Silence After 4.5 Years (Medications from Company Called Decola)

I don't want to be overly optimistic, because my tinnitus has "only" been gone for 6 days, but after almost five years it's an amazing experience. I've finally found some (I think) 'alternative' pills that work for me. Important note: my ears aren't damaged in any way (not sure if that's important, just mentioning it).

Background story: When I was 16 years old, I woke up one day with mild tinnitus. I'd only been to two concerts in my life (both were months ago), and multiple tests (all sorts of tests as well) confirmed that my hearing wasn't damaged at all. The opposite was true: I even heard much better than the average peer. "You hear as good as a dog," said the ear specialist. Good news, my family said, but the tinnitus didn't care. For four years I have had to deal with all kinds of tinnitus: different frequencies, different volumes, pulsating tinnitus, sudden deafness, acoustic perturbations, ... I had one ear problem after another (sometimes also a different one in my left and my right ear). I got my hearing checked every year, because those temporary problems gave me the feeling that my hearing changed, but the doctor had always the same results: still no damage.

The cure: A lot of doctors blame tinnitus not caused by hearing damage to stress. I've tried to avoid stress at all costs, even though I didn't believe that I was more often stressed than the people surrounding me. One week ago, I went to see another doctor who's known for his alternative research regarding intestines. I had mine tested before, but the doctor back then didn't do anything with the results. When I showed those results to this "new" doctor, he immediately said that my intestines were causing this so called "stress" in my brain. Even though I've never actually experienced digestive problems, my body is apparently struggling.

I started taking medicines to support my intestines, and it's been silent ever since (but again, it's only been 6 days, I'm going to keep everyone updated here).

- Cerinax (so called "psychobiotics", they improve the relationship between your intestines and your brain)
- MB Adapt (MB stands for Mood Balance, so it should knock out stress - it contains among other things magnesium and vitamine B6)
- LG-support (natural resistance, detox)

The company making the pills is called Decola. I was able to get them in the pharmacy (they had to order them), so they may not be that "alternative". Either way, they are completely natural (not that I care: anything that helps is good, but classical medicine has few solutions).

The doctor advised me to take all three of them, so I'm not sure if they're all necessary to stop the tinnitus. However, I went to this website quite a lot when I was freaked out about a sound that spiked my tinnitus, and reading other people's topics here have often calmed me down. I hope that I'm a lucky one and that this is the end of my journey.

I'll keep you all updated!

 

They say 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut, so maybe you altered your serotonin levels somehow for the better??? That's awesome! I'm especially glad to hear this happened after 4 1/2 years. I've been experimenting with keto and am wondering if that has changed gut bacteria and caused a spike. Thanks for sharing the info. I hope the streak of quiet days continues.

 

I’ve tried many diets in the past, but I didn’t do keto. Diets keep you guessing if your spike is caused by it or not, I know the feeling... I believe that reactions are different for everyone, because the classics (for example caffeine and salt) have never triggered me.

 

The classics don't affect me either, and I think caffeine might actually help a bit. Oddly enough, the couple of times I've had Chamomile or Valerian it spiked.

 

I'm not surprised your tinnitus has improved.

You are taking precursors to GABA, alongside GABA.

I've always been wary of taking GABA because I've read that providing an external source of GABA may bump off the brain's drive to make its own.

I'd rather go with the precursors.

Let us know how you get on.

 

So which one of my medications is the “precursor GABA”? (Did some research on the term because I didn’t understand it, but I get it now).

 

Update: Still doing great, but I’m getting a cold and it’s definitely messing with my hearing (without giving me tinnitus however).

 

Like you, I have no detectable hearing damage and my audiograms even show better than "normal" hearing, yet I get screaming tinnitus that can be incredibly reactive. It's basically 4 days mild, 3-4 days 10/10, like clockwork.

Was yours reactive at all? I might look into this. I have already cut out caffeine and alcohol for months but the scheduled hell I go through is unchanged.

 

Mine was actually very reactive as well. I couldn’t stand the sound of running water for example, even my “SuperSilence” vacuum cleaner was annoying because of the monotonous sound (I believe).

As I mentioned I still drink coffee and I do believe that it’s good for my tinnitus (because I’ve stopped drinking it for a while). Alcohol on the other hand is the devil. It’s like the slightest bit of it will mess heavily with my ears.

Are the weekends worse for your ears?

 

@Margrietje -- I think there may be a connection in your story to THIS POST. It describes how a man from London got rid of his tinnitus after 14 years by using Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

 

Alcohol is a gamble for me. 50% of the time it would make things worse and cause a spike for the next day. Sometimes it did nothing and even calmed it. But yes it had the biggest effect on me out of anything else.

