You hear ringing -- but it's not the phone.

That buzzing? Not a bee or fly in sight.

Lying in bed, the room is completely silent...to your husband or wife, but not to you.

In your head, you hear a constant chirping, humming, and ringing -- and you feel like you're about to go insane.

The words "peace and quiet" are completely meaningless to you -- it's a feeling you simply never get to experience.

People who haven't experienced tinnitus would say it's no big deal. Just a little ringing in the ears, right? Wrong. It can absolutely ruin your life. And many doctors will tell you it's all in your head, or that they can't do anything about it -- or they'll offer up surgery and earpieces that cost an arm and a leg.

Okay, now that I've painted a pretty depressing picture of life with tinnitus, I'm going to offer something else -- a little hope.

A daily dose of 100 or 150 mg of pine bark extract (the study used a particular brand -- Pycnogenol) brought substantial relief to people suffering from mild to moderate tinnitus, as demonstrated in a four-week trial.

The results of the trial, which are published in the journal Panminerva Medica, showed that the extract improved blood flow to the ear (impaired blood flow is a common cause of tinnitus). The higher dose was more effective.

In addition to measuring blood flow, the researchers evaluated tinnitus symptoms using a Subjective Tinnitus Scale. Participants in the trial experienced a pretty impressive decrease in symptoms. The average at the start of the trial was 8.8, and by the end the group taking 100 mg dropped to 5.2...and the 150 mg group fell to a very promising 3.2. There were no changes in the control group.

So it seems pine bark could offer some pretty serious tinnitus relief. Imagine -- sweet silence!

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