Comment by mrblah

Comment by mrblah 6 hours ago

3 replies

this is anecdotal and not medical advice, but i reduced my tinnitus symptoms by ~90% by taking therapeutic doses (1200-1800mg/day) of benfotiamine (fat soluble form of vitamin b1) over the course of a month and a half.

i was taking it for unrelated nerve pain and was very surprised that my sense of smell and hearing also remarkably improved, to the point where i needed to reduce the long standing 'known' audio levels of all my various listening gadgets a few clicks. the ringing was a little worse for the first couple weeks, but then reduced a couple more weeks, then almost completely stopped 1 day.

from what i gather, high doses of the fat soluble form of vitamin b1 can repair nerves and is used as first line therapy in some countries for neuropathy, chronic pain and even alzheimers.

i'm sure it won't help everyone, i can't even find any solid research on tinnitus and benfotiamine, but putting this out in the ether since it is a cheap and relatively safe thing to try, i was completely surprised by this nice off-label side effect (it did help with my nerve pain as well). there is much more research based evidence on benfotiamine therapy for other nerve problems, and it follows that hearing and smell would also be affected, it's all nerves, good luck

edit * adding if you are taking high doses of benfotiamine, you should also be taking magnesium with it, i just took zma (zinc, magnesium and b6) at bedtime *

cyberpunk 5 hours ago

Absolutely anecdotal, but my left ear tinnitus recently cleared up and ive been taking a b complex for a couple of weeks for unrelated reasons... Wild.

OutOfHere 5 hours ago

Even 80 mg of benfotiamine a day is too potent for me, giving me anxiety. 40 mg is more tolerable. I do take plenty of magnesium, zinc, and P5P. Be careful taking the basic non-P5P form of B6 because it risks causing serious neuropathy in the long term. Benfotiamine is more for managing damage from high glucose. I acknowledge your experience, but if your nerve damage is not from metabolic concerns, I am skeptical.

Why not use lipothiamine or occasionally sulbutiamine instead for this purpose?

  • mrblah 3 hours ago

    the older i get, and more in tune with my body i become, the more i'm thinking everything is connected to metabolism... it is, after all, the primary thing life does as it relates to energy. the b vitamins, and specifically b1 is a precursor/cofactor in almost every metabolic pathway. i only high dosed it for a couple months, just taking 150mg with ala daily now, but my tinnitus that i've had for 20 years is gone unless it gets triggered by movie or video game sound design during explosion or gun fight scenes (ugh)