[JK1]

I didn't say that all things that are natural are healthy for you. Valerian does have its issues. I don't use it. Lavender, nettle and chamomile are good for relaxation. As for St. John's Wort, it does cause sensitivity to sunlight(sunburning much easier) and shouldn't be taken with any prescription antidepressants. Otherwise it is fine.
 
Magnesium, B12, and zinc supplementation are very helpful for those with tinnitus. Since around 75% of the US population takes in less than the RDA for magnesium,and many experts say the RDA is also much too low, taking magnesium supplements seems like a good idea for those with tinnitus. Studies show it helps.

 

[AudioBear]

   
Magnesium, B12, and zinc supplementation are very helpful for those with tinnitus.
 
How can you say that? There is not good evidence to support that claim.  The best that can be said is that people with deficiencies in one or more of these MAY be helped by supplementation although those of us in the profession would recommend a better diet that meets all nutritional requirements rather than supplements.  Since that is not always possible to do, if there are tests that show deficiency, then supplementation may be appropriate.  Most of us here wish you were right about this, we'd pop a few pills and solve our tinnitus, unfortunately that works in a small percentage of cases.  The answer is seek reputable medical opinion don't just start popping supplements.
 
Since around 75% of the US population takes in less than the RDA for magnesium,
 
And this has what to do with tinnitus?  Which NHANES survey did you get that number from?  It sounds high but I surely don't keep numbers like that in memory. What I do know is that I take more than 100% of the DRI.  
 
and many experts say the RDA is also much too low, taking magnesium supplements seems like a good idea for those with tinnitus. Some studies show it helps.
 
And the recommended intakes are set by experts of the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.  To date the experts who argue for increasing the recommendation are in the minority. New research may or may not cause the recommendation to change but these are decisions best left to the experts. On what basis have you made up your mind since it is not a consensus view that you have adopted?

Can you tell us about your training in nutrition and your professional credentials?  Will you please provide peer-reviewed references to your claims -- especially when they run counter to generally accepted medical and scientific views.  You are very sure of yourself which is often a sign that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
 
MODS:  Please take the nutrition discussion off the tinnitus thread!

 

[FullCircle]

Agreed, throwing out medical advice like used tissue, especially with no qualifications is dangerous.... for example "STOP AMBIEN NOW" stated with no regard to the individuals case history

 

[Angular Mo]

A quickly scheduled visit to the ENT and their audiologist today;

slight hearing loss in left ear.

The Rx; a week of prednisone, plus Flonase, melatonin, then a hearing re-test to determine improvement as a result of acute or chronic harm.

MRI in my head to determine if Lyme came back and migrated.

Not a word back from the doctor on my Ambien.

An audiologist from another practice in response to all my supplements (B12, magnesium, zinc, D, C, lipo-flavonoid) asked, "what are you doing to help yourself neurologically?", only then did I mention my visit to the ENT.

 

[JK1]

There are several studies showing that magnesium and B12 supplements are helpful for tinnitus. Do your own Google searches. I gave a few links. There are others.
 
If you want to stubbornly refuse to accept the evidence, that is okay. Others though will be open to it. Who I am and what my background is are irrelevant for this discussion. What is true is true, regardless of who mentions it. If you are willing to search, you will find  evidence, both in terms of studies and in terms of individuals who were helped with magnesium and/or B12(sublingual methylcobalamin) supplements. 

 

[watchnerd]

I don't have tinnitus, but what supplements can I take to improve my hearing?

 

[AudioBear]

  There are several studies showing that magnesium and B12 supplements are helpful for tinnitus. Do your own Google searches. I gave a few links. There are others.
 
If you want to stubbornly refuse to accept the evidence, that is okay. Others though will be open to it. Who I am and what my background is are irrelevant for this discussion. What is true is true, regardless of who mentions it. If you are willing to search, you will find  evidence, both in terms of studies and in terms of individuals who were helped with magnesium and/or B12(sublingual methylcobalamin) supplements. 

NO I'm sorry that's not the way it works.  Pony up your citations right here.  Prove what you're saying and what sources it is based on or any reasonable person would ignore you.
 
Moreover, you obviously have no qualifications or you would be willing to share them with us.  This will probably come as a surprise to you but reading the internet doesn't make you a qualified expert.  Nor does it license you to practice dietetics (a licensed specialty in every state if I am not mistaken).
 
Now if you have relevant experience and i'm wrong about that, please share it with us.  I will be happy to accept your credentials.
 
