TCM health tips for tinnitus

There is no universal "secret recipe" that can cure all tinnitus in traditional Chinese medicine. There is only one core logic for effective treatment - first distinguish the type of tinnitus through syndrome differentiation, and then apply medicine + care accordingly. 90% of mild tinnitus within 3 months of onset can be significantly relieved or even disappeared through this method.

Not long ago, I met 52-year-old Aunt Zhang at a community free clinic. She always wears headphones when dancing in the square. When she comes back, she always seems to have a cicada hidden in her ears, and she is so noisy that she can't sleep all night. She heard people said that tinnitus was due to kidney deficiency, so she bought two bottles of Liuwei Dihuang Pills and took them for half a month, but they didn't help at all. Instead, she got angry and had toothache. I took a look at her. The tip of her tongue was red and the tongue coating was thin and yellow. It was obvious that the ear openings were blocked by wind and heat. I prescribed 3 doses of Sangju Yin plus 9 grams of Acorus. After drinking it, I came back for a follow-up consultation. She said that the cicada chirping had basically disappeared, except for the occasional two chirps when she was tired. I also gave her a tea substitute of chrysanthemum and mint. After drinking it for a week, she was completely fine.

Many people's impression of TCM tinnitus treatment is still that "the kidneys open to the ears". When tinnitus occurs, they rush to take kidney-tonifying foods. This is actually a narrow understanding of the words of their ancestors. Currently, there are two mainstream ideas in treating tinnitus in the traditional Chinese medicine community: one adheres to the classics and believes that long-term tinnitus is associated with deficiency, especially chronic tinnitus in middle-aged and elderly people, which is mostly related to insufficient kidney essence. ； The other school was explored by modern otolaryngology traditional Chinese medicine, which believes that "the ear is the gathering point of the ancestral veins." Problems with the internal organs may be reflected in the ears. If the liver fire rushes upward, the spleen and stomach clear yang cannot rise, or the wind-heat blocks the orifices, it will cause tinnitus. We cannot just focus on the kidneys for treatment. I have been in clinical practice for almost ten years, but I feel that the latter idea is more in line with the current situation of people - there are not so many people nowadays who have pure kidney deficiency. Most of them are caused by liver fire caused by staying up late, phlegm and dampness accumulated by sitting for a long time and being lazy, spleen and stomach damaged by eating and drinking, and the resulting tinnitus.

Let’s talk about the most common type of kidney essence deficiency first. This kind of tinnitus is generally not loud, like mosquitoes hiding in the ears and buzzing. Covering the ears with your hands will reduce the sound. Usually, the back is always sore, and it is easy to sweat when sleeping at night. Young people mostly stay up too late and have disordered work and rest. Most elderly people have normal functional deterioration. In this case, the over-the-counter medicine Zuo Ci Wan for Deafness can treat the symptoms. I am used to giving people a small supplement: chew 3 walnuts with skin + 15 grams of fried black sesame seeds every night. Don't add sugar, just chew them dry. There used to be a 70-year-old man who suffered from tinnitus for half a year and insisted on taking it for one and a half months. He said that now it only rings occasionally when it is particularly quiet, and it does not affect his sleep at all. If you want faster results, use 12 grams of Rehmannia glutinosa, 9 grams of Cornus officinalis, 3 grams of magnetite (fried for half an hour first), and 3 grams of Acorus calamus. Boil water and drink it. You will feel obvious changes in a week.

Let’s talk about the most common type of anger-related disturbances among young people nowadays. This kind of tinnitus sounds very loud, like a train rumbling or a strong wind blowing in the ears. It gets worse when you are angry or stays up late. Usually, you always have a bitter mouth, a short temper, and you have a lot of eye mucus in the morning. Many people take kidney-tonifying pills blindly in this situation, which really adds fuel to the fire. I met a 28-year-old programmer who started having tinnitus after an argument with his boss. He took Liuwei Dihuang Pills for half a month, and the noise was so loud that he couldn't even hear his colleagues talking at work. There is no need to take complicated medicine for this kind of mild disease. Use 10 grams of chrysanthemum, 6 grams of Prunella vulgaris, and 9 grams of raw white peony root. Drink it in hot water every day without adding rock sugar. It will usually be mild in 3 to 5 days. If the symptoms are particularly severe, you can take Longdan Xiegan Pills for two days. Remember to take it for a maximum of 3 days. Do not take it for a long time, as it will hurt the spleen and stomach.

There is also a type of spleen and stomach qi deficiency that many elderly people and young girls who are always on a diet are prone to suffer from. The typical symptoms are that the tinnitus gets worse after eating or when tired, and the stomach is bloated, there is no appetite, and the stool is loose. In this case, replenishing the kidneys will not work at all. You have to replenish the spleen and stomach and raise the qing yang. Li Dongyuan's Yiqi Smart Decoction is particularly suitable for the disease. When I prescribe this prescription, I usually add 10 grams of fried malt. It tastes like wheat, not so bitter, and can be tolerated by the elderly and children. In order to lose weight, there was a little girl who did not eat staple food for 3 months. She suffered from tinnitus for two months. She took 7 doses of this prescription and she was cured. I asked her to go back and eat well and not lose weight randomly, and she has not done it until now.

Speaking of this, someone must have asked, are acupuncture and Tiangu methods useful? There are indeed different opinions in this industry. Some people say that acupuncture is effective in treating tinnitus, while others say it is completely useless. My own experience is that it depends on the course of the disease: for acute tinnitus (with onset of less than 1 month), many people will see significant improvement after acupuncture at Ermen, Tinggong, and Zhongzhu acupoints two or three times. For chronic tinnitus that has lasted for five, six, or more than ten years, acupuncture can at best help you relieve some of the symptoms. It is difficult to completely eliminate it. Don’t believe in the gimmick of “one-time treatment”. There is also Ming Tiangu. Many people do it incorrectly and it is in vain: completely cover the ears with the palms, put the fingers on the Jade Pillow point on the back of the head, press the index finger on the middle finger and flick it downwards, 36 times each time. The best effect is to do it when you just wake up in the morning. Sometimes I stay up all night writing medical records, and my ears buzz the next day. Just do it for two days, which is faster than drinking medicine.

After all, everyone is looking for the so-called "secret recipe" just because they want to save some trouble, don't want to go to the hospital, and don't want to spend time identifying symptoms. But to be honest, the secret recipe of traditional Chinese medicine has never been the piece of paper with a fixed dose written on it. It is a magic recipe that suits your own problems and is suitable for others. If you put it on you, it may be poison. If your tinnitus has not gone away for more than a week, or is even accompanied by hearing loss and dizziness, don’t blindly try medicine on your own. Go to a regular hospital to check for organic problems first, and then seek professional TCM syndrome differentiation and conditioning, which is more reliable than anything else.