My Tinnitus Is Cured! Here's What Worked in My Case

Given this timeline, it's possible your tinnitus faded on its own, and the supplements in the meantime were only coincidence. With that said, NAC helped me initially, and it's been shown to work in the very acute stage for noise induced hearing damage. NAC boosts your liver's production of glutathione, which is a powerful antioxidant in your body, which seems to help combat the mechanism of oxidative stress which acutely causes noise induced hearing damage or tinnitus. Incidentally, coffee also boosts production of glutathione. Which is why both of these work very well for a hangover also.

No it's not possible it faded on its own in a week just as soon as he started taking these supplements despite having it for months. I'm not sure why so many members on this site always assume nothing works because it didn't work for them often branding the opening poster a lier, a shill or having a placebo affect. It's very off putting.

This post has always really stuck out to me and I did some research on it. It makes full medical and scientific sense.

He took D-Aspartic Acid which a precursor to Glutamate. Glutamate is one of the main causes of Tinnitus. Either from medication, depression, stress, noise trauma etc it causes your ears to ring. Thats why increasing GABA will lower many types of Tinnitus because GABA is the opposite to Glutamate. As soon as he took D-Aspartic Acid he developed Tinnitus. So it makes sense Glutamate caused his Tinnitus.

NAC is a glutamate regulator. It helps countless conditions where excess glutamate is the cause. There's countless cases of it clearing peoples brain fog, OCD, depression etc.

Now I've no idea how your body holds onto glutamate but taking NAC reduces it. Which then reduced and eventually eliminated his tinnitus. There are many types of glutamate regulators similar to NAC and I've come across so many testimonials of it reducing and eliminating people's tinnitus.
 
No it's not possible it faded on its own in a week just as soon as he started taking these supplements despite having it for months.

Sure it is. In fact, given the statistics on tinnitus (in terms of being extremely common, and also in many cases sticking around for weeks to months and then fading over a relatively rapid period), it's likely that within the exact same timeframe he got tinnitus, so did some other person, and that other person did not do any of this stuff and improved on that same timeframe.

You can find lots of anecdotes online where people think NAC, or some other random supplement, or some homeopathic remedy, or magic crystals, or faith healing fixed them -- because they had some problem, the relief of which was temporally correlated to those things. Actual hard data that NAC is specifically useful for anything is spottier, and while metabolic effects have been demonstrated -- it's not some miracle substance, any more than anything else is.

Thousands of people have tried NAC for tinnitus. Stories like this are few and far enough between that I think by occam's razor they are just convenient correlations.
 
I'm going to try this again....

Opening poster got Tinnitus from taking a supplement that causes Glutamate to build up in the brain. Too much Glutamate can cause Tinnitus.

Opening poster took a supplement that reduces glutamate. In a week it was gone.

You can tell yourself all you want that it was some miraculous outside intervention that cured his T but there it is as plain and simple as I can make it.

Anytime I come to this site to start posting everything I've learned the last few months that can really help people I get so put off by posts like this.
 
@Greg Sacramento can tinnitus actually go away 100%? I'm 6 months in. I'm so afraid I will be living with this for the rest of my life.

All I can say, as a fellow forum reader, is that I've seen a bunch of posts already of people saying it did clear up over time. Keep in mind that, besides that, there's all those people out there that never post on a forum. And they can be closer than you think.

I had a gaming night with some friends last week. There were four of us, and guess what? All four of us had T. One of them, my best friend, never even told me until a few months ago. He has it from drugs. The other two I don't see as much, but one of them has a high-pitched tone from concepts in his teens, while the other has the same problem but made worse by an ear infection.

And then there's all the people I talk to that have had it once and had it go away. One of my friends is contractor, says he'd one had spike for weeks and then another for months - he doesn't remember how long, he just remembers waking up one morning and it having gone.

I honestly think there are a lot of these cases out there, but not everyone is as bothered by bodily stuff as others. I think a lot of the less severe cases just resolve themselves. But... that's all anecdotal of course.
 
All I can say, as a fellow forum reader, is that I've seen a bunch of posts already of people saying it did clear up over time. Keep in mind that, besides that, there's all those people out there that never post on a forum. And they can be closer than you think.

