24Mar 2013 by Marjorie 4 Comments

GABA, GABA, GABA, hey the ringing’s not so bad anymore

supplements
In this 2011 post I referred to a ScienceDaily report linking low GABA levels and tinnitus. Since then I've used GABA for nine months or so? in two different formulations, but for sleep issues, not specifically for ear ringing. In fact I kind of forgot about the tinnitus thing. But now I can share the following. The first day I tried plain old GABA, in maybe a 1,000 mg dose -- I don't piddle around -- the ringing cut out completely, with a sort of wwwwwOP! sensation, for about a minute. It does that every 18 months or so anyway, but still. The straight GABA made me sleepy but, as I mentioned here, made it hard to breathe. (Now I'm wondering if this was because I wasn't taking it with…
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27Nov 2012 by Marjorie 4 Comments

GABA as a painkiller

supplements
Last year I wrote about the abdominal pain that started in 2008 and was a mystery to a dozen doctors. I finally learned to stave off the worst of it by eating small meals, avoiding starches, and not eating after 6 p.m. Eventually things improved and I was able to eat later and later in the evening and a little more at each meal, as long as no potatoes were involved. However, sometimes a girl needs to go out on the town like a normal person and have an all-American meal of hamburger, fries, and brandy sidecar. Which I did last week and which brought back the old discomfort. That night I happened to take more GABA Calm* than usual -- 4 tablets instead of 3, for a total of…
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21Jun 2012 by Marjorie 6 Comments

Conditions to consider if you’ve been mysteriously sub-par for a long time

diagnosis and testing, health reference and research tools
Updated August 14, 2017. Here's a list of conditions I've investigated over the years as I tried to solve my health problems. You've no doubt heard of some of them but might think the symptoms don't apply to you, or might have been given the wrong test or had your test results evaluated with the wrong lab ranges. All but two of the items listed (Lyme disease and mold / biotoxin poisoning) have the benefit of being easy (if not cheap) to test for or at least rule out. You cannot trust your doctor to know the right lab ranges, so if you do have tests taken, make sure you arrange to have copies of the test results sent to you. I can't be the only person who had a…
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18Sep 2011 by Marjorie 3 Comments

Tinnitus: a product of low GABA?

symptoms and conditions
Updated June 21, 2013 According to this ScienceDaily article on a new study about tinnitus, when a hair cell is damaged or dies, the neurons usually receiving input from it keep firing anyway, even though there's no data coming in. They "become more excitable and fire spontaneously," as if they have a quota to fill. Thus the constant ringing. The study in question showed that "tinnitus is correlated with lower levels of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)." GABA supplements are available over the counter, but this article implies that drugs to raise GABA in humans are not available, which is confusing. Anyway, I've put it on my list of things to try. Update: See my March 24, 2013 post for results of my experiments with this. As to my…
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