Seems Like I Can't Eat Anything

[erniej]

I posted a number of months ago that I was having problems with my tinnitus spiking when I ate certain foods.

It's gotten down to the point where my tinnitus goes through the roof after any meal. I was going through most of the day not eating and eating a large meal at dinner. I started eating smaller meals throughout the day and that worked fine for a while. Now it doesn't matter what I eat or how I spread out my meals.

I woke up this morning and my ears were ringing at a very comfortable level and then I had some cottage cheese spread on a rice cake and two slices of a pear and the ringing went through the roof.
About the only thing I can seem to tolerate is chicken wings. No joke. I have been having to cut out certain foods one at a time. First it started out with things like pork, then broccoli, then beef, then ice cream, etc. etc.

Has anyone else had this problem? Pretty soon I'll be down to water.

I've been battling this for 10 months now and it's starting to take it's toll. I'm 65. I have been having chest pains so my doctor sent my for an EKG Stress Test last week. First they did a simple EKG, the technician took a photo of the results and emailed it to a cardiologist. He looked at it and decided to schedule a nuclear imaging stress test for tomorrow morning. This is one shitty affliction.

 

[Beste]

Every single food spikes my tinnitus. I do not know why since my tinnitus was caused from benzo withdrawal.

 

[undecided]

Shitty indeed.

Have you tried lowering (or completely removing) salt and sugar from your meals?

Salt and sugar are considered as tinnitus triggers...

Also, wheat products and dairy have been known to cause inflammation for some folks and maybe should be avoided.

I'm no expert but I think you need to start 'logging' your meals each day and try to find your tinnitus triggers.

 

[Paul Welsh]

Hey erniej. I have the exact same problem. I've had tinnitus since 2007 due to loud noise exposure. I habituated to it and lived with it til the start of this year (January), when it got to the point where it was unbearable, after working two back to back jobs where they played music in the store. I had to quit both because of this. I then noticed that shortly after that I couldn't tolerate ANY sound. Talking to people, traffic, toilet flushing, etc. These daily sounds became unbearable to me and hasn't got any better. Then one day after dinner, I took a nap and woke up with my ears ringing like crazy. It drove me up the wall and went on like this for a week. I knew it was due to what I ate so I decided not to even eat for a week. The following month, what I ate was very limiting because I was scared to set it off again. Then the little that I was eating started to affect my ears after I ate. It got so bad that I decided not to eat for nearly a month. Then I was reduced to just eating cashew nuts every day. Now it seems that my ears can't even handle that.

I've been like this since January and it's now nearly September. I was hoping to hear that you have had some good news with your condition that you can share? If not, just know that at least you know there's at least one person out there that understands exactly what you're going through!

Paul.