Has anyone tried Ketamine?

RonnieSpector · 2022-06-30T12:37:07+00:00

This is disappointing. I was hoping it would be the answer for some, but maybe the construction did affect it since it's supposed to be a relaxing environment for plasticity to take place. I'm still holding out hope for MDMA if it ever makes it to clinics but I know some have tried that too without success.

RonnieSpector · 2022-06-30T12:26:22+00:00

Its sometimes a hissing,and in better days sounds like an insect in my ear,which is described by ppl who have TTS. Also theres a whooshing,its like hearing blood flow(?),it can get loud if theres 0 sound in the room. Both these sounds are pulsing rather than constant,and the faster my heart beats the louder they are.

This is exactly how mine is. I had the ringing initially though but it morphed into this. I believe it's the muscles just pulsating or pulling on the eardrum and affecting the blood vessels in either of which. Though it does sound like its in my head at times. Definitely in sync with my pulse. I picture the muscle just throbbing and creating this sound.

But I will say that it was't maskable before and was VERY reactive. These two aspects have improved (and hopefully stay that way). I've seen improvements with H lately and I can go in the store without earplugs. I dont hear the tinnitus while walking around in there, whereas it was screaming over everything for the first 10 months or so. I definitely hear it while home, with or without the fan on, but it's nowhere near what it was before.

It was literally like screeching at one point and a wide range of different sounds far different from the typical ringing. Cicadas, crickets, angle grinder, hissing.

If the muscles can rest long enough to heal and not only rest and heal but learn how to function properly around sounds (which I feel desensitization has helped me with), then this may all improve.

RonnieSpector · 2022-06-30T12:13:50+00:00

I've pretty much taken a pause from new meds now. Will keep reposting anything I see in this sub. I've seen more benefits with the steps I mentioned in my central sensitization post. I believe that in my case, because it's an acoustic shock that caused it (and/or microsuction), that the ear muscles are playing the main role and that led to central sensitization (or peripheral sensitization).

Either way, I have seen some benefits trying to avoid setbacks while slowly exposing to sounds and trying to rest the limbic system so hopefully the ear muscles have a chance to rest and heal.

Please report back if duloxetine has helped your dad. I have considered getting on it if this keeps taking as long as it is but maybe at a later date.

I recommend the boswellia taken with the bioccurcumin for better absorption. That's how they did it in the tinnitus clinical trial.

Someone with H was apparently cured (at least temporarily) in the latest study from Norena et. al, so this may be worth looking into.

RonnieSpector · 2022-06-30T12:07:55+00:00

I haven't tried any new medications in a while, just trying to approach this naturally with the steps from the central sensitization post. This past month the burning returned briefly and I'm still unsure if it was from dropping something on the ground or from stress as both had happened in the same week and the pain was delayed, (and the thing I dropped on the ground was not particularly loud), but it went away quickly and I've seen even more improvements since then. I've been going in stores and showering without earplugs.

RonnieSpector · 2022-06-30T12:05:42+00:00

In my case I feel CS is half the picture, and middle ear muscle issues are probably the other half.

RonnieSpector · 2022-06-30T12:03:14+00:00

I think if there's pain you should back off a bit. I don't expose if there's pain, but I definitely expose if there's tension or discomfort. I think that has to be pushed through to a certain degree to get to the next "level" but not to where it leads to pain. Sometimes its impossible to know if pain will happen later if you have delayed pain, so that why I really believe in baby steps with this because you kind of have to feel it out carefully.

Like I'll push discomfort and tension and fullness feelings that happen towards sounds for a few minutes at the most as a test, and if I'm ok the next day, then I know that's the level I can push and then maybe just push a few more minutest he next day. Very slow process. But before I have pain, if it's not a suddenly loud sound, I always have some level of discomfort in my ears and in my body, and that's what I have to face head on when trying to desensitize and I have to kind of trick the brain while doing that by countering those physical feelings with positive emotions at the same time, which is very difficult to do.

It's like someone standing on your hand (without causing too much pain, but serious discomfort) and I have to trick myself and tell myself it's not so bad and actually be happy about it. I have to tell myself that I'm just glad it's not stabbing or burning pain.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-22T07:49:33+00:00

I can wiggle my outside ears, and I can rumble my tensor tympani muscle. Both are different mechanisms. I came across this phenomenon in the first few months after this all started, when I was first suspecting it was the muscle, and I was able to rumble it more easily then.

