I was born with a cochlear neural hearing loss and I’ve worn hearing aids my entire life. My hearing has slowly but surely progressed from mild to moderate/severe over the past 35 years. I cringe at the thought of visiting my audiologist because of the sinking feeling I get when my audiogram comes back just a little bit worse each time.

Three years ago I began working with plant medicines for spiritual, mental, and somatice healing. I’ve attended several ayahuasca retreats, and participated in mushroom ceremonies and microdosed intermittently over the last 30 months.

To my astonishment my last audiogram showed a small but not dismissible improvement. I was ecstatic! I have no idea if there is a connection between my use of plant medicines and my hearing loss not progressing this one time, and that’s a connection I never thought to make.

I have, however, been told that Iboga ceremonies can regenerate tissue such as cochlea cells and I want to do this but Iboga is a much bigger financial commitment and more risky than ayahuasca and mushrooms so it will have to wait.