Has anyone gotten rid of their tinnitus?

My sister's tinnitus is driving her crazy. She wakes up crying because of it. The only relief she seems to get is from driving her around in the car with the radio on--she says it gets quieter, though she still hears it. When this first started, the tinnitus was not constant and used to switch on and off. Typically, it would buzz for a few days, and then it would stop and her neck would make noise (buzzing/humming) for a couple of days, and then it would go back to the ear. But for a while now, it's been constant in the left ear, though it seems to get louder/softer over the course of the day, and it's really starting to get to her. In Buhner's book 1, he mentioned Vinpocetine as possibly being helpful. We had her on it for a while and then went off b/c we didn't think it was helping. But we're quite desperate now, so we're getting that started again. I think somewhere on his site he mentioned Stephania for buzzing, but she's been on it for a while and it doesn't look like that's having an impact. I think I saw somewhere in Buhner's book or on that site that Sida might help with buzzing. Right now we have her on 20 drops of that 3x/day. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I did read Sida for buzzing with neuro lyme

Peteza- Thanks so much for your suggestions and quick response. We're actually doing all of that and so far, no luck. But we'll keep doing it--especially since we're also starting to get worried about her right ear, as it's started to buzz, but only slightly. The last thing we need is for her right ear to get as bad as her left.

Hi Pirouette- Interesting on the niacin recommendation. I'm not sure I can go there with her just yet. I once gave her a multi-B that had Niacin in it and the flushing got her really upset. We've been doing the Lipoflavonoid ever since this began back in Sept/Oct. I'll look into Lysine--that's something we don't have her on and at this point, we're willing to give anything a shot. Honestly, the only thing that seems to work right now is driving her with music. When we put music on in the house, it doesn't seem to have the same effect. And it seems like it varies across the day. Lately, in the morning, when she wakes up it's quite bad. We go out driving for a few hours, and when we get back in the house from 12:30-4:30, her ear is a bit quieter (but still buzzing) and her neck vibrates. By 4:30, things start to get louder and we go our driving for a couple of hours. She used to be able to come back in the house at 6:30, but now she's absolutely terrified to come in b/c the noise apparently gets much louder. For the past week or so, we've spent our evenings in the car. She's able to come back in for at little while at 10 pm, which is when we give her all the supplements to knock her out so she can sleep. We have to drive around for a while to quiet the noise/vibrations and get her to sleep, and then I walk her back in around 11:30. At that point, she's so drowsy, she's able to sleep through the night (especially since we added Trazedone), with music on in the background. I guess we're just going to have to ride this out and hope things calm/quiet down at some point.

When I first got lyme I had a little tinnitus and I used a small compact radio with an earplug and listened to talk radio and it put me right to sleep. Night time was my worst time with trying to sleep.

I think it was when I introduced Japanese Knotweed that mine went away, but was it the combo or just the JK? Hard to say.

Good luck, the poor girl. It is frustrating to hear stuff that really isn't there.

My tinnitus has been with me for 5 years. I actually thought it was an electrical hum in our house for a long time until I figured out nobody else was hearing it! lol. Anyway, mine recently went away for a short bit on Azith. Now it is back though. For me it gets very loud at night (when things are quiet) and it is very soft in the morning. My daughter has an air purifier in her room and I slept in her room the other night and it was so nice and soothing with the noise. And the air purifier was a bonus (-: I feel for your sister.

Laura - I'm so sorry your sister is suffering with this.

I have pulsatile tinnitus - instead of noise/buzzing in my ears, I hear/feel a pulse like a heart beat...and when I put my ear on the pillow..I can hear kind of a short 'swooshing' sound.

What has helped...is treatment. Mine is about 80% better...but it did not get better overnight...it has ever so slowly gotten to this point...I didn't notice an improvement for quite a long time...several months.

I also have nerve 'vibrations' in my body - upper torso ....and they also ramp up my nerve pain..and also some 'shivers'.

I have been taking Kudzu and Greater Celandine - for the nerves...for about two months now...and so far I haven't felt an improvement.

