Dissociatives Dissociative-induced Tinnitus

[Chris Timothy]

It's my 2kHz band that's screwed, btw, in case anyone else is gonna trip their ears off and wants to compare notes. I could've measured that myself, but docs gonna protocol, they do be like that.

The hospital couldn't spot any middle ear infection. That doesn't rule out cochlear infection, and I still suspect that's what's going on. But so because it's not measurable I can't get meds for it. I presented the case as being caused by alcohol alone, because I was able to block my GP's dossier, and why not keep the patient relatable huh. But even that was enough for them to advise against self-medicating with over-the-counter Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, the ones that are Not Steroids, or NSAIDs for short. So it's "if it's linked to chems, stop messing with chems", like I expected.

Maybe it's for a better reason, though, in their defense. Weirdly enough, NSAIDs also can cause tinnitus (aspirin for one) and the mechanism isn't entirely clear.. though NMDAR upregulation is suspected, like what happens with NMDAR antagonism, which brings us back full circle to 3-HO-PCP, and dissociatives in general. It's very conceivable they might have been complicit after all.

 

[Ballz_Trippington]

It's my 2kHz band that's screwed, btw, in case anyone else is gonna trip their ears off and wants to compare notes. I could've measured that myself, but docs gonna protocol, they do be like that.

The hospital couldn't spot any middle ear infection. That doesn't rule out cochlear infection, and I still suspect that's what's going on. But so because it's not measurable I can't get meds for it. I presented the case as being caused by alcohol alone, because I was able to block my GP's dossier, and why not keep the patient relatable huh. But even that was enough for them to advise against self-medicating with over-the-counter Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, the ones that are Not Steroids, or NSAIDs for short. So it's "if it's linked to chems, stop messing with chems", like I expected.

Maybe it's for a better reason, though, in their defense. Weirdly enough, NSAIDs also can cause tinnitus (aspirin for one) and the mechanism isn't entirely clear.. though NMDAR upregulation is suspected, like what happens with NMDAR antagonism, which brings us back full circle to 3-HO-PCP, and dissociatives in general. It's very conceivable they might have been complicit after all.

Man, I feel for you much!!!!
It's also interesting to know that some NSAIDs can cause tinnitus....I've taken soooooooo many NSAIDs over the last 30 years for my inflammation disorder.
I just got diagnosed at 40 years old...
I'm wondering if NSAIDs are even contributing to the condition!

 

[Chris Timothy]

Thanks Ballz! Bit of mindfuck having this continuing mystery of a symptom worsened by research, heh. So thanks for the positivity along the thread.

 

[Chris Timothy]

Another update, again following the path of ever increasing sensitivity. Kinda wished I had come across this earlier, but it's only when I had leftovers for dinner and had a potato with some bread and consequently had my hearing terrorized by double carbs that I realized I should explore cutting out carbs in general. Remember the parallels between tinnitus and epilepsy? Well, it turns out that in the age of shitty neuroleptics the latter was instead treated by fasting. The reasoning is kinda obvious, if the thing malfunctions then shut off the power supply already.. and it works! Later on it was discoverd it was primarily the carbs that kept the seizures going, so now it's a primarily fat-based diet that's considered a treatment for epileptic kids (adults are understudied). And yes, adopting it makes the whole world appear another level quieter!

I've never been interested in the keto fad, and the consensus seems to be that it's just another diet except with an increased heart load. But if it has medicinal purposes in specific cases I'm all for that, of course.

And I don't mind the negative side-effect either. Carb withdrawal initially renders one sluggish, but that means I don't have the energy to worry much about the noise. It's like going on benzos without going on benzos, and without having to deal with the awful unavoidable rebound. It does conflict with the other remedy though, it's quite hard to exercise while lacking energy. Also insomnia is to be expected as part of the keto fever like it's called, that won't help the needed neurogenesis either. But I have this extra sense to guide me through the little dilemmas, I'll just follow the path of least sonic resistance.

