Tinnitus 95-100% Gone — Ketamine Was My Big Breakthrough

All,

Thought I would post an update as it might help some people. July 27th I woke up to screeching tinnitus that seemed to be coming from the middle of the head at 8 kHz. Quite debilitating. Was not caused by noise trauma the night before - no idea what brought it on. I was given a few shots of tequila by a restaurant owner, maybe that contributed.

When I woke up the hissing was very quiet and high pitched and throughout the day got louder and a lower tone. I tried everything - N-Acetyl-Cysteine, Nicotinamide Riboside, Vitamin B, Curcumin, Zinc, etc. Hyperbaric chamber, infrared laser, etc. Took prednisone the first week and third week which seemed to help a little bit then discontinued. I did seem to get a little relief a few times after trying a blow up neck cushion for 20 mins but that didn't always work. Got an adjustment from a chiro, also I had knots in my jaw that he removed.

For the first month or two it was pretty bad, I was listening to tone videos off YouTube etc. I did a high frequency sweep test online that seemed to agitate it. I did start notice that the better sleep I got the quieter it was the next day. Alcohol didn't seem to have a relation to it, sometimes after a night on the beers it was very quiet the next day, sometimes louder.

Eventually a GP prescribed 10mg amitriptyline daily. On the first day I took it I managed to have very deep REM sleep - first I had had in a long time and the hiss was higher toned and quieter. I took it for about 6 weeks or so and it did allow me to habituate to it but the hiss never went away, I just started ignoring it for most of the day. However the amitriptyline makes you feel wiped out the next day if you don't take it around 5pm or 6pm - I was taking it closer to 8pm or 9pm because I didn't know if I was going to go out earlier in the afternoon and didn't want to be zonked on it or drink on it. It also did play with mood and make you a bit depressed if you missed it which I didn't like. I eventually stopped taking it since I was habituated mostly.

That was the big breakthrough. The second was that I was reading online about a NZ study using Ketamine. Next time I was at a party I saw someone with it and tried it. The next day the tinnitus was completely gone - as in 0%. That lasted about three days before the tinnitus came back but at 5% of the volume it usually was at. Over the next couple of months I tried it again every 1-2 weekends. I have not tried it for maybe 6 weeks now and the tinnitus is between 0% and 5% of the original volume. Yesterday it was at 0%. Today it's probably about 5% but habituated to it so I don't hear it unless I think about it.

I think in my case the tinnitus was caused by some sort of neuroinflammation. I read all the reports on Tinnitus Talk and I saw that there were a few people with a middle of the head 8 kHz hiss and they seemed to also indicate it was caused by neuroinflammation even if they did not self diagnose this (I figured that out from their description of events).

Anyway I hope this helps for some people - getting deep REM sleep, a course of Amitriptyline to habituate (but don't take it long term) and then a few doses of Ketamine seems to have really conquered tinnitus for me.

M

 

Congratulations! That's wonderful news!

May your tinnitus continue to be gone.

Steph <3

 

Fantastic news and enjoy the silence! Thanks for sharing. I've had mine for 4 weeks now. Not much change yet but I'm keeping positive and your story helps.

Mags

 

This is truly wonderful and I'm very happy you've had such great results! I really hope you're enjoying your silence!

Been thinking about reaching out to the local ketamine infusion clinic soon to see if I can start a treatment. Reading your story gives me a bit of hope as I also have that "middle of the head" hiss.

 

This sounds like central tinnitus and not cochlear if Ketamine worked systemically for you. Even more so as an SSRI seemed to help, it suggests the issue was a gating one in the brain and not cochlear based.

 

Do you think 16 kHz could be central tinnitus? Is the frequency too high and suggestive of cochlear damage?

 

Yeah.

 

Lol. I guess I asked two questions. Yeah to which one?

 

I am probably misinformed, but I thought tinnitus was always a gating problem in the brain. Sure it starts by some sort of issue with either your hearing, potentially your jaw or neck, or a concussion, etc., but that in the end, it’s really your brain not filtering out the noise before it hits auditory cortex. At least that’s how it was explained to me by my ENT. He indicated that’s why some people with hearing loss don’t have tinnitus and why others do.

 

Can you explain the differences?

Thank you,
twa

 

Who knows what tinnitus ultimately results from other than:

1) lack of communication (to and from) to cochlear nerves &
2) lack of gating and long term inhibition in dorsal cochlear nucleus.

That's the difference I've discussed.

It's why systemic applications will have different effects to local applications.

As far as the mechanics of each drug.... that's beyond my understanding. In theory a combination approach makes sense to target central receptors differently than cochlear ones at the same time to forcibly remove the long term potentiation.
The only proof I have is when I used to be able to "zap" away tones, which no longer occurs.

 

This is so encouraging. I am in the same boat as you. Perfect hearing, no cochlear damage. My tinnitus was brought on by a brief stint taking a SSRI called Effexor.

I have been on the fence about getting Ketamine treatment here from a clinic and this helps big time.

May I ask how many times you did it in total? And how often have you continued it since the reduction? I am supposed to get 6 infusions over 2 weeks.

Thanks so much for sharing!