Over a 14-Month Period I Made My Tinnitus Quieter with the Following Supplements and Treatments

After I got tinnitus I went to a couple ear doctors who tested my hearing and said it was basically alright and I had a bit of a decrease in a certain range. There was a doctor who told me about lipoflavinoid. THat was the initial supplement I tried. It didn't really do anything, and they honored their refund procedure.

Over the next year or so I used a bunch of stuff. I'm goign to list it all here. There was a lot of stuff I used so I'm going to do it in the order I think I used it. At the bottom I am going to give some of my ideas about tinnitus and how these might work. These are entirely my own thoughts and haven't been verified.

The first thing I tried was doing headstands. Supposedly tinnitus can be caused by lack of bloodflow, so I figured this would increase the blood in my ears. It didn't do much.

The first thing I used was lipoflavinoid. I used the normal dose of 2 pills 3x a day. I did this for a few weeks but it didn't seem to make a difference.

The tinnitus I have was caused by acoustic exposure. The audio I heard was a chime that was present when the environment was silent. The sound started a little over a week later. Only my right ear developed the drone. It was at 1700 hertz, or it could have been an octave higher at 3400, despite playing music for more than half my life I couldn't tell which it was for sure.

THe next supplement I tried was vinpocetine. I tried 10mg 3x a day. Vinpocetine made me tired and it wasn't until I added n acetyl cysteine that I stopped having this result.

N acetyl cysteine creates more glutathione. This is something that you might want because the ears use glutathione to restore damage. WHen you are by loud volume it depletes glutathione. This could mean that having more glutathione can help keep your ears from getting harmed. So I started using it.

Acetyl l carnitine was the next thing I tried. Reading about this made me think it might be helpful for tinnitus but I am not sure of the reason. I think it was related to restoring cells.

Zinc and magnesium and b12 mixed with these finished up what I was using here. These are all thing sthat have been referred to as possibly being beneficial.

Magnesium is produced with other chemicals attached to it. You can find a lot of different versions. I used magnesium taurate and glycinate. The taurine kind makes me relaxed so I take it before bed.

My collection at this point was

lipoflavinoid 2 3x daily
n acetyl cysteine (nac) 600mg twice daily
acetyl l carnitine 500mg twice daily
magnesium 133mg once or twice daily
b12 1000 - 3000 mcg once daily
zinc 50mg once daily
vinpocetine 10mg 3x daily

These were all taken with calories because some of them can make you feel strange if taken on an empty stomach.

A while later I noticed that my tinnitus was different when I would go to sleep, instead of being the tone, it was like crickets far away. A sign it was modifying.

I got some niacinimide, not niacin, because I heard that was effective with condition. I got some pycnogenol because it was supposed to work like the other stuff, improving blood flow.

I think for some of these things, they don't necessarily do anything unless they are the cause of your tinnitus. So magnesium might help if your sound is caused by lack of magnesium. Zinc and b12 are like this, too.

At this point I was taking n acetyl cysteine 600mg
alcar 500mg twice a day
zinc 50mg daily
niacinimide 250mg on some days
b12 2000mcg daily
vinpocetine 10mg 3x daily
magnesium 133 - 266mg daily
pycnogenol 50mg daily

While taking hethese I was using lutein and zeaxanthin, too, which probably had no effect on it but I wanted to put them here, too, just to be accurate.

There was something I read about notch audio that is supposed to work. Basically you take the tone at which your tinnitus is and you remove that tone in the center of the octave from whatever you are listening to. Doing it on music or white noise is supposed to work. I did it with white noise because I figure with music it might not even have that pitch in it and according to the studies people got better results with white noise, and because listening to music with certain tones removed would be weird. I did this sometimes, maybe 5-20 minutes at a time. I noticed that when I stopped the tinitus was worse for a few minutes.

I was taking a portion of an active b complex, too. I feel there is a lot of vitamins in there and I didn't want to take that much.

This continued for a few months. THere wasn't much change in what the tone sounded like.

I occasionally took k2, too, which didn't likely have any redirection on it but I included it regardless. So for a while this is what I was taking.

I mean vitamin k2.

When I read something that said magnesium asparate could help regain hearing I tried it although it made my digestino get all weird and I don't really like aspartate anyway so I didn't take too many.

THe next group of supplements I tried were grape seed extract, ginkgo biloba, and astaxanthin. The grape seed extract I used was 100mg twice daily and the gingko was 24% flavone ginkgoglycosides and 6% terpene lactone. The grape seed was standardized to 90% flavonoids. There was something about ginkgo that said it was good for tinnitus and it was that specific type and it was called ginkgold but that was too costly so I got the swanson brand which was a better value. The astaxanthin was 8mg and I don't know if ti is supposed to do anything but I tried it.

I used bromelain for other reasons sometimes during this time. I don't think it had any reaction with tinnitus but I wanted to list it.

While taking these I was using gelatin and collagen products. I would use gelatine almost all mornings dissolved in water and followed with a vitamin C pill. I would sometimes use type 1 and 3 collagen mixed in water, too. THis was for a different reason and probably doesn't have anis ything to do with tinnitus but I wanted to list it.

I play instruments with people a few times a week and would take n acetyl cysteine and alcar before and after that. This is supposed to stop hearing damage.

I stopped taking vinpocetine around this time because there was some info suggesting that it might not be good for you.

THere is some info about some of this stuff not being good if you use it for long durations.

The current group looked like this

n acetyl cysteine 600mg twice daily
alcar 500mg twice or once daily
magnesium 100-200mg daily
b complex 1/4 pill daily
ginkgo biloba 60mg twice daily
astaxanthin 8mg daily
grape seed extract 100mg twice daily
pycnogenol 50mg twice daily
b12 2000mcg daily

I used lutein 10mg daily but that probably doesn't have anything to do with tinnitus.

