By Bob Livingston
When I was younger I would occasionally hear very high-pitched sounds, lasting for up to a minute or so, and then falling silent. It would make my ears ring for quite a while afterward. I didn’t know until years later, after years of doing health research, that I had tinnitus from what is believed now to be ultrasonic waves.
Some people are indeed sensitive to these sounds above the measurable threshold of human hearing. It can happen through bone conduction of sounds that are translated into hearable frequencies by the cochlea. There’s one scientist whose research suggests ultrasonic hearing affects people’s physiology. He calls it the hypersonic effect, and it’s measurable in brainwave activity.
We have ultrasonic waves passing over, through and all around us almost everywhere we go. So it’s not surprising tinnitus would be common as well. These high frequency sounds pile on top of all the loud or simply constant noise we encounter wherever we are in the modern world. Sitting at my desk right now, writing to you from my computer, I can hear the hum from my surge protector. It’s not pleasant.
Other causes of tinnitus are grinding the teeth, or even Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS), a musculoskeletal neurological disorder created by the mind and emotions that changes one’s physiology and causes pain and other symptoms.
Stress and repressed emotions like anger and anxiety can be a cause of pain, tension headaches and in fact tinnitus, according to my colleague Dr. Mark Wiley.
I have written to you before about hearing loss and diet, but foods you ingest can also cause your ears to ring. Alcohol, caffeine, dairy, and certain vegetables can trigger or aggravate tinnitus, for example.
Add tinnitus to the list of maladies that can be effected via ingestion of pharmaceutical drugs as well.
“See your health care professional” is what all the so-called “experts” recommend nowadays. But there are currently no medications or therapies that have proven to be effective in treating acute inner ear tinnitus. So, many doctors will simply wash their hands of the situation, tell you that you have hearing loss, and send you off to another doctor to get a hearing aid. And so the medical cartel goes, dear reader.
Instead, let me give you a “prescription” for reversing tinnitus, and perhaps restoring some of your hearing at the same time, or at least preventing rapid age-related loss.
Take n-acetyl cysteine and magnesium. NAC helps boost glutathione, which will help repair tinnitus, according to research at Yale University. If you wish, you can add to that alpha-lipoic acid which can recycle antioxidants, including vitamin C, vitamin E — and glutathione.
Magnesium has vasodilating properties that help blood flow to the microcapillaries in the inner ear. It is also an antioxidant, which helps prevent cell injury and death in the inner ear.
In one trial done at the Mayo Clinic’s Department of Otolaryngology in Scottsdale, Arizona, 26 people with tinnitus received 526 mg of magnesium each day for only three months. People with both slight and greater tinnitus all showed significant reduction or disappearance of ringing at post-testing.
Now, magnesium can sometimes cause diarrhea if too much is taken at first, Work your way up to 500 mg daily. Also, at first, take 900 mg to 1,200 mg of NAC three times a day, with meals, for the next 14 days. Then take 250 mg a day thereafter.
Other nutrients that protect against hearing loss are luteolin (can cross the blood brain barrier and protects the nerve cells in your ears from oxidative damage).
Also, the B vitamins are important for making blood and for your circulation, and these nutrients assist magnesium with this important job. Yes, it is sad that many physicians do not know of the interconnectedness of these nutrients and why they are labeled vitamins, or necessary for life.
If you do have TMS, case studies show that as the emotional components are dealt with successfully, the physical ailments like tinnitus that were heretofore intractable disappear almost instantly.
