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Pulsatile tinnitus
Have posted question below as couldn’t get rid of quote box!! It’s gone now so this makes me look a bit mad/incompetent 🤣
Pulsatile tinnitus (pulse beating loudly in ears) was one of my vA toxicity symptoms from when I was inadvertently poisoning myself with supplements. It went away when I went low A. Then when I hit a detox setback cycle it came back. This is the one symptom I haven’t got rid of with increasing Bs in the diet & avoiding things that slow down the DH enzyme system. I don’t have it all the time - it comes & goes - but I can’t seem to work out why. I’m just wondering if anyone has any experience of this symptom & possible causes/cures? Someone elsewhere mentioned potassium but when I drink coconut water it gets markedly worse! Thanks 😊
@jaj haha that’s happened to me before, too. 😂
A pubmed search reveals that the regular type of tinnitus (not sure how closely the causes are related to the pulsatile type) has a possible connection to low B12 levels—are you taking that at all? What about selenium and molybdenum:
That site also suggests that if you’re not eating eggs, biotin deficiency can be a problem (apparently biotin is pretty important for the health of the brain—I’ve posted some links about that here: https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/repairing-white-matter-of-the-brain/)
How long have you been taking the Bs?
Thanks very much @puddleduck that has given me some food for thought.
My B supplementation has been intermittent as I keep worrying about causing more problems. I supplemented with benfotiamine & got weird symptoms that I now think was maybe an oxalate dump. I’ve been following a Facebook B6 toxicity group & have got nervous of that too! Ever since poisoning myself with retinyl palmitate I’ve been very wary of supplements. I think they are very important if used correctly but it’s very hard to determine what ‘correctly’ is for each individual. Food is safer but slower & probably not enough for some people. Bit of a minefield!
I have been supplementing minerals as I know some were low on my hair test.
The biotin suggestion is very interesting as I had completely stopped eating eggs. I’ve re-introduced them intermittently so this could be another variable. My finger nails have been terrible since going low A & I’d wondered about biotin deficiency for this. I’ve ordered a Desert Harvest Bs without B6 which has biotin, B12 etc so I will try this mix I think.
Really appreciate your suggestions. Thanks.
Hi JAJ,
I've had my fair share of pulsatile tinnitus. I don't have any definitive answers, but I did notice it becomes worse with more salt and to a lesser degree simply after eating. Before learning about VA, I suspected this was due to high intracranial pressure. It is not uncommon for high intracranial pressure to occur alongside of dysautonomia and mast cell activation symptoms, especially in connection with EDS ( Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome ). I have a POTS diagnosis and seem to have some mast cell activation symptoms including dermatographia and a sensitivity to histamines in food. So even though I don't have EDS, I suspected I had high intracranial pressure based on these associations.
The good news is I haven't had any pulsatile tinnitus in 6 months or so. I now attribute this improvement to being on the carnivore diet for a year and a half. I really didn't see any improvement in this symptom until I removed liver and dairy from my diet too. So now I pretty much just eat fatty steak. I didn't know it at the time, but this is an extremely low VA diet. Once I heard about Grant's ideas, I suspected it was actually VA toxicity which leads to the high intracranial pressure which was in turn responsible for a number of my symptoms - headache, pulsatile tinnitus, regular tinnitus, and noise hypersensitivity to name a few.
Hope this helps.
Hi JAJ,
I have regular tinnitus, and I'm going to have to observe whether I have this other kind.
Interesting about the coconut water!
Here at 9+ months, I've had good reductions on my cranial pressure but still have tinnitus. I also want to say that it sometimes seems like travel brings on more tinnitus. (inner ear gets upset?)
I'm going to bet that something else is going on--not just cranial pressure. Like vitamin A messing with the inner ear directly? Or somesuch.
In my case, first months tinnitus goes away, then came back for many months up to a year on strictly VA diet.
After 13 months, tinnitus was definitively healed.
Now i'm 18 months on VA diet, very low VA diet.
Five years "Ray Peat diet" and vit. A supplement caused me a strong tinnitus, especially at night when I went to sleep, pulsatile tinnitus, heartbeat in right ears.
Thanks to everyone who commented on this post - I really appreciate it. It’s very reassuring to hear that it’s gone away for some people.