I had a gaming night with some friends last week. There were four of us, and guess what? All four of us had T. One of them, my best friend, never even told me until a few months ago. He has it from drugs. The other two I don't see as much, but one of them has a high-pitched tone from concepts in his teens, while the other has the same problem but made worse by an ear infection.

And then there's all the people I talk to that have had it once and had it go away. One of my friends is contractor, says he'd one had spike for weeks and then another for months - he doesn't remember how long, he just remembers waking up one morning and it having gone.

I honestly think there are a lot of these cases out there, but not everyone is as bothered by bodily stuff as others. I think a lot of the less severe cases just resolve themselves. But... that's all anecdotal of course.
I had several friends who had tinnitus, and almost all of them are now tinnitus free.
 
Do you already know what kind of tinnitus you have? Is it caused by hearing loss (measurable in an audiogram)? Can you modulate it when you move certain muscles on your neck/head/jaw?
@gerhei no I don't. I do have hyperacusis. My tinnitus seems to be reactive. I'm tired of the whole thing I've never been so miserable in my life! My ears feel weird and full all of the time, the only positive is I started using ear plugs for certain things and the ringing is not nearly as intense as it was when I first started. So it's either fading, or it's reactive or hyperacusis. Idk. Hoping it's fading. I spent the day at my friends pool and I came home and I had the craziest "loudness" in my ears. I was using ear plugs for work too and I felt like that was helping but I was worried about increasing my sensitivity. I had my ears exposed to noise all day at work and I just got home and they're both going crazy! I hate this :(
 
@gerhei no I don't. I do have hyperacusis. My tinnitus seems to be reactive. I'm tired of the whole thing I've never been so miserable in my life! My ears feel weird and full all of the time, the only positive is I started using ear plugs for certain things and the ringing is not nearly as intense as it was when I first started. So it's either fading, or it's reactive or hyperacusis. Idk. Hoping it's fading. I spent the day at my friends pool and I came home and I had the craziest "loudness" in my ears. I was using ear plugs for work too and I felt like that was helping but I was worried about increasing my sensitivity. I had my ears exposed to noise all day at work and I just got home and they're both going crazy! I hate this :(

I am sorry to hear this, Tara, don't let yourself down. I have no hyperacusis, so it is hard for me to compare it to my tinnitus (I thought hyperacusis and tinnitus are two different things, aren't they?). Is the loudness in your environment a possible cause for the onset of the tinnitus? How did it start?

You probably should get an audiogram for tinnitus so that you know whether your tinnitus is associated with hearing loss or not. From there on, there are different directions you can take, depending on the diagnosis...
 
I am sorry to hear this, Tara, don't let yourself down. I have no hyperacusis, so it is hard for me to compare it to my tinnitus (I thought hyperacusis and tinnitus are two different things, aren't they?). Is the loudness in your environment a possible cause for the onset of the tinnitus? How did it start?

You probably should get an audiogram for tinnitus so that you know whether your tinnitus is associated with hearing loss or not. From there on, there are different directions you can take, depending on the diagnosis...
@gerhei I don't know, I honestly just woke up with this echoing in my ears one day. I had a hearing test done and I had very mild high frequency hearing loss. None of the doctors I saw attributed it to that. I don't know. Maybe just years of playing music too loud, being careless with my ears. I was using ear plugs and the ringing was really intense at first, now it's not. Do you think that means it's fading? I don't know. I'm so sick of this, I miss silence. I know tinnitus is common but I just can't get used to this. I want silence. Ugh. Wake me up from this nightmare.
 
@gerhei I don't know, I honestly just woke up with this echoing in my ears one day. I had a hearing test done and I had very mild high frequency hearing loss. None of the doctors I saw attributed it to that. I don't know. Maybe just years of playing music too loud, being careless with my ears. I was using ear plugs and the ringing was really intense at first, now it's not. Do you think that means it's fading? I don't know. I'm so sick of this, I miss silence. I know tinnitus is common but I just can't get used to this. I want silence. Ugh. Wake me up from this nightmare.


Hey Tara,

I am not a doctor, so I don't want to suggest things a specialist wouldn't suggest. This is just my opinion and I think it will be better for you if you see not an arbitrary audiologist but someone who is specialist in tinnitus. We have to keep in mind that there is a multitude of causes for tinnitus and each cause may need a different treatment.

