The amazing Coenzyme Q10 can stop tinnitus, as well as provide a host of other benefits. Coenzyme Q10 – commonly referred to as CoQ10 – is known by biochemists as uibiquinone and uibiquinol. This compound helps the body make energy!
Our bodies contain numerous cells. Each cell has mitochondria, which are energy factories. These factories further break down the elements of the food we eat and create energy. In order to do this, there are several steps involved. Coenzyme Q10 is responsible for the final steps in this production. The person who discovered this is Peter Mitchell, Ph.D of England. This discovery led him to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1978.
Medical Researchers in Germany utilized CoQ10 in a study on patients with tinnitus. These patients had complained of ringing of the ears or buzzing for a few years. The doctors administered Coenzyme Q10 three times a day to the patients. As a result of this study, the participants experienced a reduction of their tinnitus symptoms by 35 percent.
This unique remedy works for other illnesses, too. Doctors in Switzerland conducted a study on patients with a history of migraines. Half the patients were given CoQ10 three times a day, and the other half were given placebos. At the end of the study, the participants taking the CoQ10 had fewer headaches. The headaches they did have were shorter than they usually were.
Additionally, this dietary supplement has also been found to be helpful in treating breast cancer. Knud Lockwood, M.D., experimented by treating his breast cancer patients with 400mg a day of CoQ10. He found that this effectively led to remission in patients who previously had recurring breast cancers.
Doctors employed at ten hospitals in the United States administered Coenzyme Q10 to patients with Parkinson’s disease over a four-month period. Sure enough, the patients taking this supplement had symptoms that were less severe than those taking the placebo.
If you want to stop your tinnitus, make sure you take a supplement that contains Coenzyme Q10.
Tinnitus relief can be obtained by utilizing Emotional Freedom Techniques (a.k.a. EFT). Some people find that stress aggravates their tinnitus symptoms. Therefore, alleviating stress by performing EFT will help clear up the tinnitus as well.
Acupuncturists have outlined energy pathways of the body, known as meridians. EFT requires a person to tap each one of ten points along these meridians. In addition to tapping, the person recites specific statements related to his emotions responsible for creating the stress.
Gary Craig founded the EFT method. When he was only 13 years old, he realized that his thoughts had a tremendous impact on the quality of his life. He concluded that the source of all negative emotions is a breakdown in the energy system, and then developed the EFT method based on this belief. The energy system referenced consists of the energy meridians used by acupuncturists. A single disturbance in one energy meridian allows feelings of hurt, shame and anxiety to develop. These negative emotions all contribute to stress, which can exacerbate a person’s tinnitus symptoms.
Through Emotional Freedom Techniques, a person is able to heal themselves, by clearing their minds of negative feelings, and thus help relieve the various noises of tinnitus.
This is how it works: You think about a negative memory or feeling. As you think about it, you formulate a statement relating to this. An example of a statement would be, “I am upset that my wife left me.” Then, you measure the strength of this memory or feeling based on a scale of 0 to 10.
The next step is to formulate a statement of acceptance. “Even though my wife left me, I fully accept myself.”
You tap three times on all the 10 EFT points while repeating this affirmation. These points include the beginning of eyebrow, chin, collar bone, top of head, under the eye, and others.
Following this procedure, you rate the intensity of this feeling a second time. Then, you repeat all these steps until the negative emotion is completely out of your system.
Since anxiety can exacerbate the symptoms of tinnitus, it follows that people with tinnitus should find Emotional Freedom Techniques helpful in obtaining tinnitus relief.
Is acupuncture an effective remedy for tinnitus? To answer this question, Jackson and colleagues – of the Northern College of Acupuncture – performed a study.
For purposes of this trial, six patients suffering from tinnitus participated. These patients were administered several acupuncture treatments in the course of two weeks. The patients were obligated to keep daily logs regarding their tinnitus symptoms.
The patients’ daily logs noted the following information:
- How loud is the tinnitus?
- Is the pitch high or low?
- How many hours each day are you affected by the tinnitus?
- How well did you sleep at night?
As a result of this study, the patients had different responses regarding reduction in loudness and pitch of the tinnitus. However, their responses regarding improved ability to sleep at night were more consistent. In addition, they consistently reported a reduction in the number of waking hours that they were affected by the tinnitus.