What's the next step on the sensitivity ladder? I can already tell: neck and shoulder muscles. For whatever weird reason they exert stress on the inner ear, via the jaw muscle I suppose. That was one helpful bit of info the hospital gave me to my surprise, that I should look out for correlations between neck and noise. Not sure what to do about it though, neck movement is kinda unavoidable isn't it? And they only give collars for tinnitus if there is actual neck injury involved. But it is highly annoying to have the noise ramp up right when the head is put down on the pillow. Then again, the masking that is recommended to learn to stop activating the circuit from the prefrontral cortex outwards also activates the ear, for instance I need to put a timer on the masking noise at night because if I don't I awake with worsened tinnitus from having the ear fiddled with for eight hours straight. So completely cutting out stressors is not realistic, and moreover shouldn't be necessary.

Only other idea I have is trying out creatine, I remember it had some noticable damage control effects on MXE. I might as well give it a go here as well.

But so I'm having more and more periods of time that I forget my hearing is screwed, it's going in the right direction. I'll ride out 2020, and evaluate at the start of next year. There are reasonable chances it will be gone by then.

I've seen quite a lot of cases of drug-induced tinnitus here on bluelight while researching. Healthy food and exercise have been themes (though quite some apathy towards it as well, which I suppose is conflating advice for primary with secondary tinnitus) but I hope it will help people minimize harm and maximize quality of life if specific hacks are brought under attention.

 

[MsDiz]

Another update, again following the path of ever increasing sensitivity. Kinda wished I had come across this earlier, but it's only when I had leftovers for dinner and had a potato with some bread and consequently had my hearing terrorized by double carbs that I realized I should explore cutting out carbs in general. Remember the parallels between tinnitus and epilepsy? Well, it turns out that in the age of shitty neuroleptics the latter was instead treated by fasting. The reasoning is kinda obvious, if the thing malfunctions then shut off the power supply already.. and it works! Later on it was discoverd it was primarily the carbs that kept the seizures going, so now it's a primarily fat-based diet that's considered a treatment for epileptic kids (adults are understudied). And yes, adopting it makes the whole world appear another level quieter!

I've never been interested in the keto fad, and the consensus seems to be that it's just another diet except with an increased heart load. But if it has medicinal purposes in specific cases I'm all for that, of course.

And I don't mind the negative side-effect either. Carb withdrawal initially renders one sluggish, but that means I don't have the energy to worry much about the noise. It's like going on benzos without going on benzos, and without having to deal with the awful unavoidable rebound. It does conflict with the other remedy though, it's quite hard to exercise while lacking energy. Also insomnia is to be expected as part of the keto fever like it's called, that won't help the needed neurogenesis either. But I have this extra sense to guide me through the little dilemmas, I'll just follow the path of least sonic resistance.

What's the next step on the sensitivity ladder? I can already tell: neck and shoulder muscles. For whatever weird reason they exert stress on the inner ear, via the jaw muscle I suppose. That was one helpful bit of info the hospital gave me to my surprise, that I should look out for correlations between neck and noise. Not sure what to do about it though, neck movement is kinda unavoidable isn't it? And they only give collars for tinnitus if there is actual neck injury involved. But it is highly annoying to have the noise ramp up right when the head is put down on the pillow. Then again, the masking that is recommended to learn to stop activating the circuit from the prefrontral cortex outwards also activates the ear, for instance I need to put a timer on the masking noise at night because if I don't I awake with worsened tinnitus from having the ear fiddled with for eight hours straight. So completely cutting out stressors is not realistic, and moreover shouldn't be necessary.

Only other idea I have is trying out creatine, I remember it had some noticable damage control effects on MXE. I might as well give it a go here as well.

But so I'm having more and more periods of time that I forget my hearing is screwed, it's going in the right direction. I'll ride out 2020, and evaluate at the start of next year. There are reasonable chances it will be gone by then.

I've seen quite a lot of cases of drug-induced tinnitus here on bluelight while researching. Healthy food and exercise have been themes (though quite some apathy towards it as well, which I suppose is conflating advice for primary with secondary tinnitus) but I hope it will help people minimize harm and maximize quality of life if specific hacks are brought under attention.

I have had tinnitus since I was a teen compounded by damage to my ears through years of being a sound engineer in the years before mouldies were a thing. I honestly have never really been bothered by it because as was said in another comment, I’ve never focused on it. I totally accepted that fuck, I’ve damaged my ears and this is the result, accept it and move on was my only option, so I did. Generally I actually forget I have it until times like now when I’m reading about it and my ears are ringing in a nice high pitch. Lol but I know when I move on and read something else it’ll go to the background again.

