Hi everyone.
I'm new here. I've been lurking. This is my first post.
I have had tinnitus since 1985. Yes, 31 years! It has gotten better and worse over that time period--- sometimes to almost unbearable levels, sometimes not so bad--- but never disappeared entirely. That is, until the middle of December 2015! It totally disappeared for almost the first time in 3 decades! I was so shocked by this--- and what seemed to cause its complete remission--- that I decided to come here to share this information.
I am a physicist by training, and have read all kinds of science about tinnitus. Nothing has really seemed to help, though I did notice some correlations about things which made it worse.
I recently read a thread here by EngineerLA where he discusses Eustachian tube inflammation as a cause for tinnitus. I think he's on to something there. I'm not certain, but I suspect that what I am about to share is related to helping decrease inflammation in the Eustachian tubes or nerves.
The miracle substance that helped me is called Thiamine Pyrophosphate (TPP.) This is also known as Coenzymated Vitamin B1, Thiamine Diphosphate, and Thiamine Cocarboxylase. I bought this from a company called Source Naturals on Amazon. I think it was 11 bucks.
Brief primer on TPP:
Thiamine that you ingest in food or supplements is usually some sort of free thiamine compound. Most supplements are Thiamine HCl, and many foods are usually fortified with thiamine mononitrate (like flour and rice.) This is not the ACTIVE form of thiamine in the body, though. Your body needs to attach TWO phosphate groups to free thiamine; TPP then enters the Krebs (Citric Acid) cycle and can be used by the body.
Why did I decide to try taking this?
Well, because of allergies, I don't eat a lot of fortified foods. I suspected I was deficient in thiamine. I figured this out years ago, and have been taking a thiamine supplement for many years---- Thiamine HCl, though. I did not notice much of a difference one way or the other, but was just taking it as a preventive measure. Well, I ran out of that kind. I came across the idea of "activated" B vitamins somewhere in my research, and the logic behind them seemed to make sense to me. Because of genetics, some people can't process Folic Acid into active Folate, for example (those with the MTHFR gene mutation.) I thought "hey, maybe there's similar issue with Thiamine." Anyway, I decided to give it a try.
So, here's what I did. I ordered that supplement mentioned above. Each pill has 25 mg of thiamine, which is like 20 times the USRDA. I decided to start out super slowly, since I didn't know how I would react to it. I crushed the pill up into powder, put the powder into a dropper bottle, and added 200 drops of water. I started out taking 1 drop a day, which was like 0.08 mg of TPP (about 1/15 the USRDA.) Then over the course of a few weeks, I upped it to the USRDA.
Within about two days of starting this protocol, my tinnitus totally disappeared! After 31 years!
The tinnitus remained gone a long as I was on this protocol, for about a month. Then, I stopped taking the TPP because I got a cold and thought that that might have had something to do with it.
Within two days the tinnitus came back.
Three days ago, I started back on it, but the tinnitus has not disappeared yet. I'm still on a super low dose, and will slowly increase over the next week. I have hope that I will have a similar result the second time around.
I have some thoughts about what TPP does and why it has seemed to help, but I'll leave that for another post.
I just wanted to share this.
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