The authors of this study concluded that acupuncture may be an appropriate remedy for people suffering from tinnitus. Furthermore, they also found that acupuncture helps people with tinnitus sleep better at night and suffer less during the day.
This was published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine, March 2006.
Tinnitus can emerge in any of the four sections of the hearing mechanism: the outer, middle and the inner ear, and the brain. Some tinnitus or head noise is normal for all individuals, so if one is placed in a sound proof booth, or is wearing very effective earplugs, he or she will become aware of these sounds. Tinnitus of course works on a different level of volume, which is the reason why it is so particularly bothersome. It is nearly impossible to drown out and/or ignore and it gets even louder when things quiet down.
The outer ear is not often the culprit in emergent tinnitus but some conditions are associated with this section of the ear and the buzzing symptoms. The two most common causes of the tinnitus symptoms due to outer ear problems are:
1) A build-up of earwax, or cerumen, in the ear canal which may irritate the hearing mechanisms
2) A narrowing or poorly shaped ear canal, which may affect the perception of sound
There are methods to deal with both of these types of causes making outer-ear tinnitus one of the most physically treatable. The middle ear, however, can harbor the roots of a much more complex tinnitus symptomatology, some of which may require the attention of your health care provider and possibly even further steps in terms of treatment, surgery not being entirely out of question. In most cases all of these causes may be resolved with adequate medical attention.
The Middle Ear Tinnitus Causes
1. Serous otitis media with fluid in the middle ear:
Otitis media is inflammation of the middle ear, or middle ear infection , it occurs in the area between the ear drum and the inner ear, including a duct known as the Eustachian tube. Otitis media is very common in childhood, with the average toddler having two to three episodes a year, almost always accompanied by the common cold. The rhinoviruses (nose viruses) that cause the common cold infect the Eustachian tube that goes from the back of the nose to the middle ear, causing swelling and compromise of pressure equalization, which is one of the normal function of the tube. The other main function is the lateral drainage of fluids from tissues on either side of the skull
2. Perforation of the ear drum
Perforated eardrum is a rip or perforation (hole) in the eardrum. It can occur due to an infection, trauma (by trying to clean the ear with sharp instruments), explosion, loud noise or an accidental surgical mistake. Flying with a severe cold can also cause perforation due to changes in air pressure and blocked Eustachian tubes. The perforation may heal in a few weeks, or up to a few months. Some perforations require intervention – this may be a simple procedure which uses a paper patch to promote healing, or surgery. In some cases the damage is unable to heal naturally and may require surgical attention.
3. Fixation or dissociation of the ossicular chain (the bones in the middle ear)
Ossicular chain dislocation may happen due to a fracture, tympanic membrane perforation, or trauma. The most common presentation of ossicular discontinuity is separation of several joints. Ossicular fixation may occur several months after the temporal bone fracture if exuberant growth of new bone at the fracture line fuses the ossicular chain. Treatment in any case is middle ear exploration and ossicular chain reconstruction.
4. Cholesteatoma (a pocket of the eardrum growing in the middle ear as a result of chronic ear infections)
Cholesteatoma is a destructive and expanding keratinizing squamous epithelium in the middle ear and there are two types: congenital and acquired. Acquired cholesteatomas is the more common and can be caused by a tear or retraction of the ear drum. Sometimes the disease may be congenital, when it grows from birth behind the eardrum.
5. Glomus tumor (a vascular tumor arising in the middle ear space)
A glomus tumor is a rare benign neoplasm, is a specialized arteriovenous anastomosis usually found in the skin of the extremities, arising from the glomus body. Research has indicated that there are at least four genetic mutations that lead to a glomus tumor. If there is no underlying inherited condition, then the tumor is considered “sporadic” or random. They are usually solitary and small, and can be found under the fingernail, but they can also be found on the tympanic membrane, which in turn causes middle ear damage and tinnitus. These lumps are often painful and tend to have a bluish discoloration, although sometimes they can present as white.