Now, if you already know that you have some sort of hearing loss, it seems to me very likely that your tinnitus is associated with this. What you could try is to see whether hearing aids are helping you. If I understood the mechanism correctly, hearing aids increase your overall ability to hear sounds and, thus, compensate the tinnitus sounds that are caused by certain hair cells that died and for whose missing frequency your brain is playing a concert now. This is one of several options.

Something important that helped me was to stop to look at the tinnitus as an opponent but rather to start to discover its properties. By this means, I had the feeling that I am gaining some sort of control back. That is why I asked whether you can modulate the tone when you move your neck or your jaw.

One last thing for the moment: Depending on the causes for tinnitus, I think that there is evidence that tinnitus severity tends to decline over time. I have no way of proving this, but I could imagine that especially forms of tinnitus that are caused by hearing loss, are being blended out increasingly by the brain because the brain recognizes a very continuous sound that is basically unimportant information for you. Thus, the tinnitus will be there but you wont perceive it anymore. But again, I think that this depends on the specifics of your tinnitus. For example, I am pretty sure that my tinnitus is associated with some muscles and nerves in my back and my neck and the tone often varies. So it may be hard for the brain to adjust to changing tones. It may be easier in your case, if the sound is always the same because you lost a specific frequency of hair cells.

Let me know what you think.
 
I got tinnitus back in March 2018. It came on after I took a D-Aspartic Acid supplement one time. I had it in both ears and my head. Then eventually just my left ear. Horrible ringing I couldn't escape. I was like I couldn't go on with this. Went to ENT for cleaning , nothing. I just knew this was more of my brain being out of whack. So this is what worked.

10 days of NAC 600mg.
Days 1-3: 600mg at night before bed.
Days 4- 7 days: 600mg at night and also 600mg first thing in morning on empty stomach.
Days 4-7 in the afternoon: 500mg of Acetyl L Carnitine.

Now I have absolutely nothing! This may be the case specifically to me, as perhaps this cleared or repaired whatever damage was done with the DAA. But it worked so I figured I'd share as I know how sucky I felt with it.
Hey I have one of those by me, did you use their brand?
Hello did it work ?
 
@Tara Lyons Sorry that I missed your question.

Since you don't have any physical issues, I would try to lower your pitch and to do this, blood pressure needs to be kept normal. You can research how to lower blood pressure and see what things you can do - lifestyle. Research foods to lower blood pressure. Also research foods that contain salicylates and reduce foods that do contain salicylates. There's a thread on this site about salicylates. Others and myself on this salicylate thread have given links on foods that contain or don't. Place salicylates into board search. You can see the search at the top of this page. Some foods that are low in salicylates and also will help lower blood pressure is oatmeal, bananas, and salmon - omega-3.

I have talked to parents of students who have tinnitus within a large school district for years. The above is important and has helped to lower pitch.

I believe that lowering higher than normal blood pressure and salicylates is the first to do and needed for lowering pitch.

If you are still using your medications, use them steady, even by using small amounts. Don't take them one day and then go another day with not taking them. Always taper before you quit. A taper is twice as long for someone with tinnitus.

Take 1/3 of magnesium Glycinate three times a day. Last time, a hour or so before going to sleep. Magnesium will lower blood pressure by 12% and help to protect your ears. Take a small piece of Vitamin C with magnesium. Take magnesium 2 hours before other medications. Take a full magnesium one hour before going to a place where they be louder than normal noise. Louder than normal noise is a bit above normal speaking level.

Coping: Find a couple of projects that require building something over several months. I built sports and non sport card collections. I bought cards on eBay. I also traded penny stocks with little investment. Maybe something like painting may help you. My first tinnitus was severe from ear syringing. It did drop a little with eardrum and nerve healing, but the above also helped. I then, without a high pitch was not consumed by my tinnitus.

We will talk again. Sorry about my wording - in a lot of pain tonight.
 