The more you focus on it the worse it will get. I have pretty bad panic attacks and it’s the same principle, if I focused On my panic it would just intensify but when I just accept I am just panicking and that it’s no big deal it fades away.

I’ve also been Keto for about 5 years but I can not tell you if it helps because like I say it doesn’t bother me.
What I will tell you though is that kids who are put on a Keto diet for their epilepsy are pretty strictly monitored in terms of how deep into ketosis they are. That means monitoring with a blood glucose device but with the special keto strips. Urine strips are shit and not specific enough for this purpose. This means that they have a very defined diet of fats, protein and obviously low carb. I am on a custom keto style diet, I eat high protein, med fat and low carb, so in relation to your summation that the diet would help the tinnitus I wouldn’t even be deep enough into ketosis for it to be effective.
Just to say also, the reason people get the that horrible feeling due to reduction of carbs it’s because they aren’t supplementing enough electrolytes. You need much more sodium for example on a keto diet. Ketogains.com is a great website that gives some good info although it’s aimed at people wanting to lose weight.

 

[Chris Timothy]

Yes it's awkward that bringing it under attention is a factor in itself. But apathy is the strategy for when it's indeed become irreversible, it is not helpful to extend this advice to people for whom the symptoms haven't been ossified yet. Indeed for me the diet is reducing the harm much more effectively than sitting around twiddling my thumbs distracting myself. Also I don't need monitoring, I can bloody well hear when I have something unwanted in my blood now.

And furthermore it's not as if that's saying anything that wasn't said in this thread already.

 

[MsDiz]

Yes it's awkward that bringing it under attention is a factor in itself. But apathy is the strategy for when it's indeed become irreversible, it is not helpful to extend this advice to people for whom the symptoms haven't been ossified yet. Indeed for me the diet is reducing the harm much more effectively than sitting around twiddling my thumbs distracting myself. Also I don't need monitoring, I can bloody well hear when I have something unwanted in my blood now.

And furthermore it's not as if that's saying anything that wasn't said in this thread already.

I’m sorry you didn’t find anything useful in what I said. I thought it might comfort you to know that it doesn’t have to be a massive annoyance forever and that even though when I sit and think about it my tinnitus is loud and distracting but I can pretty much make it go away like @Ballz_Trippington also stated which you seemed interested in knowing more about.

I’m really glad the diet is working for you, I only mentioned the medical keto diet as I thought it might be of better use to you. I bought a blood glucose monitor off Amazon and keto strips for not much money and tested how deep into ketosis I got at the start of my diet change and it is interesting to see how even the type of fat you eat can cause you to produce more ketones. Coconut oil is what I use now and it seems to be a favourite among the keto community.

I realise it’s a really horrible thing, especially when you’re super aware of it, it has at times made me a bit frustrated also. I know it’s already been said before but white noise has worked for me too at night, when I first had it go up a notch I couldn’t sleep at all.

I really hope you get sorted and the symptoms resolve

 

[Ballz_Trippington]

I’m sorry you didn’t find anything useful in what I said. I thought it might comfort you to know that it doesn’t have to be a massive annoyance forever and that even though when I sit and think about it my tinnitus is loud and distracting but I can pretty much make it go away like @Ballz_Trippington also stated which you seemed interested in knowing more about.

I’m really glad the diet is working for you, I only mentioned the medical keto diet as I thought it might be of better use to you. I bought a blood glucose monitor off Amazon and keto strips for not much money and tested how deep into ketosis I got at the start of my diet change and it is interesting to see how even the type of fat you eat can cause you to produce more ketones. Coconut oil is what I use now and it seems to be a favourite among the keto community.

I realise it’s a really horrible thing, especially when you’re super aware of it, it has at times made me a bit frustrated also. I know it’s already been said before but white noise has worked for me too at night, when I first had it go up a notch I couldn’t sleep at all.