Pirouette- Yes, she'd tolerate headphones, but our concern there is that she would have the volume way too high and possibly injure her ears. And the car thing has been really strange--when all of this started, it honestly used to turn things off. The first time she had tinnitus was when we went to an inn in the cell phone free zone in West Virginia (at that point, we thought that she was sensitive to WiFi b/c the vibrations used to start whenever she was near WiFi, and this was the only place we could find w/out WiFi). Anyway, the first night there, she got tinnitus in the left ear and we could tell it was quite loud. We wanted to try the car (since it worked for the vibrations and noise elsewhere) but we were in the middle of nowhere and too afraid we would get lost or worse (there were no lights and narrow, winding roads). First thing in the morning, we got in the car and left, and the tinnitus turned off almost instantly. After that, it was a month before it came back and initially we were able to get rid of it completely with driving, especially if we got on the highway. On the detox protocol, we're honestly doing tons (as much as I can fit it). I'd love to get calcium bentonite clay or charcoal in, but right now there isn't a big enough time window away from supplements.

Peteza- Interesting that you think yours might have gone away after introducing JK. She's been on it for a while now, so I don't think it's helping. But then again, maybe I don't have the right dose. She's currently taking 50 drops 3x/day, but was doing better when we were using capsules and she was at his max dose of 4, 4x per day.

Multifacetedme--Well, that's great to hear that yours got better with treatment (it gives me some hope for her). Do you happen to recall which Chinese herb?? A while ago, we added Chinese skullcap and Kudzu, and we honestly thought we saw a calming of her symptoms. I still don't know why her tinnitus started to get worse. I still have yet to add in the Chinese Cat's Claw Buhner recommended--but right now, I think I just need to wait this out before adding anything new.

k07- Sorry to hear you've had that tinnitus for so long. Perhaps the air purifier is something we can look into. We're honestly desperate at this point.

Rowingmom- Thanks so much for your suggestions. We'll have to look into a white noise generator--that might actually help. I've noticed that my sister sometimes hums or makes other noises, as though she's trying to drown out the sounds in her head. On the EMF sensitivity, that's actually what we first thought all of this was due to b/c that's kind of how her symptoms initially played out (she would vibrate and buzz when in a hot spot). Right now, we keep her in shielded rooms of our home and everything is wired--no more wireless anything. We're already doing red root, but we can definitely look into cilantro and diatomaceous earth. On diatomaceous earth, does that have to be two hours away from supplements??

Girlie-So sorry to hear you have this too. And I think my sister has other aspects to her tinnitus too. She also talks about vibrations in the ear, as well as banging, pounding, and bouncing sensations. I think the noise in her neck gets worse when she lies on her side--she seems to get vibrations there, as well as rumbling, humming, buzzing, and banging. I'm glad to hear yours has improved with treatment--that gives us a bit of hope. I've already added Kudzu (at the same time as Chinese Skullcap) and thought we saw a calming of her symptoms overall. Maybe Greater Celendine is another worth looking into.

LauraJK

So sorry your sister is dealing with this! I've had tinnitus since I was a teenager - it was a manifestation of my hearing loss and quite annoying.

I just stumbled upon some info on the BetterHealthGuy site (great Lyme resource) that I also learned through research. If you scroll down to Dr. G's comments, you'll read:

"Ringing in the ears may be related to Babesia or viruses."

www.betterhealthguy.com/integrativetherapies

Lots of other great info shared by noted LLMD's (and ILADS co-founder Dr. B ;)

You might consider trialing 1 drop of Cryptolepis tincture (major player in Buhner's Babesia protocol). If your sister responds to it in any way, that's a sign she's dealing with Babesia/Babesia-like infection....very, very common coinfection.

It would then make sense to expand the protocol to include the other things Buhner recommends. There is overlap between the Babesia and Bartonella protocols (Alchornea, Sida Acuta, Red Root, L-arginine and Hawthorn) so it wouldn't be too hard to cover a few more bases.