@billc I now realise that I also get pulse tinnitus after eating food but I get it at other times too. I’ve suspected that it might reflect an increase of vA in the body (blood). I’ve been low-moderate vA for over a year but I think the carnivore diet is really low vA.
I need to work out why my vA levels (in the blood) are not as low as they should be. When I was abusing my ALDH enzymes (sulphur, alcohol, fructose etc) I had an increased problem with this symptom but I’m no longer doing this. I now suspect anxiety might be my problem. Stress is meant to cause vA dumping & I suspect this is happening to me. I’ve noticed the pulse tinnitus coming on when I feel most anxious. I think I need to focus on this now to see if I can calm my system down.
I think that stress & vitamin A toxicity have a number of links that have not yet been fully looked at (to my knowledge). I have a theory that vitamin A toxicity can be a factor driving limbic system dysfunction maybe via mitochondria & the CDR (cell danger response). Only a theory. Limbic dysfunction is thought by many to be behind some anxiety disorders, multiple chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue syndrome, PTSD etc. You can see how someone could end up in a vicious cycle.
This might be completely off base as I have no experience of pulsatile tinnitus but when reading all the posts it occured to me that both eating and stress increase heart rate.
I used to wear a heart rate monitor as part of my stratagy to control my POTS. I noticed how much stress impacted my heart rate. It is also a normal physiological response for heart rate to increase when eating.
Is it possible that the increase in tinitus after eating and when stressed is simply due to increased heart rate? I was thinking that if you exercise and really get your heart going you can feel and hear it. What I'm getting at is does the tinitus increase with the rate and strength of your pulse? Like turning up the volume. If so this could simply be a physiological response and not directly related to VA. Just a thought.
Interesting points re Limbic dysfunction and cell danger response. I've been avoiding looking into those as I don't want to scare myself but I do stuggle with those conditions you listed. Would be nice if VA is a driving factor since that is something I can do something about, even if it is slow going.
That’s a very interesting point @rachel. It seems that high vA pushes the body nearer its threshold for pulsatile tinnitus but something else tips it over into symptoms & as you mention it could be heart rate increase.
So far ideas I’m thinking about (after all these useful posts - thank you):
1. Seems quite clear that pulsatile tinnitus is related to vA toxicity as people are finding it going away on low vA diets. Mine started when I was inadvertently poisoning myself with too much vA & went away as soon as I lowered vA. This seems to be due to increased intracranial pressure which is associated with vA toxicity.
2. Mine came back for the first time after acute stress (Mum’s funeral) 5 months in to my vA detox. It then really became a regular problem after an Alpine holiday 11 month’s into detox. Holiday was energetic, sometimes stressful, sunny, I drank alcohol, swan in cold lakes, ate things I don’t normally so I call it my agitating Alpine holiday - probably caused a dump of vA & slowed ALDH & probably B vitamin deficiencies etc. It has never really gone away 100% since then even though I’ve tried to address all the issues I thought had caused vA detox problems.
3. The one thing I haven’t got a grip on is anxiety so I’m suspicious that this is keeping my vA levels higher than they should be & pushing me nearer the threshold for pulsatile tinnitus.
4. While I’m nearer this ‘threshold’ than I want to be, things that seem to bring it on are eating, particularly salty foods I think (as @billc suggested), acute anxiety & rapid change of position (eg standing up quickly). These could all increase heart rate. This could be the link between all these triggers - thank you Rachel 😀
5. Things I’m trying are: cutting down on particularly salty foods & I’ve wondered whether anxiety has lowered my magnesium (getting twitchy eye) so I’m focusing on bringing that up too. I’m also looking at B vitamins as suggested by @puddleduck as I wonder if biotin is a problem for me. I’m also doing the increased bean protocol to make sure metabolised vA in bile is leaving the body & not recycling.
6. I think my main focus has to be on addressing my anxiety as this could be causing multiple problems. For this I’ve bought the DNRS programme to retrain the limbic system out of a negative loop based on neuroplasticity. Sounds leftfield but I’ve been researching this area for years & did a degree in psychology when I was bringing up my children & I think it’s sound. I shall let you all know in case anyone else is troubled by anxiety that gets out of control & becomes illogical (it also addresses many other limbic system problems as mentioned above). Work in progress 😀
Any other suggestions very welcome as the return of this symptom is truely driving me nuts & worrying me too & causing anxiety.....and so the loop continues 🤣