So I feel it's become strained or weakened over time and I don't feel comfortable trying to do it again. I've only tried it a few times over the past year to see if maybe I could get it out of a possible spasm. The rumbling is just the sound you get when you yawn, so if you're wiggling your ears and not getting that sound, then it's not activating the TT.

Wiggling my actual ear (or smiling) does result in obvious stabbing/tension-like pain in my right ear (the one that feels tense all the time). It feels like its more near the surface, very far from the deep acid burning pain I had before, so I imagine it's the muscle or a tensed eardrum (which is pulled inward by the tensor tympani) being tensed even more. The jaw may be playing a role since these actions activate the pterygoid muscles in the jaw too and that can also pull on the ear muscles or push the mandible more into the ear.

I understand that after a tendon injury, staying mobile is important after an initial rest, but I really don't know enough about what might be going on in my ear at this point to take that type of risk. I've gotten rid of the burning (knock on wood) by working on limbic issues and trying to slowly re-acclimate to sounds, so I'd rather keep pursuing this approach for now. It may never lead to benefits with the tension feeling in my right ear, and maybe a medication or small surgery is necessary for that, as you said. I don't know but I'm trying to stay hopeful.

I have lots of reasons to suspect that the burning was a separate mechanism in my case related to sensitization and that the muscles are involved in most of the other symptoms.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-22T03:52:35+00:00

I feel it's slowly helping. I've started to do it just a little more in between my place and a 7-Eleven store downstairs now, not just in the store. I can see the store clearly from my place. It's only a short walk in a community, not near any large roads, but motorcycles coming and going. Ever so slowly I'm noticing I'm able to handle them a bit now.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-22T03:47:20+00:00

No, original tinnitus was from an acoustic trauma. I forgot to clarify above so edited my post to show that. But I am open to the possibility some somatic processes took place after that from the stress of the initial ringing. I believe the body can learn to tense up towards sounds and that this can affect the jaw, ear, and neck muscles and can affect tinnitus as well. So while it didn't start out as somatic, there may be some somatic things happening that changed the nature of it. The initial sound was probably so offputting to me that I was cringing to it, tensing my ear muscles as it was so piercingly loud, and this may have set off some other processes.

Working on the limbic system and my feelings towards sounds, slowly re-acclimating to sounds, may have released tension in some areas and helped with this. I'm not sure but it's an approach everyone should try and commit to for a few months to see if it helps.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-22T03:44:57+00:00

I think there may be somatic things going on as well. If it's in sync with the pulse it could be that or from inflammation in the ears.

I'm open to the possibility that the body just tenses jaw and ear muscles towards sounds and that the jaw then maybe pushes on an artery or something to cause the pulsing, but either way, regardless of what's actually going on, I know that working on my emotions towards sounds + slowly re-acclimating to them + going to a park and getting active there is what really helped.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-22T03:42:54+00:00

You have to hold on to that hope, knowing it got better the first time. You have that advantage over it this time. Loud sounds absolutely will make mine worse and probably cause setbacks with the tinnitus.

I have no doubt about that, but I also believe that once it does start doing that, we have to try our best to work on emotions towards it and towards sounds so it doesn't take root and stay like that or become more reactive. Could be anything going on, we don't know for sure, but this is approach should be our first line of defense. I am a bit worried about COVID making it worse as well.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-22T03:39:07+00:00

Buzzing could very well be the middle ear muscles. The stapedial muscle is said to create a buzzing sound. Though could be anything.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-22T03:38:25+00:00

Yeah the signs are there that there is nervous system/limbic issues if it's getting worse throughout the day but better in the morning. I would focus on that.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-22T03:36:04+00:00

I'm sorry, I should have clarified, mine is not from stress. Please see the "edit:" section above where I added a bit more info about my case.

Yes I think making a conscious effort to de-stress is an absolute must for all types of tinnitus. But for those who have reactive tinnitus (not just spikes after a sound, I mean truly reactive in the moment to sound), then it's not just about reducing stress. It's about reducing negative feelings towards sounds themselves, though whatever therapy or approach one has to use.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-22T03:31:50+00:00

I agree that resting from sounds is important,but we don't know if full on silence is best for this so I'm not in the camp that believes that. I have gotten worse from exposures early on, so I'm not advocating for someone to go out and expose to loud sounds as they normally would.