I have about 45 years experience in nutrition research and I have tinnitus so I really want you to be right.  Unfortunately, you are holding out false hope for most of us, as from what I have read few if any are helped by supplements (I notice you dropped Zn and substituted Mg along the way, which is it?).   You do raise an interesting point indirectly.  As we age we develop a variety of problems among them being hearing loss, tinnitus, loss of appetite (not in my case) and impaired absorption of B12.  Commonly consumed acid-blockers exacerbate this problem.  B12 supplementation may or may not help someone who no longer absorbs it efficiently.  It wouldn't be a bad idea to have serum B12 levels checked in all aging subjects, especially those with tinnitus.  If you find low B12 and tinnitus that doesn't prove B12 deficiency is the cause but even if it is, it raises the interesting problem of how to increase serum concentrations.  In some cases even mega-doses don't help so B12 is administered by injection.  This is what professional care is for.
 
Now I will grant this.  Mg, Zn and B12 supplements won't hurt anybody unless they really badly overdo it.  They are probably amongst the least likely supplements to do harm.  They are also inexpensive.  So why not try them?  Two reasons as stated before:  1) there is no supplement that is a substitute for a better diet that will give you an excess of all nutrients, and 2) people may believe that they are getting better from the supplements (placebo effect) and put off going to a ENT and audiologist for a professional evaluation.
 
The bottom line is see a doctor and an audiologist and ask them for a nutritional evaluation.  If JK1 will provide his references you could take them to the Doctor and ask him about supplement therapy.  This is therapy we're talking about and it isn't for amateurs to dabble in.  Notice how I haven't recommended any therapy?

 

[castleofargh]

  There are several studies showing that magnesium and B12 supplements are helpful for tinnitus. Do your own Google searches. I gave a few links. There are others.
 
If you want to stubbornly refuse to accept the evidence, that is okay. Others though will be open to it. Who I am and what my background is are irrelevant for this discussion. What is true is true, regardless of who mentions it. If you are willing to search, you will find  evidence, both in terms of studies and in terms of individuals who were helped with magnesium and/or B12(sublingual methylcobalamin) supplements. 

I only see you being stubborn here. you don't ask google about health issues, you ask doctors!
if along this topic you had been saying something like "go see a doctor, and oh BTW, a balanced diet is cool" , you wouldn't meet pretty unanimous opposition.
if you keep talking as if you knew better than an actual doctor, or as if your stuff was the universal answer to tinnitus, I'm going to remove you.
 
nonsense talks are a habit of audiophile forums, but when the health of fellow members is at risk, I say no!  when people notice a problem with their ears or hearing, they should go see a doctor without waiting or self medicating. better safe than sorry.

 

[adobotj]

There are several studies showing that magnesium and B12 supplements are helpful for tinnitus. Do your own Google searches. I gave a few links. There are others.

If you want to stubbornly refuse to accept the evidence, that is okay. Others though will be open to it. Who I am and what my background is are irrelevant for this discussion. What is true is true, regardless of who mentions it. If you are willing to search, you will find  evidence, both in terms of studies and in terms of individuals who were helped with magnesium and/or B12(sublingual methylcobalamin) supplements. 

Just eat healthy balanced diet and take a good and complete multivitamins and you're good. Also think of other factors in you overall health such as stress, sleep, etc.

And regarding the 'evidences', not everything you see in NIH (or the Web for that matter) are absolute truths. You need to appraise the literature first before believing your whole heart in it. Those research were also done by people which as you know, is susceptible to errors. The strongest evidence is in the form of a meta-analysis or at the very least, a randomized control trial. In short, don't believe 'easily' in everything you see in the Internet. Check the paper's protocol, study design (if it's a good design or minimal error design), scope, methods, how they derived with results, etc. Every study is like going in the court room. It must provide strong substantial evidence and we the jury will decide on those evidences provided to us. So choose your study(evidence) wisely.

And please don't make generalized derogatory statements regarding physicians. You don't know all of them to make such claims. A lot of doctors are very good if not, brilliant. In fact, a lot of your researched studies are done by doctors. Be fair to them. One day you'll need them.

P.s. There's more to health than vitamins and minerals and what we eat.

P.p.s. Let's get back to the topic of tinnitus.

 

[AudioBear]

"There's little evidence that alternative medicine treatments work for tinnitus. However, some alternative therapies that have been tried for tinnitus include:

Acupuncture
Hypnosis
Ginkgo biloba
Zinc supplements
B vitamins"

From Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tinnitus/basics/alternative-medicine/con-20021487)

Found one journal paper in 1993 and dozens of dietary supplement websites promising B12 and Zn preparations they were selling would cure tinnitus. PK1 was right about googling. When you do you find snake oil not research and medical facts.

