamins and minerals are completely fine and healthy. Its the suppliments which could have side effects I think.

I have been experimenting with something called 'Magic fruit' which changes the taste buds of your mouth for like 1 hour. It turns sour and bitter into sweet. This makes it possible to eat really odd things like a raw lemon which then tastes good. This does take a bit of the edge off eating raw cacao powder with milk with no sugar.. which I did. I have this idea that perhaps if you can change the taste buds with magic fruit and then eat a lot of something natural that is not consumed that much because of the bitter/sour taste that perhaps that could heal stuff.
Anyway, knowbody has ever heard of the magic berry, here is a link on it if you want to know more about it: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/does-flavor-tripping-really-work_us_562e64d6e4b0c66bae58c97c

 

I did a quick google search for NAC. On WebMD it says "insufficient evidence for ear infections." What I found is that in medical practice it is used in conjunction with chest physiotherapy as a mucolytic and it also acts as an antioxidant.

On the other hand this study shows its efficacy on treating difficult ear infections in a combination with Ciprodex otic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17898673 and this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2808688/ supports its potential efficacy in preventing noise-induced damage from loud continuous sound on animal models. That being said, military personal is the No. 1 source of complaints of noice-induced hearing damage & tinnitus. I don't think NAC is the equivalent to corticosteroids.

I hope your spike is better now? It is interesting stuff indeed. You mentioned that you drink the mushrooms teas. Do you not think that the extracts from the mushrooms would be more potent in giving relief? It's what I heard.

Giving serrapeptose a shot sounds like a good idea.

An article worth reading on dietary supplemetns for tinnitus: https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/20q-dietary-supplements-for-tinnitus-13916

 

Cacao? Sounds like I should be baking some brownies.

 

Another anti-inflammatory agent worth mentioning here is Boswellia Serrata.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3309643/

And a short paper on Turmeric - Curcumin:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814607011296

Edit: Out of plant food supplements with anti-inflammatory properties, Boswellia Serrata was found to be the most promising: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0058944/
The University of York
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination

 

There are worse things then eating brownies. The cacao amount is rather low thow compared to eating pure chocolate.

About turmeric, I made a drink with curcuma longa powder (which is cheap) with milk and a sweetener plus some peper. It tastes very nice. In Inda its known under the name of 'golden milk'.
O and eating pepper with this increases absorpsion of the nutrients by 2000% source:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/06/20/turmeric-spice-of-life.aspx
I took loads of this at onset, I think only pred made any large difference and this stuff not so much. It is very anti inflamatory thow. I read on a COPD (lung disease forum) that some users there where switching from prednison to this stuff because it does naturally do what pred does as a medicine. Plus its really healthy, just less strong of an effect then pred.

Im gonna check for some Boswelia powder.