Is Alcohol a Viable Tinnitus Treatment?
There’s a controversy out there on the subject of alcohol and tinnitus. While many people believe that drinking and ringing ears go hand in hand, some people claim that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol actually helps with their tinnitus. They’re both right. Keep reading to find out how this is possible.
You may have heard that drinking a little alcohol reduces tinnitus symptoms in some people. Perhaps you were under the impression that drinking a little alcohol could worsen your tinnitus symptoms. Surprisingly, both those reports are correct.
In 1995, the Welsh Hearing Institure decided to find out the truth of the matter. The results of their study weren’t easy to interpret. Why? 22% of the people in the study found that drinking increased their tinnitus. 16% found that drinking reduced their tinnitus. The other 62% reported no effect. What does this tell us?
This tells us firstly that consuming a small amount of alcohol is unlikely to affect your tinnitus. If moderate drinking does affect us, the effect is about as likely to be bad as good. We haven’t seen any definitive studies on the reasons for these effects, but here’s what seems to be happening. The people who benefited from a little alcohol were probably the most stressed out people in the study. Modest alcohol consumption can reduce your level of stress, which would likely reduce the amount of tinnitus.
We don’t have a good theory for why moderate alcohol consumption would increase tinnitus. One possibility is that alcohol does seem to act as a stimulant for some people. And some people find that stimulants increase the ringing in their ears (perhaps because of the constricted blood vessels and higher blood pressure that stimulants trigger).
Heavy drinking, on the other hand, will almost surely increase tinnitus. The dehydration, headaches, and overall physiological damage caused by heavy drinking are almost guaranteed to worsen tinnitus.
Is Alcohol Good Or Bad For Your Ringing Ears?
It is relatively easy to figure out whether alcohol increases or decreases your tinnitus symptoms. But first, let me make this clear: I do not advocate you starting to drink in an attempt to treat your tinnitus! But if you already drink, we can do an experiment to discover whether or not the way you drink now in any way contributes to your hearing issues.
Finding out is easy. Just pay attention to the ringing in ears you hear and take some notes. The next several times you have alcoholic beverages, pay attention to the level of your tinnitus before and after you drink, and record whether it increases or decreases.
Next, if you’re feeling up to it, stop drinking altogether for a couple of weeks and make note of your general level of tinnitus. Between them, these experiments will teach you everything you need to decide whether there is an alcohol and tinnitus connection for you.
If you want to learn more about how what you put into your body affects your tinnitus, and about a holistic plan that addresses all the issues on the way to a tinnitus cure, click here.
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