I really hope you get sorted and the symptoms resolve

I've had tinnitus since I was a kid and honestly just thought it was the sound of absolute silence because I went through a period as a kid where I would just focus on total silence and try to notice if it has any sound and every single time it would induce temporary tinnitus.
But its definitely possible to turn it off or at least greatly diminishes it through mental focus...I actually visualize a volume knob turning down to off and try to attach the tinnitus to the idea of the knob turning down over and over again and eventually it turns down...sometimes it comes right back but I press on with the volume knob visualization and after 2 or 3 trials I can shut it off.
I will say that i have been dipping my toes into the O-pce a couple times last week at semi holing doses (which shockingly motivated me to complete several projects around the house).
But I definitely noticed increased tinnitus after that small 2 non conescutive night binge.

 

[MsDiz]

I've had tinnitus since I was a kid and honestly just thought it was the sound of absolute silence because I went through a period as a kid where I would just focus on total silence and try to notice if it has any sound and every single time it would induce temporary tinnitus.
But its definitely possible to turn it off or at least greatly diminishes it through mental focus...I actually visualize a volume knob turning down to off and try to attach the tinnitus to the idea of the knob turning down over and over again and eventually it turns down...sometimes it comes right back but I press on with the volume knob visualization and after 2 or 3 trials I can shut it off.
I will say that i have been dipping my toes into the O-pce a couple times last week at semi holing doses (which shockingly motivated me to complete several projects around the house).
But I definitely noticed increased tinnitus after that small 2 non conescutive night binge.

Yeah I honestly think the way I deal with it works too. Literally unless I think about it I don’t notice it. I actually seen an ad on my Facebook for Flare audio and they have made these “calmer” ear plugs they look like. Apparently lots of people with tinnitus have found them to be effective in reducing it. First time I’ve realised there was such things available.

 

[cosmic charlie]

I used to have the worse tinnitus ever for a few years from DXM abuse and it was the worst shit ever. And even other Dissos bring it back tho some more than others, it also is accompanied by a headache and pressure it's really unpleasant. I can't even take DXM again period I'd tried once like maybe 8 years ago and it went badly tinnitus and headaches came back severe for like year. First had the issue from massive dose of DXM and Ondansetron shit went bad I'm pretty sure I had serotonin syndrome in retrospect. That event triggered tinnitus I dealt with for years but it goes away when I stay off Dissos. The PCP/PCE analogs as in MeO/HO's did not effect the tinnitus too much for whatever reason. Cant use Ketamine or 2F-DCK whatsoever I have immediate worsening of symptoms. Bu the sounds nmmm of it I should just leave the class alone right, well that is easier said than done. When I take MXE it gets worse but not Ketamine level and it feels great so I'm down with that, MXPr was fine also.

 

[Chris Timothy]

Tinnitus cases get so idiosyncratic. I even get rebound effects from a mere 10mg time-release 5-HTP. Theanine even physically hurts my ears almost regardless of dose (though it's remarkably generally psychologically normalizing, I must say.. never would have guessed the trick would lie in the right ratio of serotonin and GABA activity.. oh the timing in finding out though..). But so now it's about carefully discerning what's the path of least harm, sobriety but stress feedback cycles, or breaking these through slight serotonin elevation despite rebound. That is, during the times when weather is preventing hikes, which is the best of both worlds. I'm slowly getting the hang of @Ballz_Trippington's volume knob. Not through direct focus, but through focus on energizing the endogenous serotonin system. Feels good to have moments of quietude without masking.

Also found many many more Amanita patches.. yeah no gonna skip a year of that, heh.

Yeah I honestly think the way I deal with it works too. Literally unless I think about it I don’t notice it. I actually seen an ad on my Facebook for Flare audio and they have made these “calmer” ear plugs they look like. Apparently lots of people with tinnitus have found them to be effective in reducing it. First time I’ve realised there was such things available.

I'm skeptical of that piece of advice as well, I mean, have you actually read reviews or are you just parroting a goddamn facebook commercial? Generally you want the masking ambient noise, not block it. The use cases for this seem very specific and limited, and the marketing downright scammy.

 

[MsDiz]

I'm skeptical of that piece of advice as well, I mean, have you actually read reviews or are you just parroting a goddamn facebook commercial? Generally you want the masking ambient noise, not block it. The use cases for this seem very specific and limited, and the marketing downright scammy

I wasn’t giving you advice, I was saying there seems to be devices that are aimed at tinnitus and I just so happened to see one while this thread was in action and being commented on. I read through the reviews on different sites about that ear piece and it seems to actually work. They never made it for tinnitus but many tinnitus sufferers get relief using it.