Just FYI, the Nac as I started to go at night and morning I felt like my head felt little groggy. I think it moved out the toxic chemicals and imbalance in my brain. And the ALC made new pathways for my brain to communicate with my hearing. Whatever it was I haven't thought of my T in 2 weeks now. It wasn't until day 5 -7 that I noticed markedly improvement. And it's cheap. Each bottle is like 15 bucks. I tried those hearing pills u can get online. Didn't do crap. I think it was 80% NAC , 20% ALC. if u research the effects of each it makes sense why it would work.
How are you doing with your T? I noticed this was two years ago.
 
I got tinnitus back in March 2018. It came on after I took a D-Aspartic Acid supplement one time. I had it in both ears and my head. Then eventually just my left ear. Horrible ringing I couldn't escape. I was like I couldn't go on with this. Went to ENT for cleaning , nothing. I just knew this was more of my brain being out of whack. So this is what worked.

10 days of NAC 600mg.
Days 1-3: 600mg at night before bed.
Days 4- 7 days: 600mg at night and also 600mg first thing in morning on empty stomach.
Days 4-7 in the afternoon: 500mg of Acetyl L Carnitine.

Now I have absolutely nothing! This may be the case specifically to me, as perhaps this cleared or repaired whatever damage was done with the DAA. But it worked so I figured I'd share as I know how sucky I felt with it.
Did you have mild hearing loss?
 
Hey @Conan156, I've been trying your 10-day regimen and it actually seems to be doing something amazing. I have had tinnitus for 6 years and when I first got it I tried the entire laundry list of searching out what was wrong with my head. Finally concluded exactly what you said, Glutamate receptors gone haywire. I know there are a great many causes but this is mine. If I eat or drink anything that contains Glutamate or Aspartate in ANY form my tinnitus spikes for 6-8 hours, Ibuprofen spikes it terribly for 12-24 hours.

Anyway, I'm on day 5 of your 10-day plan and I can honestly say my tinnitus is much quieter. I'm going to continue to work with this. If my tinnitus gets significantly quieter I'm going to eat a pizza and see what happens!!

Question: @Conan156 has your tinnitus stayed gone?

If this works for me even a bit it will be wonderful.

Does anyone else who is trying this have any results to report? Anyone thinking of staying on the same amounts indefinitely to keep the tinnitus down?
 
Okay I've been doing this for 3 weeks and it is really making a huge difference. I have 2 kinds of tinnitus: one is a sort of buzzing noise, which by itself is not too annoying though the other is a fire alarm sound (it was a fire alarm that started my tinnitus and thus it's that same sound.) Anyway these supplements are making the fire alarm sound almost imperceptible for long periods of time, like for hours. I am overjoyed!

I found the Carnotine caused a slight spike so I don't take that one. I went on a deep dive of research about amino acids that help calm the Glutamate receptor re-uptake system dysfunction. I am Not a doctor but I did talk with my Holistic MD and he agreed that what I'm doing should help. This will only help anyone, I think, whose tinnitus is caused by that specific malfunction in the brain, and of course many things cause tinnitus.

Anyway, what's helping me now is NAC 600 mg 3x day, L-Theanine 200 mg 2xday, Taurine 500 mg 1x day. Read a scholarly article on the NIH site about using Resveratrol and Quercetin for calming this Glutamate storm but have not tried them yet.

Anyway, after 6 years of this siren in my head I'm getting some real relief. Some days it's so quiet I can hardly hear it, even the buzz. I plan to stay on this regimen indefinitely.
 
Okay I've been doing this for 3 weeks and it is really making a huge difference. I have 2 kinds of tinnitus: one is a sort of buzzing noise, which by itself is not too annoying though the other is a fire alarm sound (it was a fire alarm that started my tinnitus and thus it's that same sound.) Anyway these supplements are making the fire alarm sound almost imperceptible for long periods of time, like for hours. I am overjoyed!

I found the Carnotine caused a slight spike so I don't take that one. I went on a deep dive of research about amino acids that help calm the Glutamate receptor re-uptake system dysfunction. I am Not a doctor but I did talk with my Holistic MD and he agreed that what I'm doing should help. This will only help anyone, I think, whose tinnitus is caused by that specific malfunction in the brain, and of course many things cause tinnitus.