Any sort of white noise, vacuum cleaner, sound of waves, sound of rain, box fans causes a spike for me. It drives me crazy. Only on really silent days these types of sounds have very little effect.

Yes, the past couple months I tend to go into satan mode on the weekends. I have no idea why.

 

Weirdly, I can't find any of these medications on Google. I totally believe you but I'm not getting any search results.

 

Google shows me tons of Belgian websites when I type in the medications, and I guess Decola is also a Belgian company. Not sure how to help, but maybe they ship from their website www.decola.be...?

 

Anybody know alternatives we can find on Amazon for USA folks?

 

You have to go to the Belgium site or Facebook and translate it to English.

I'm trying to find American supplements with similar ingredients.

Cerinax
Active ingredients per capsule
Probiotic mixture 20 billion CFU / 2caps

70 mg

Bifidobacterium longum
Bifidobacterium infantis
Lactobacillus rhamnosus
Lactobacillus helveticus
Lactobacillus brevis
Lactobacillus plantarum
Galacto-oligo-saccharides 150 mg
L-Glutamine 250 mg
Magnesium bisglycinate 145 mg


MB Adapt
Active ingredients
per vegetable capsule

GABA (Gamma Amino Butyric Acid) 100 mg
Eleuterococcus senticosus extract 100 mg
Magnesium bisglycinate 100 mg
Taurine 60 mg
Melissa officinalis L. extract - Lemon balm 50 mg
Eschscholtzia californica L. extract - Nightcap 50 mg
Vitamin B6 0.45 mg

LG Support
Active ingredients per gram of powder

Fructo-Oligo-Saccharides 450 mg
L-glutamine 450 mg
Curcuma longa L. 70 mg
Carica papaya L. 30 mg

 

For a Cerinax alternative I found this:

https://www.amazon.com/Probiotic-Prebiotic-Probiotics-Digestive-Prebiotics/dp/B071L8D4DQ/

Bifidobacterium longum
Bifidobacterium infantis
Bifidobacterium lactis
Bifidobacterium animalis
Lactobacillus rhamnosus
Lactobacillus helveticus
Lactobacillus brevis
Lactobacillus plantarum
Lactobacillus acidophilus
GOS 231 mg

It's got nearly everything plus some extras, but it lacks L-Glutamine and Magnesium bisglycinate.

 

(Belgium here too).

I also got the "you hear as good as a newborn baby, it's quite remarkable for your age (and hobby)" > I am a raver so (used to) go to loud gigs a lot - I obviously retired after tinnitus entered my life.

I do have a little nudge loss in the right ear at 4000 Hz.

You mention you have had multiple versions of tinnitus. Mind telling us what is your main one? Pure tone, electric buzz, ...?

Did you need a prescription to get those pills from the pharmacy?

Thank you and please keep us all updated here, good or bad news.

 

@Contrast what do you think?

 

I've looked at psychopharmacological implications of probiotics a lot. There's definitely something to it, however: there's many products on the market, the bacteria need to be alive when you consume the product and packaged in a way that carries them to your gut, and the evidence that they ever meaningfully colonize your gut is pretty disputed. That is, you'd need to continue taking probiotics to see any benefit.

I have stood by as my wife's pregnancy related skin and GI problems disappeared within a week of starting a quality probiotic, and then come raging back a week or so after she ran out and sort of forgot about it because she didn't think it was doing much.

I don't at all think it's a stretch to think that some probiotics might interact with some GI tracks in a way that makes the organism's brain a happier place to live, but, most research just focuses on a single strain or two, most of these products have many different organisms in, and so "try stuff until you find something you think works, but you're never really sure because of the placebo effect" is the best most of us are going to do.

I just eat quality yogurt every morning now. I don't necessarily think that expensive, very high quality probiotic pills are a scam in the same way other supplements are: producing, storing and shipping probiotics well is hard. However, the actual science around this is so spotty and conflicted in places that it's pretty hard to endorse any of this stuff from a purely evidence based perspective.

When I have gotten what I'd consider quality probiotics, they were cold shipped to a store which kept them at or below fridge temps until sale. I'd be pretty dubious about how many of the bacteria in your typical bottle of USPS-shipped amazon probiotics are still alive by the time they arrive, anyone have any studies?

Yogurt is, obviously, cold shipped and kept on ice at the store.

 

@linearb I see what you are saying about storage etc and I know you did not specifically mention "placebo" in relation to OP which makes sense as she (I assume judging by the name) has been with tinnitus for 5 years.
Pretty sure after 5 years with this condition you don't let yourself be tricked by a placebo effect of any shape or form.