CD- Sorry to hear you've had tinnitus since you've been a teenager. I've actually had a couple of instances in recent months myself, but it thankfully doesn't last for long (though it scares me a bit each time). Thanks for the link and your thoughts on Babesia. I think when I first introduced my sister's situation and symptoms a couple of people thought Babesia could be a factor. I've wondered about that myself also b/c my sister does this weird thing with opening the window ("ah, air"), which she never used to do. The LLMD supposedly ordered a test for it, and honestly, regardless of what the tests say, until someone cures her of whatever is causing this, our intention has always been to get all the protocols up and running . We've got a lot of pieces in place, but just got thrown off course when she had severe cramping and we had to stop after 5 weeks on the full dose (capsules) from Buhner's book 1 core protocol. We still don't know whether it was a specific herb or just the total number of capsules, which was really excessive (a total of 64 just for the core protocol alone). But I keep going back to that original protocol--it was really working for us. Honestly, when we hit 4 weeks at the full dose, we definitely noticed improvement, which was exactly on schedule as he predicted (and when we added Houttuynia and then Sida, things got even better). And my gut says that it wasn't a specific herb, but all of them working well together. So, right now, we kind of want to get as close as possible to that original protocol before adding anything new (Cryptolepis). For CC, we reduced that from 16/day to 12/day--we'll probably stay at that level since at some point we'll be adding the other Cats Claw (Chinese). We switched from 16 JK capsules/day (source natural) to JK tincture (woodland essence) 50 drops, 3x/day--I'm still not sure what the proper dose of drops is for my sister, but I think her current dose is the minimum he recommends. Now, what's been missing for a while, and what we are thinking might have been particularly helpful (esp. since Buhner mentions brain calming effects) was the Andrographis. We're pretty certain this gave her a bit of a rash on her torso (she wasn't really aware of it, no itching or anything like that) but we're not convinced that it was the source of the cramping. We've decided to give it one more try, but only to work up to a low dose of 6/day (Buhner has that dose on his book 2 neuroborreliosis protocol). The other piece of the core protocol that I added back in, but at a lower dose (6/day) was the Sarsaparilla. I know Buhner no longer seems to think it is particularly helpful, but maybe it was for my sister, so I think we're going to increase it back up to at least 12/day. After we get the Andrographis and Sarsaparilla back in, then I think we'll try adding the Cryptolepis or Chinese Cats Claw (I'm still not sure which one make sense to try first).

Pirouette- Thanks so much for your thoughtful response. Honestly, I appreciate all suggestions--we are desperate and it actually gives me a little hope when there are other things to try. On binders, I think about that a lot--I actually drink calcium bentonite clay every morning and would love to have my sister on that as well, but there's just no room in our day. If you read some of my response to CD above, you'll see that my sister was doing really well when we had her on the max dose (4 capsules, 4x/day of Buhner's book 1 core protocol of CC, JK, Andro, and Sarsa). I'm pretty sure that Sarsaparilla is one of those binders, and I'm starting to wonder if having that at full dose was making some sort of difference (even though Buhner doesn't seem to think it's that helpful anymore). We stopped it for a while after her cramping problems, and then introduced it, but only at a low level. I think we're going to try to get that back up to at least 12/day (or maybe even 16) The other thing I have to look into is diatomaceous earth--we have it on hand, so that would be easy. But I just have to find out if that can be near supplements. If it requires a two hour window on either side like clay or charcoal, then that won't work.

The biological dentist is next on my list. I had all 4 wisdom teeth (impacted) cut out in high school. I still get soreness in my gums that comes and goes in the wisdom locations. Definitely worth looking into.

k07-sounds like wisdom tooth space developed cavitations-much more common than people know-ears-eyes and scalp can get messed up
let us know

sweetpeaisme- you mentioned crown-could you have two different kinds of metal in you jaw?

If sharing any part of my research and/or my journey helps someone else with this mess, I feel that journey means something.

I never took 2 tsp JK at any time. I just know that was a dose recommended to someone by Buhner's associate. (heresay but a reliable source ;)

I actually go up and down with my JK dose on a fairly regular basis. For the most part, I take 1/2 tsp 3x daily. However, when I start something new (such as ADP Oregano), I bump the JK up to 1 tsp 3x daily to help with detoxing. I've had no issues.

In regards to the Andrographis, I honestly think you'd be better off starting Cat's Claw next and then adding in Cryptolepis.

Cat's Claw is wonderful for the immune system and your sister needs all the help she can get in that department.

And, since it's likely that Babesia is causing many of her symptoms, why not start helping with that?

I can't speak enough about the positive effects of herbal synergy....the herbs enhance the actions of each other.

I went from 90% to 98% healed after 4 months on Buhner's full Lyme, Babesia and Bartonella protocols and I was only up to 8 drops each of the Babs/Bart "killing" herbs.

So sorry to hear about your mother and the additional challenges you face! I empathize with the lack of help from other family members. Perhaps there are community resources that can help? I really hope you can find some balance - it's really important that the caretakers are able to take care of themselves.