Anyway, what's helping me now is NAC 600 mg 3x day, L-Theanine 200 mg 2xday, Taurine 500 mg 1x day. Read a scholarly article on the NIH site about using Resveratrol and Quercetin for calming this Glutamate storm but have not tried them yet.

Anyway, after 6 years of this siren in my head I'm getting some real relief. Some days it's so quiet I can hardly hear it, even the buzz. I plan to stay on this regimen indefinitely.
What brands are you using for NAC, L-Theanine, and Taurine?

Thanks, KWC
 
Puritans Pride. I get all my supplements from them, they only sell online but prices are lower because no middleman. I researched them and trust their purity and production.

By the way. This may not work for others but it does for me. Through experimentation I've learned that if I am about to eat something that I'm pretty sure contains some form of Glutamate (there are hundreds of names that can be listed in ingredients that are Glutamates, it's not just MSG), I can take a Taurine 500 mg before I eat and another one after I eat and no spike. I can enjoy pepperoni Italian sausage pizza again. It's a miracle for me!! Now I am not a doctor and before you try this you should talk with your health practitioner. I did consult with my Holistic MD before I started doing all this.
 
Puritans Pride. I get all my supplements from them, they only sell online but prices are lower because no middleman. I researched them and trust their purity and production.

By the way. This may not work for others but it does for me. Through experimentation I've learned that if I am about to eat something that I'm pretty sure contains some form of Glutamate (there are hundreds of names that can be listed in ingredients that are Glutamates, it's not just MSG), I can take a Taurine 500 mg before I eat and another one after I eat and no spike. I can enjoy pepperoni Italian sausage pizza again. It's a miracle for me!! Now I am not a doctor and before you try this you should talk with your health practitioner. I did consult with my Holistic MD before I started doing all this.
Hi Isabella, are these the specific supplements you used?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004R6360E/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007P82RLK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
 
Yes, except I quit taking the L-Carnitine. It seemed to cause a little spike rather than doing the opposite. I also take L-Theanine, 200 mg 2x day. My holistic doctor also recommended decaf green tea (instead of my beloved coffee mocha) which contains Quercetin and I've added one Quercetin capsule at night.

My tinnitus has not gone AWAY, you understand, but it is significantly quieter which is a great blessing. He also is considering putting me on Memantine but we have not done that yet. He speaks of my problem as an NMDA dysfunction, which didn't mean anything to me but he seems to clearly understand what's going on with my broken Glutamate receptor system.
 
Yes, except I quit taking the L-Carnitine. It seemed to cause a little spike rather than doing the opposite. I also take L-Theanine, 200 mg 2x day. My holistic doctor also recommended decaf green tea (instead of my beloved coffee mocha) which contains Quercetin and I've added one Quercetin capsule at night.

My tinnitus has not gone AWAY, you understand, but it is significantly quieter which is a great blessing. He also is considering putting me on Memantine but we have not done that yet. He speaks of my problem as an NMDA dysfunction, which didn't mean anything to me but he seems to clearly understand what's going on with my broken Glutamate receptor system.
What could cause this dysfunction? It's very interesting. You have done the extraordinary, you've figured out how to help your tinnitus!

This is what I found:

NMDA dysfunction has emerged as a common theme in several major nervous system disorders, including ischemic brain injury, chronic neurodegenerative diseases, pain, depression and schizophrenia. Either hyperactivity or hypofunction of NMDARs could contribute to disease pathophysiology.

Very interesting.

twa
 
I've done a great deal of research (doing literature research was part of my career job) and I don't remember where I read this but a noise trauma can damage the Glutamate receptors re-uptake system. Look up neuroexcitotoxicity.
 
Just found this quote:

Noise can cause excitotoxic trauma to cochlear synapses by triggering excessive release of the neurotransmitter glutamate from the auditory sensory hair cells.
 
@twa, you got it! My doctor says the Memantine might help because it's a drug that is used for Alzheimer's patients, and this NMDA dysfunction is linked to that, so the Memantine is a drug that helps control this dysfunction. I always like to add the reminder that I'm not a doctor, people need to talk to their doctors about this and not take my word for this, I'm only telling what works for me!
 

Log in or register to get the full forum benefits!

Register

Register on Tinnitus Talk for free!

Register Now