Take it or leave it.

 

[Ballz_Trippington]

Tinnitus cases get so idiosyncratic. I even get rebound effects from a mere 10mg time-release 5-HTP. Theanine even physically hurts my ears almost regardless of dose (though it's remarkably generally psychologically normalizing, I must say.. never would have guessed the trick would lie in the right ratio of serotonin and GABA activity.. oh the timing in finding out though..). But so now it's about carefully discerning what's the path of least harm, sobriety but stress feedback cycles, or breaking these through slight serotonin elevation despite rebound. That is, during the times when weather is preventing hikes, which is the best of both worlds. I'm slowly getting the hang of @Ballz_Trippington's volume knob. Not through direct focus, but through focus on energizing the endogenous serotonin system. Feels good to have moments of quietude without masking.

Also found many many more Amanita patches.. yeah no gonna skip a year of that, heh.



I'm skeptical of that piece of advice as well, I mean, have you actually read reviews or are you just parroting a goddamn facebook commercial? Generally you want the masking ambient noise, not block it. The use cases for this seem very specific and limited, and the marketing downright scammy.

Do not be discouraged by not being able to master the "volume knob turning down visualization technique " I've not completely mastered it...that is thst it works *most* of the time but there are instances were I can only seem to turn the tinnitus down to a less annoying level.
It took YEARS of practice/conditioning to get to at least this point.
I think if your having any success at all try to focus on the progress you've made because its proof that you ARE beginning to conquer this fucking horrible affliction.
You have all my support and I'm rooting for you brother!!!!

 

[dalpat077]

The OP's attitude aside (clearly demonstrated by the responses to @PrincessDiz's input) I decided to post the below (found while browsing through the Neuroscience and Pharmacology Forum for want of something better to do):

Exploration of possible mechanisms which produce tinnitus

I've been experimenting with psychedelics and nootropics for quite some time now, and I have been finding a trend during which substances such as base triptamimes produce tinnitus for and non-specific duration after administration, and some nootropics also produce this effect for an undetermined...

www.bluelight.org

Seems to me it contains some pertinent information and if nothing else it's a start i.e. the search function reveals boatloads of issues and information with regard to certain illicit drugs and also legit pharmaceuticals. Actually read the whole thread i.e. there's a link in one of the posts that the OP may find interesting as well as the name of a certain pharmaceutical that apparently works (and I'm not going back to the thread to look it up).

 

[Chris Timothy]

With all due respect that's not an "attitude", that's what responses get when consistently adding noise to the signal, no pun intended. Please don't join in on that.

As to your link, I've gone over everything I could find on bluelight on tinnitus. There's pretty much always a drawback to any chemical hack when checked against the medical literature, I've mentioned procaine as one for which I hadn't found one but frankly at this point it's become hard to imagine there wouldn't be any form of rebound. Threshold doses of the gentlest substances already cause rebound.

Neurofeedback seems like a better bet.

 

[dalpat077]

With all due respect that's not an "attitude", that's what responses get when consistently adding noise to the signal, no pun intended. Please don't join in on that.

As to your link, I've gone over everything I could find on bluelight on tinnitus. There's pretty much always a drawback to any chemical hack when checked against the medical literature, I've mentioned procaine as one for which I hadn't found one but frankly at this point it's become hard to imagine there wouldn't be any form of rebound. Threshold doses of the gentlest substances already cause rebound.

Neurofeedback seems like a better bet.

Well fair enough. It's just that I "know" her (not for real) i.e. she doesn't really chime in on anything unless she's got something useful or meaningful to contribute and only means well.

Oddly enough: I also have tinnitus. Mine also from years of loud music (I mean decades here). But with me, like her, it's always there but I don't notice it unless I think about it. Usually that is. Until yesterday and today. For some reason or the other it's loud. And nothing has changed with me at all i.e. done nothing different for the last two days and yet it's still here. Odd. Somebody suggested blood pressure maybe (have no idea). For the record: I'm clean and not a user or abuser of any substance (booze included) so it's not that (only sometimes on 1mg or 2mg of Alprozalam per day, usually very late afternoon, and 7.5mg Zopiclone at night just before bed). I do have a habit (it's a habit not an addition) in that I take at least three headache powders every morning and have done so for decades. They contain loads of paracetamol, aspirin, and some caffeine. I do know for a fact that one of these causes bad tinnitus because there's been times over the years when I've had real bad toothache and had nothing else in the house so gone wild with these headache powders. Eventually it's like you're hearing through a tunnel and the tinnitus is overbearing.