I was getting a vitamin with 1000mcg of k1 and 400mcg of k2 mkiv and 1000mcg of k2 mkvii that probably didn't have anything to do with tinnitus but I mention it here because I was taking it.

There was some L arginine I was taking sometimes which was 500mg that likely didn't do anything although it's supposed to increase blood flow.

Oddly enough, the ginkgo seemed to make it more intense during the times I took it.

During this time I was meditating a lot. Sometimes 4 or more times per day. This might have done something but maybe not. I am just listing it here to give lots of information.

During this time I was doing more physical activity and I noticed it was more prominent. As I noticed this I decided to start taking hot showers based on something I had read where they said hot water made it better, likely because of blood flow. I would get in there and turn the water warmer every so often and have it fall on my neck. It felt good but didn't do much for the tinnitus.

While I was taking these I would take pyrroloquinolone quinone (pqq) a few times a week, 10mg on weekends on each day. This is supposed to increase mitochondria but it depletes glutathione so I thought it might not be a good idea for tinnitus.

Creatine got added to my group here, too. I was eating vegetarian for a while and wanted creatine to make up for what I was eating. I was taking about 1.5g per day but only a few days a week. Some info I have noticed online suggests creatine may improve tinnitus.

I then decided to start taking concentrace trace mineral drops. You are supposed to put 40 of them in a glass of water or have it during the day but I started with 2 and built up to 10. This probably didn't have anything to do with tinnitus but I wanted to mention it. There is lithium in it. I got some lithium orotate and took very small doses, like less than 1/8 of a pill, because I heard that can help. I did this rarely and I don't think it had anything to do with it.

My tinnitus was pretty continuous while I was doing all this.

I started taking nicotinimide riboside for other reasons. I thought this might do something for it because it was close to niacinimide. After about a month I noticed it was much softer. I was taking 250mg once daily. I used one pill for 125mg a day for the first week and then increased. These were taken sublingually by emptying the capsule and pouring it in my mouth. It had changed from a chime to like what you notice if you put a tube up to your ear.

I stopped taking that after a few more weeks because I decided it was giving me planatar fasciitis as well as other joint issues. There wer ea few mentions of this online, too. I stopped and was expecting the noise to come back, but it didn't. At this point I was taking nothing other than n acetyl cysteine and acetyl l carnitine before my meetings with the instrument people. After a few weeks it still never came back. My foot started feeling better.

I began taking wobenzym to help with the tendonitis I had. I was taking 3 pills 3x a day and increased that to 4 pills 3x a day. This seemed to make the noise even less. I stopped taking this after about one bottle because I felt it was giving me a weird effect... I thought it was making me put on weight. Usually I have to worry about getting enough food to not lose weight so it was odd to me that I felt I was gaining weight. I stopped taking it.

The noise was nearly gone, and the tone was gone, for weeks.

A while ago I went to a bar with my friends where it was loud and I didn't put in my ear plugs. My tinnitus has been back ever since.

Here are some ideas I considered.

Tinnitus can be from hair damage. This part cannot easily heal, or heal at all. What if it is possible to heal it if you compare it to something like tendonitis. Tendons don't have much blood supply and take quite a while to heal. Tendonitis can be around for a long time, months or more, even with treatment. What if the noise is like this, too? There may be certain things you can do that help it but they take a long duration. The cells in the hairs may not have much blood flow in which case it would take a lot of stuff to get them to heal.

THere may be another way to repair this, even if it doesn't actually heal the hairs, and that is to change the way you perceive it. If you still have the injury to the cells but your brain doesn't notice the sound anymore, most people would probably be happy with this. I am not talking about habituating. I am talking about modifying the way your brain hears stuff. Notched audio may do this.

If there are things that may repair the hairs, they may be dependent upon increased blood flow. Get the necessary chemicals and then increase the blood flow so they get where they need to be.

There is a chance that if it gets better your ears will still be weakened compared to how they were before. Mine was just about gone until I went to somewhere with a lot of noise and it came back. Most people wouldn't have even noticed it but because my ears were already dealing with this, it didn't take a large amount of volume to do more damage.

Everything I have done is listed in this thread. I hope it's helpful. I have no idea if it would have gotten better on its own or if it had to do with what I was using. The nicotinimide riboside may have been what changed it since that seems to be the point at which it got better, or it could have happened by then on its own. I am the kind of person who is listening for it so when it became softer I noticed. When I would wear earplugs instead of hearing the tone I would just hear a soft hissing sound. It was a definite reshaping from what it was.

There are a few other things I have been wanting to try, including C60 olive oil, piracetam, and n acetyl glucosamine.

 

How very kind of you, Everyloop, to have gone to such trouble writing up your experiences.

I am on a similar path myself, though nowhere near as differentiated as you. The trouble is also that one needs to understand chemistry to an extent. In parallel, I am on a protocol for peripheral neuropathy. http://theprotocolworks.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/protocol-links-to-purchase-instructions.html
I think some of that is also helping. To me, the conditions are related. My tinnitus did not originate from loud noise. It comes and goes which is why I think circulation plays a part. I have also found using a 'laser pillow' helpful. http://www.wearablelaserwrap.com/ Plus I think hydration is essential. (Tinnitus appeared after a spell of drinking few fluids.) I will probably go for a water ioniser because I understand it improves hydration. Thank you again

 

How do you know it didn't just get better over time?

 

Actually, it had worsened April 2017 onwards and I was worried the condition would deteriorate. Unfortunately, I was doing all the wrong things around that time. There has been a definite improvement since May/June, especially since using the laser pillow and being careful with hydration & stress.