As we now know, the most common cause of tinnitus is exposure to loud sound which damages the ears. This may occur over an extended period of time or after just one particular experience with excessive noise. However, previously excessive noise exposure was a hazard of a few particular jobs, nowadays anyone with a pair of headphones/earphones and a mp3/cd player can become affected by sounds which are too loud for the ear. Although earphone and headphone makers design the items not to damage the physical structure of the ear, they are restricted from controlling the level of sound output, which is often the culprit in emerging tinnitus. Some manufacturers of portable music devices have attempted to introduce safety circuitry that limited output volume or warned the user when dangerous volume was being used, but the concept has been rejected by most of the buying public, which favors the personal choice of high volume. Koss introduced the “Safelite” line of cassette players in 1983 with such a warning light. The line was discontinued two years later for lack of interest
Most commonly tinnitus appears after prolonged and extreme overuse – such as listening to music for 5-8 hours a day at the loudest settings, although for some just a single blast of noise is enough to damage the ear, causing hearing loss and tinnitus symptoms. It is suggested that if earphones are used the time exposed to sound should be limited to 1 hour a day to protect hearing.
Doctors do suggest using headphones instead of earphones when possible as most earphones do not block out background noise, often pompting the user to turn up the volume. Those earphones that insert into the ear cannal can be even worse. “Insert earphones can boost the signal by as much as six to nine decibels. That’s about the difference between the sound of a vacuum cleaner and a motorcycle” – Dean Garstecki
Doctors also suggest that if you expect to visit an area where you will be exposed to prolonged loud sounds, like a concert or a construction site, you should equip yourself accordingly. The best way to do this is with use of earplugs and ear-muffs. There is a wide variety of these available on the market, offering different levels of protection which will block out excessive noise and prevent hearing loss. Protect your ears today so they may serve you well tomorrow.
Tinnitus maskers are devices used to add natural or artificial sound into the environment of an individual suffering with tinnitus. They are used in suppressing or masking the perceived ringing of the patient.
Tinnitus maskers increase the amount and volume of sound in the environment and allow the brain to re-perceive the ringing in the sufferers head with a calming, less intrusive sound. It’s comparable to an individual trying to read or study or even have a phone conversation in a room with another person speaking directly at them, or as in a noisy study hall or airport, club or restaurant. The brain is able to filter out the unnecessary noise when, interestingly, there is more of it.
Tinnitus maskers are most often used when trying to sleep, as the quiet of the environment makes the symptoms all the more noticeable. Commonly a tinnitus masker is a CD/MP3 recordings or a noise generator which produce either natural noises like the ocean or rain, synthetic sounds such as white noise, or in more advanced models a combination of natural and synthetic noises calibrated to suppress specific frequencies of the experienced symptoms.
This method can be used very effectively with sound pillows, as they contain small embedded speakers, which help masking the tinnitus of the individual without causing disturbance to their partner. However, some individuals who have extremely intense tinnitus symptoms require a tinnitus masker which works around the clock. For these cases a wearable hearing-aid type device is available, which will either amplify ambient sound, generate synthetic sound or combine the two.
Tinnitus maskers can be an excellent “first-aid” treatment for tinnitus symptoms, as any alleviation of the buzzing and ringing can be a comfort. It allows the individual to become less tense, and as stress is a huge factor in the emergence and severity of the symptoms, the relaxation too should help to lessen the intensity of the perceived noise. When these maskers are used in tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT), especially in a clinical setting, they can be as much as 95% effective in completely masking the symptoms.
However, as phenomenally helpful as these items are, they also may hinder the healing progress. Although it alleviates the symptoms during the time it’s used, the individual still continues to suffer from the tinnitus symptoms, as none of the many root causes of tinnitus are addressed or treated with this method. Some researchers also say that completely masking the symptoms may be counterproductive and may result in the brain beginning to focus the perception on the tinnitus symptoms despite the background noise.
Tinnitus maskers are best used in conjunction with any tinnitus treatment therapy. Whether you opt for the use of supplements like TinnitusDX or medications like tricyclics or lignocaine, cognitive-behavioural therapy or TRT, the maskers can assist with overwhelming symptoms as the therapy starts to work or in the case of an unexpected episode. They can be a tremendous helping hand in the success on tinnitus treatment and therapy by bringing a quick and comforting relief to a patient with little hope.
Tinnitus occurs when a person hears a persistent sound in the ears and no sound really exists. The sound is usually a ringing, clicking, roaring, or hissing. Tinnitus may be heard in one or both ears. The sound from tinnitus is never words or melodies.