Dunno if anything I typed has relevance or is merely noise (no pun intended). Probably would not have chimed in had this not started for me yesterday. Very odd. Guess what I'm saying is could it not be something as benign as maybe blood pressure or something like that i.e. something physical as opposed to drugs or pharmaceuticals? But then it does seem that you've done your homework (and sorry for the insinuation that you'd not searched the forums in my earlier post).

 

[Chris Timothy]

Hmm yeah I've seen all three of those ingredients linked to tinnitus, either as cause or mere aggravation (caffeine). That's a combo I'd surely avoid, then again, so much of physical-cause tinnitus doesn't compare to chemical-cause tinnitus. For instance, supplements get generally put down among tinnitus patients, so I quickly lost interest in them. But by sheer coincidence I got thinking about magnesium again. I read how in the early days of flotation tanks John Lilly had to find out that sea salt needed to be replaced with the less corrosive epsom salt. Which I thought I was funny, considering sodium is screwing with my hearing so much, and magnesium is one of the elements involved in a healthy ear. So I dug a little deeper into the world of magnesium supplementation, and learned there's a form which has high bioavailability specifically for the brain (Mg bisglycinate). I've been taking it since a week or so, and it's working! I've been able to put a little sodium back into my diet without overwhelming cicada invasion!

Maybe this confirms my case has alcohol and dissociatives as dual cause. (Technically I have to consider it could be a destructive lesion on top of an irritative lesion, because of the thick memory fog I can't exclude having passed out with loud headphones at some point.) Keto diet as remedy matches the former. And magnesium is linked to the latter through NMDA-antagonism. I wouldn't have thought I needed more of that, but I can't argue with the results. It did smooth out the dissociative experience whenever I cared to combo with it.

Even with physical causes magnesium is still linked with prevention of tinnitus, even though it's not able to reverse it there. Maybe something to keep in mind when you have tootache again?

Blood pressure, sure.. fits into the biofeedback picture of course. Physiology is the next relevant tier after the physical and chemical one.

 

[dalpat077]

I've been taking it since a week or so, and it's working! I've been able to put a little sodium back into my diet without overwhelming cicada invasion!

Nice to hear from you again on this.

And really great to hear you've found a solution.

Will serve some people well here in the future.

Thanks for the information and the update.

Be well.

 

[Chris Timothy]

Pardon me, I didn't mean to imply it's a solution, in that it solves the issue. It's just one other significant step in the right direction. Though an equally big one as the tailored diet.

Monthly update then I guess. I've added zinc to the stack, technically an NMDA-antagonist like magnesium. There's not really a noticeable difference, but if I cease it for a while and then take it, I do notice. This matches the conclusion from the literature that it doesn't help tinnitus, as much as zinc deficiency worsens it. So just keeping the levels up just in case.

I have more and more periods I can do without masking, so that's nice. It's only needed when I'm reading/thinking. Which still is bothersome, because I like to read and think a lot. All in all it is a lot of improvement for just a couple months, so I can't complain.

What's peculiar though is that vasodilators have been hurting my ears. I haven't seen such symptom mentioned anywhere, this could be a further clue for what could help my case. Vasodilation is linked with headache in general, but I've yet to see the mechanism discussed. My guess is that the microcirculation got damaged by the heavy drinking, and is giving out the pain signals directly. I should get to the bottom of this, because I've been avoiding stuff that hurts, as one does, but on the other hand blood flow stimulation is generally encouraged with tinnitus, as disrupted microcirculation is certainly a possible cause, depriving the hair cells from nutrients and all.

I got thinking about it because hemp protein made it into my diet, as it's a flexible, complete, low-carb protein source to make something vaguely resembling bread with. The trace amounts of psychoactives were enough to hurt my ears. Though since my frugal ass had a whole loaf of bread, I repeated the experiment and the hurt did not reoccur, moreover, I had an unexpected, short period of quietude.