As I am in Belgium (too) I can easily pull the trigger on this and add it to my regimen but let's wait and see how OP's case evolves before I burn a hole in my wallet (again) for supplements.

 

I bought these drugs. Should I keep them in the fridge?

 

Not sure if we have the exact same package, but mine says “keep dry and cool”. In Belgium that means “don’t put it in the fridge, but not in the sun either”

 

How did you dose these drugs?

 

Please keep us up to date on your progress (even if there was none).

 

From the website (in Dutch):

LG-Support
(Dutch) 2 maatlepels per dag, mengen in een glas water, en daarna uitdrinken, 's morgens nuchter voor het ontbijt.
2 measuring spoons (I guess they provide a spoon in the packaging?) per day, mix in a glass of water, then drink it, in the morning before breakfast.

MB Adapt
(Dutch) 3 x 1 capsule tijdens de maaltijd.
Indien gelijktijdig gebruik met benzodiazepinen, gelieve eerst uw arts of apotheker te raadplegen.
3 x 1 capsule during every meal (assuming you eat 3 times a day )
If used while taking benzodiazepines, please consult your doctor or pharmacist first.

Cerinax
(Dutch) 2 capsules per dag ’s morgens nuchter voor het ontbijt
2 capsules per day in the morning before breakfast (on empty stomach).

 

I want to, honestly, I’m just not sure how often I should post about it.

So in terms of chronic tinnitus it’s still reaaaally quiet, even when I go to the supermarket or drive my car for a longer period of time. Such things used to upset my ears. I haven’t tried anything more daring though, don’t feel like it either

I did have two rather short (max. 5 minutes) “attacks” the last three days, without knowing what could’ve caused it. To me, an attack is a sudden loud beep. I can feel it in my ears when it’s going to start. They disappeared however and the silence returned. It was a bit disappointing maybe, but the overall remaining silence is more important to me after almost five years of noise, deafness, distortions, ...

 

Is this the fleeting tinnitus that "everyone" (even people without tinnitus) has - ears kind of "closing up", ear going a bit deaf and then a loud beep for x seconds.

In your opening post you said you had all kinds of Tinnitus.
If you would sit in a completely quiet room, what would you hear exactly ?

 

@Margrietje Could you please tell us a bit more about the origins of your tinnitus? What you think caused it and what your investigations led to? I also think mine is noise induced, and I'm already taking a bunch of supplements. I'd like to know more before potentially spending money on these pills.

 

I don’t really know how to answer that question. Hell, it changed so often. Buzzing? Different tones and volume levels. The buzzing sometimes “mimicked” stuff I’d just heard. Like crickets, hair dryers (I don’t use one, but for example when my parents dry their hair with the bathroom door closed), ... Then, as I said, there were days that I had heavy distortion, days during which I couldn’t speak without hearing my own voice as an annoying beep.

My doctor never told me about terms like pulsating tinnitus et cetera. I only learnt about all of that when I discovered this forum. You see, I was 16 years old when I got struck with tinnitus. When they didn’t find the cause and didn’t see any hearing damage, my family refused to call it tinnitus. It was “stress”, my psychologist even used the term “PTSD”. So I know / knew a lot about the psychological stuff, but nothing about tinnitus. After the tests in 2016, I saw the “ear doctor” (forgot the English term) only twice because I often got scared that my hearing had gotten worse. In 2017 and in 2019 they confirmed that I was wrong: my hearing wasn’t damaged. The doctor then told me about sudden deafness though, probably the first advanced term I learned, and that one’s hearing heals itself after such an attack most of the time.

 

Doctors are clueless.

I went to UZ Leuven and UZ Gent (in Belgium) (both university hospitals) and another clinic in Portugal (where I have my residency).

Both UZ Leuven and UZ Gent said it was probably just something in my neck, and they said that only because they didn't see any serious hearing damage on their (limited) audiogram.

As we know already, many many people on this forum have perfect audiograms but still suffer from noise induced tinnitus.
(I have a nudge of 15 dB at 4000 hH in my right ear, I'm assuming that's the tinnitus engine).

My first 2 months were absolute torture. Woke up with a low buzzing truck noise in my head (right side) - Now that has been replaced (although I know a way to bring back the low buzz > sleeping on my bad ear) with a static hiss that - after a long day of MacBook-fan noise for example - turns into a piercing EEEEE.

Also fans, vacuum cleaners and hairdryers make my ear(s) go EEEE on top of the noise.

Anyhow - while I don't assume the Decola stuff mentioned here will work for me (noise induced for sure) it's still interesting of course.