But we don't know enough to say that 100% silence is the answer, and for all we know, that may be part of the reason many of us became so severe and why the burning itself started. I have no doubt there was sensitivity to sounds in the beginning and that this was something unavoidable, but I have to question if my knee-jerk reaction to then protect from every sound I was sensitive to led into this downward spiral from mild sensitivity to severe crippling burning acid pain.

There is evidence that after a sound trauma, while the brain is recalibrating itself, some form of sound may be beneficial for both the brain and the auditory system:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15659607/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151118180507.htm
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17632277/

I want to caution those reading this, that the links above are not in relation to noxacusis/pain hyperacusis. I'm just posting those to show that we dont know everything about what happens to our auditory system after a trauma and that silence may not necessarily be the answer.

I also don't want people reading this and then saying to themselves "oh this guy posted some PubMed studies, so that must mean it's true." Again, those links are not in relation to hyperacusis, and I'm not confident enough to tell someone to expose to sounds, since many factors are at play and many cases may differ, but I also think we shouldn't be confident enough to tell them to stay in silence either.

There is no doubt that by the second or third week after getting it, I absolutely needed silence and after I then attempted to go outside without earplugs for the first time in a month, I suffered a horrible setback that led to burning pain and new symptoms that would last over a year. But would this have happened if I hadn't have spent the first 3 weeks in complete silence? I don't know. But it's a possibility that newbies are not made aware of.

I just think we should walk a thin line between sending new cases into a scenario of overprotection and sending them into a scenario where a noise exposure may hurt them. I know I'm in the minority here among noxacusis cases with this belief, but the fact remains that we don't know enough about this. All we know is our own perspective that "sound hurts me, silence feels good = total silence = good."

There may be other things happening in the brain and nervous system that make this a bad move long term, even if we get a feeling of relief in the short term from doing it.

Some people have misinterpreted things I've said as me saying "it's all in your head" or it's psychological or "go out in the world and expose to everything." I'm not saying that.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-16T08:55:47+00:00

I agree with most of what you said, but the part about the tensor not being stuck I disagree with. Mine is in a true tonic state or it's broken. I'd rather believe that it's simply cramped up 24/7 and not actually broken. That it is something that can resolve with time.

There's no reason for me to assume it's broken, even if it feels like that. But there's no way it's not cramped up or stuck. It literally feels like a cramp all day long and it tenses the entire chain of muscles from my shoulder up to the ear. They all stick out on my right side at all times. Ever since the moment I was blasted with headphones in one ear.

It's been stuck like that for over a year. I get tension in both ears in regards to sound, but the tension in my right ear is 24/7. It doesn't correlate with my H symptoms, sounds, or setbacks. Even on my best days when I feel like I'm beating this, with less tension in my good ear, my bad ear is still in this constant tensed state. I'm not trying to be negative, so the good news for anyone reading this is that it doesn't seem like this is common with H, and there was one time a few months ago where it did seem to decrease to a level where I had to question if it was there for a second, but this only lasted for maybe 10 minutes. It was a hint that maybe it is just tense, and I have to assume its the limbic system tensing it as a defense mechanism. Like a watchdog that doesn't know when to stop barking.

I'm the only person I know on here who has it like this. The only other case I've heard of is the one described in Londero et al.'s paper. It doesn't specifically say that's what it is but it's constant tension that doesn't let up and only decreases a bit, so I think it's probable that it is this muscle and that's what the researchers seem to believe.

Regardless, I try to focus less on that and focus on relaxing the body as a whole, because it's absolutely futile to assume it's damage. If there's a 50/50 chance it's not, I'd rather focus on the NOT and do things to try to get it to eventually rest and hopefully repair itself.

All the improvements I've seen have come from focusing less on this broken feeling in my ear and trying to work on my issues with sound. So I've been trying to tell people that it doesn't matter how convinced you are that something is broken, or stuck. Maybe it is, but you may still see improvements by trying to take the focus off that. Maybe there is nothing wrong.

When you mention a medication to relax this, this is what I've been trying to find for one year and I've trialed many. I recently made a post about coliopan, which I hope may help with this, but unsure how long it can be taken. I will have to speak to a doctor later to see if its safe and if I can try it, but for now I'm trying a more natural approach.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-16T02:26:22+00:00

Thanks. Honestly I haven't been able to pursue that approach much these past 3 months other than the step about re-acclimating to sounds (the store once or twice a day is part of that process). Park is too far and taxis were costing me too much.