 

[FullCircle]

U left out my favorite, laser pointer treatment followed by ear candles
Lol

 

[Ruben123]

"There's little evidence that alternative medicine treatments work for tinnitus. However, some alternative therapies that have been tried for tinnitus include:

Acupuncture
Hypnosis
Ginkgo biloba
Zinc supplements
B vitamins"

From Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tinnitus/basics/alternative-medicine/con-20021487)

Found one journal paper in 1993 and dozens of dietary supplement websites promising B12 and Zn preparations they were selling would cure tinnitus. PK1 was right about googling. When you do you find snake oil not research and medical facts.

I thought mayo clinic was actually a respectable source for information as it is one of the biggest research institutes of the US. Why they're advocating acupuncture is beyond my understanding.

 

[Ruben123]

I must admit doctors dont know anything, even though most would think and actually like that idea. Unfortunately nobody could know anything, but a medical doctor DOES actually know a lot, just not everything. That is why there are other studies and jobs, like medical bio chemics, biomedical sciences etc. As long as they dont find any vast evidence that Mg, Zn or what ever may actually REALLY help in DBTs, doctors are not going to prescribe/advise any intake of supplements. Quacks in The Netherlands enough (called orthomolecular doctors/scientists/therapists after having done a study of around few months to 1 year and claiming to know things the whole medical world doesnt know of) who will prescribe you those supplements though. Having done biomedical sciences myself and now studying medicines I surely know of the pharmaceutical industry, failures of tests, not reporting of outcomes that may affect your research etc.... though if someone finds out that for instance Mg and Zn really help against tinnitus, it would for sure be recognized and used by all doctors. There is just not too much or too satisfying research done on it. Yet it will take some time to have specific tests to show what deficits people really have - and I mean tests by doctors and not the quacks, orthomolecular therapists and other people just looking for easy money over ill people's backs. 

 

[adobotj]

  Are you a physician? My experiences with physicians in the US have mostly been quite negative. Most are very rigid in their thinking, and know very little about nutrition and supplements. When they have tests performed and don't find anything abnormal in the results, instead of considering they may not have chosen the proper tests to have performed, they insist the patient doesn't have a problem. The arrogance many have is amazing. Many also greatly overprescribe drugs, as the US consumes over 50% of the world prescription drug consumption, even though the US population is less than 5% of the world population. Perhaps physicians should be paid based on how much they help the patient, rather than charging a high fee even when they give no help at all.
 
Of course there are some exceptions, although Imo they are a small minority.

 
I'm sorry to hear you had negative experiences with doctors there. In reality, those experiences are THE minority and THE exception rather than the rule. How many physicians have you consulted/encountered to say that they are the majority? 1,000? 2,000? I doubt you even reached a 100 of them to even generalize the competencies and knowledge of those doctors who studied day in and day out for so many years learning about the human body. I'm not saying that a doctor knows everything regarding health but in some ways they understand and know how the body works in response to its surroundings (including nutrition and food). Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that nutrition and supplements have none or minimal role in our body. Nutrition is of paramount importance for our body to function properly. Same goes with supplements. But that is the word... "supplement". A quick google search for the word supplement showed "A dietary supplement is intended to provide nutrients that may otherwise not be consumed in sufficient quantities - wikipedia". It's to supplement your daily diet to reach sufficient quantities.  
 
It's good you're recommending alternatives to help manage (or decrease) the severity of tinnitus in this community. But leave it up to that. Like i said, stop making generalized derogatory statements against doctors/physicians. It's obvious to me that you really had negative experience with them but don't generalize. If you were a physician and went through all the years of hardships of studying and sacrificing just to be able to reach the imposed competencies of the regulatory board and know how to manage different diseases then you would understand and really know that what you were saying against the majority of them are not true. There's a lot of variations from one person to another. Some may respond to a given treatment, some may not. We all respond differently to treatment and management. Managing a disease isn't an exact science. But physicians try their utmost best to manage any disease properly, in the scope of proven treatment based from solid studies that is effective and also SAFE (including long term effects/side effects). 
 
This would be my last post regarding this very long OT. It's derailing this thread and I apologize.
 
p.s. yes I am a medical doctor (physician) and I believe in proper nutrition and supplementation but also recognize that those aren't the sole answer to every problem of the human body (and its function).   

 

[krismusic]

FWIW I think that the current discussions are on topic. The attitude of doctors to Tinnitus are germane.
I will say that when I hear of people having a negative experience with a healthcare professional, I wonder what the attitude of the patient was? I would not react well if someone came stomping into my office with the impression that they know more about the subject than I do, or implied litigation if they did not hear what they wanted to hear from me.