A little over six weeks ago, I began taking 120mg of ginkgo biloba twice a day. My intent was to see if it has a positive effect on short-term memory, to reduce tinnitus symptoms I had been having, and possibly prevent Accute Mountain Sickness if I hike at a high altitude. The research on ginkgo’s ability to improve memory is sketchy, but I decided to find out for myself.
About two weeks into my experiment I noticed my tinnitus problems decreasing. At six weeks, the symptoms have all but disappeared. I probably won’t be able to tell if I’ve lessened my chances for AMS, as I have a broken toe and the snows will probably come before I have a chance to hike at over 10,000 feet again.
I’m not sure if I am getting any benefit to my short-term memory. I am beginning to notice some instances this past week where I have spontaneously “reminded” myself to do things before I was supposed to do it. This isn’t exactly normal for me. Usually I go through my days experiencing incessant short-term memory lapses. I forget things all the time and it is quite frustrating. But this week, I did notice my mind reminding me to do tasks of the type that would normally be forgotten, or things that others would have to remind me to do.
Hopefully this is a positive sign that my short-term memory is receiving some benefit from taking ginkgo. However, taking ginkgo has come with a terrible cost. In my normal, pre-ginkgo mental state, I was consistently hearing music in my head. Short flashes of music appear and disappear in my mind, coming and going at random. Usually the music is comprised of songs that I have been listening to recently and this has been going on for as long as I remember. Back to my teenage years at least. After taking ginkgo for a few weeks, these musical memory flashes have increased dramatically. Now I am constantly hearing music in my head and very often it is music I don’t like. The music flashes have much more presence than before taking ginkgo.
Over the course of the last fifteen minutes, samples of these songs have played back in my head:
YMCA – The Village People
Photograph – Nickelback
The theme from “American Dad” (I like this one)
The theme from Family Guy
The theme from The Beverly Hillbillies
The Kanye West song from the Pepsi commercial
Budweiser, this is beer
Hey Baby – No Doubt
Don’t Stop – Michael Jackson
Someone To Be My Lover – Janet Jackson
A song from an early 80’s tv commercial for a game called “Simon”
Itsy Bitsy Teen Weeny -why this?
Surfin’ Bird (I like this one too)
And there are sometimes songs that I can’t even identify! These are mostly rock songs, with a four-piece band. The lyrics are unintelligible and there are too many vocal effects, like the extremely over-processed vocals Nickelback uses.
All I wanted was increased blood flow to the brain. Instead, I’ve turned my brain into a jukebox and some picnic DJ is picking out the songs!
24 Nov 2005, 12:56 am