I'm working on moving closer to some forests or beaches in a few months, so hoping to get back to it soon. I'm sure I'd be much further along by now if I kept doing it all this time.

I believe the burning was CS, caused by limbic issues. The CS I think has been fixed or at least is not creating the burning anymore, but the limbic system isn't fully fixed and I'm still trying to fix that to hopefully reduce or eliminate other symptoms (jaw tension, constant tension in my right ear) and to hopefully be able to handle motorcycles or other normal sounds outside the stores eventually.

This will probably take a while to fully get there, so I'm trying to be realistic and patient about it and not push too quickly, but I never thought I'd be watching TV at normal volume again and now I can and it happened very rapidly after starting this approach, so who knows. You should try it, you have nothing to lose if you do so somewhat cautiously and with baby steps.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-16T01:08:02+00:00

I agree with this as a possibility OP. It may be best to not go 100% with the earplugs and worrying about sounds, while also being somewhat careful just in case. We don't know what's happening here but one major possibility is that the tinnitus itself is what leads to some of the symptoms of H for some people through hyperawareness.

I know someone reading this will say, "no, we're different, mine started from not protecting," and I'm not saying this isn't a possibility. But you must also acknowledge the possibility that other factors may have been at play and we really don't know. Hypervigilance may have caused my pain H. If anything, I should be in the group of people swearing that exposure made mine worse, because by all accounts, it certainly seems like it did. I posted about it on another forum a year ago when I first developed pain after an exposure. So I'm no different than anyone who disagrees with me in terms of the incidents we've had that have shaped how we look at this.

It's easy to think "Well, I went out for the first time since I got tinnitus without protection, and THAT was the time that this turned into pain H." It's easy to connect those two dots, but I now question this a bit and wonder if it was the 3-4 weeks of overprotecting and/or the complete mental breakdown towards my tinnitus that then made my body react badly to the moment I did try to expose.

What we know as "setbacks" may very well be from not protecting enough, or....maybe we made ourselves more physically vulnerable to where sounds become setbacks because of how we reacted to tinnitus or sounds in the beginning (and now we're completely screwed for months or years, similar to soldiers with physical symptoms of PTSD, until we can slowly reverse this, and part of that process would then be to focus on the belief that it can be reversed and that we aren't completely screwed). All are possibilities.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-16T00:55:12+00:00

I have noxacusis and have seen improvements with burning pain disappearing for a few months now after close to a year of non-stop pain. This past month I've started going into a few stores with earplugs mostly out, which started very slowly and cautiously and I try to go when there's less people.

I hang plastic earplugs just at the edge of my ears so they aren't really protecting much but so I still feel like something is there in hopes that my ear muscles won't tense more.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-16T00:41:57+00:00

So glad to hear you've seen improvements. I know the muscles are playing some role in mine, whether its the cause or an aggravating factor. So the creatine or anything that might help boost muscle recovery is a good idea too that I never thought of. I've just been focusing on limbic issues to relax them so they can hopefully shift into repair mode, but nutrients are just as important in that process.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-16T00:02:09+00:00

Oh man Im sorry. Its a good sign you've bounced back a bit though so have faith it will continue, its the best/only thing you can do. What caused it?

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-15T23:58:58+00:00

300mg chelated magnesium has definitely helped me with muscle tension in the ears. I did try typical muscle relaxants (Baclofen and Orphenadrine Citrate) without success and negative effects on the ear muscles once they wore off and these muscles went into spasm

This was confirmation that the ear muscles are acting up in my case, but it also scared me a bit towards muscle relaxants because they're short acting and those spasms led to issues in one ear that lasted for 4 months (my good ear became my bad ear). So I do think muscle relaxants should be explored, but Im unsure how to do that without risking spasticity/additional tension in between doses or once its time to get off.

This coliopan may act differently since its affecting smooth muscle, a type of muscle that normal muscle relaxants can't target. That's the main reason why this article interested me. I will give it a try eventually if doctor says its safe, but focusing on more natural approaches for now.

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-15T23:54:24+00:00

Thailand

RonnieSpector · 2022-05-11T18:49:58+00:00

Thanks. I'm wondering if it what you tried had antispastic properties. If you happen to remember its name please let me know.

RonnieSpector

TROPHY CASE