So I looked deeper into the pharmacodynamics of CBD, and it's even messier than is summarized on the wiki. Since THC's canna-receptor agonism increases the ringing, you'd expect CBD to do the opposite. But it can do anything with them really, either directly or indirectly depending on specific receptor type. Additionally it increases endogenous cannabinoid levels (more vasodilation), and also activates the same otoprotective effects as, fun fact, hot sauce. Then again, there's serotonin 1A agonism, which directly makes the auditory brain stem parts fire, sadface. There's also an equally long list of hypothesized though relevant effects that might or might not generalize to in vivo.

I reckoned that this could mean it's a situation like with DXM, where a messy profile means that different effects become dominant at different dosages. Three drops of CBD oil is too much, that much I have ascertained. Maybe one drop is okay, I've had mixed results so far. Not surprising, considering previous paragraph.. that's why CBD is a neglected area in tinnitus research I'm sure. The ear pain hasn't reoccurred during the experiments however, so next thing to check out is whether it's the vasodilation that's doing the heavy lifting. I suppose that answers the question whether to either heed or ignore the pain.

Since it's 5-HT1A agonism that rains on the psychedelic parade, I've looked into 5-HT1A antagonists. It's a weird world full of mysteriously discontinued substances. I found one on the market, but it's mind-boggingly pricey. Simple beta-blockers do 5-HT1A antagonism too, but the rebound is known to cause tinnitus in healthy subjects again. Mitrazepine has it in its profile as well, but the reports are mixed there too. Only for the desperate, it seems.. nobody wants those long drawn-out SSRI side-effects for no reason..

 

[Chris Timothy]

February update. After the keto diet and the magnesium glycinate, there's the third big step: vitamin E!

It took a while to find this out. Antioxidants indeed kept the oxidation rate from influencing the symptoms, meaning breathing techniques otherwise upped the volume. But the trouble is that most add a noise profile of their own. NAC, lipoic acid, vitamin C mega doses, they're all not worth it for that reason. But, at last, vitamin E at a gram a day is almost unnoticeable, and does the trick! I got vitamin C in powder form, so perhaps I can find a dose that does more easing of the inflammation below the noise threshold.. though I've been getting surprisingly quiet noise levels this month, so not sure whether I'll do many other experiments anymore. Sometimes the masking is only for the computer fan, of an extra quiet build even. It's great timing too, it's freezing outside and I can't do constant hikes anymore, and am thus isolated from outside ambience. But so I can do pulmonautics now, meaning I can direct focus, regulate mood, and don't have to just be fleeing the "painless pain" all the time anymore. On good days at least.

One correction of a previous statement: I don't think it's the blood vessels themselves that hurt. If they dilate, tissue swells and presses against the cochlea. That should get some more nutrients where they're needed, so it's indeed a pain I should ignore. This reminds me it should indeed be mainly inflammation, which, although it's taking it's bloody time, has the best prognosis.

Another good thing about minimizing the masking is that there's hyperacusis involved, extra sensitivity to sound. The neighbours had a device installed in their front yard to ultrasonically chase away weasels.. never even seen weasels around here.. had to go scream bloody murder to please stop zapping my goddamn brain! Actually I was polite about it, though that took effort. I didn't know about the term "hyperacusis", I was aware I've always had some auditory abnormalities, but I called it musician superpowers and didn't think much else of it. I have a peculiar inability to understand people in the presence of music too, an absence of the "cocktail party effect" like it's called. Again something that easily can be jokingly dismissed as natural musician's ear, abstract pattern easily overwhelming the verbal. But it turns out that part of the filtering you'd expect involves the brain is done in the ear itself, and that both my peculiarities arise in mice when the relevant cell count drops after they're administered ototoxic drugs to induce tinnitus for science.. meaning that I should mention I could very well have been predisposed for ear problems. (Smoking while pregnant can't have helped, mom.. baby ears probably need all the lack of vasoconstriction they can get..) I did have the impression dissociatives "enhanced my auditory superpowers" before, I mean, it's not as if they didn't do even more impressive things. But in retrospect that could have been early onset earfuckery.. probably something that should be mentioned in the spirit of harm reduction.