The first line of natural therapy for acoustic trauma is immediate cessation of consumption of foods with added salt. In the 1990's, Japanese researchers learned that the commonly prescribed diuretic Lasix (furosemide) in combination with vitamin therapy greatly enhanced the chances of recovery if treatment was begun within four weeks of injury.
You could, of course, ask your physician for a prescription. Lasix is extremely inexpensive (approximately US $0.10 per dose), but you can accomplish a similar effect by completely avoiding pickles, canned or processed foods, smoked meats, luncheon meats, and any other foods with a high-sodium content immediately after exposure to loud noise and for at least two months. Especially if your doctor gives you steroid treatment, you can accelerate healing by avoiding all sources of sodium and by increasing your consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables eaten raw or cooked with salt.
The body needs manganese and zinc to make superoxide dismutase, a free radical fighter that is particularly stressed during steroid treatment. There is no specific evidence that these two minerals heals acoustic trauma, but they are inexpensive and free of side effects and likely to be supportive of recovery.
Vitamin A in very high doses for very short periods sometimes can greatly improve hearing loss. A Swiss study in 1952 found that survivors of explosions sometimes regained hearing after treatment with 300,000 IU of vitamin A per week for 6 weeks. The effect of the vitamin was greatest for people whose acoustic trauma was the most recent. Vitamin A helped recover the ability to hear high pitches more than it helped recover the ability to hear low intensity sounds, such as whispers.
The drawback to using vitamin A as a supplement is that a dose that is big enough to help heal acoustic trauma is big enough to cause side effects. Problems from using even up to 300,000 IU of vitamin A per day (nearly 7 times as much as was used in the Swiss study) are rare, but they are significant.
The first signs of vitamin A overdose are dry skin and chapped lips, especially in dry weather. Later signs of toxicity are headache, mood swings, and pain in muscles and joints. In massive doses, vitamin A can cause liver damage. In the first 3 months of pregnancy, it can cause birth defects. Women who are or who could become pregnant should strictly limit their intake of vitamin A to 5,000 IU per day or less. Discontinue vitamin A at the first sign of toxicity, and do not use it for longer than the recommended 6 weeks.
A study by the Israeli Army found that about half of 86 soldiers who suffered hearing loss related to acoustic trauma were deficient in vitamin B12 at the time of the injury. (The study also found that about a quarter of soldiers who do not have hearing loss suffer vitamin B12 deficiency.) The researchers concluded there is a relationship between vitamin B12 deficiency and dysfunction of the auditory pathway. Some of the soldiers given vitamin B12 supplements regained some of their hearing.
The people who are most likely to be deficient in vitamin B12 are vegetarians who take either antibiotics or any kind of medication for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) on a regular basis. Vitamin B12 is nontoxic even when it is taken in a dosage 1,000 times greater than the RDA.
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with chronic hearing loss. It will not have a dramatic healing effect on acoustic trauma, but it supports general health and may be helpful to recovery.
Vitamin E is an important cofactor for vitamin A. In laboratory studies with animals, the amount of vitamin A in the bloodstream stays low regardless of intake until vitamin E levels are normalized. Vitamin E supplementation is useful even if you don't take vitamin A, since it complements the vitamin A available from the diet. The very low dosage of vitamin E recommended here is just enough to activate the vitamin A needed for treating acoustic trauma. It will not hurt you to take up to 10 times more.
There is some ambivalence in the medical literature concerning the efficacy of ginkgo in treating acoustic trauma. An often-cited experiment with guinea pigs found that ginkgo reduces noise-related hearing loss only when it is given intravenously, but this study only tracked ginkgo's effects on the animals for 3-1/2 hours.
Another study found positive benefits of ginkgo in treating laboratory rats. A clinical study with human volunteers in Switzerland found considerable benefit in the emergency treatment of acoustic trauma with injections of ginkgo, but this treatment program also used repeated treatments in a hyperbaric (high pressure) oxygen chamber and prednisone shots. Low doses of ginkgo do not help problems related to acoustic trauma. You probably need to take 240 mg of ginkgo a day to get any benefit at all.
A beneficial effect of ginkgo that just beginning to be confirmed in the scientific literature is relief from the fear-response of startling loud sounds, although this effect has only been confirmed in animal studies.
Like vitamin E, ginkgo also can increase the risk of bleeding or bruising if you take the blood thinners warfarin (Coumadin), clopidogrel (Plavix), or aspirin. If bruising or bleeding occur, stop taking ginkgo immediately. Don't take more than 240 mg a day, because high dosages of ginkgo can cause nausea, diarrhea, stomach cramps, or headaches in some individuals.
Read about Natural Noise Protection and When You Need to See a Doctor Noise & Hearing Loss. Robert Rister is the author or co-author of nine books on natural health including the critically acclaimed Complete German Commission E Monographs and Healing without Medication.
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