Posted by bleauberry on July 27, 2008, at 17:14:43
In reply to new member - question on tinnitus, posted by ricker on July 27, 2008, at 13:39:04
Hi Rick,
Tinnitus is one of those mystery things. Some meds seem more guilty of it that others, but it is hard to reliably predict what is good or bad for someone with tinnitus.For me, things that worsen tinnitus are things that cause an increase of norepinephrine firing...like remeron. Any med that has tinnitus as a common or rare listed side effect will almost surely worsen my tinnitus. Examples, the antibiotics doxycycline and minocycline, wellbutrin, lithium. Prozac and zyprexa also did. Buspar was horrible, as its metabolite is a norepinephrine releaser. I expected depakote would have quieted things down, but it instead got louder.
Things I found good for it, during short times I used them, were xanax, klonopin, lamictal. I recall some fairly quiet times when on prozac+lamictal.
For me, things that shore up norepinephrine and maybe slow down firing seem to quiet it down significantly. One was Milnacipran. Another that worked even better was cymbalta, though I only took 5mg. The difficult thing is that with any med that proved to be helpful, they actually worsened it in the first few days or week.
Zoloft was particularly bad for my tinnitus. It was much worse, and got even worse during the 2 or 3 weeks after I got off it. Then it gradually settled back to baseline. In my experience, and based on anecdotal hints, zoloft has to be one of the worst offenders for tinnitus sufferers.
Hey, just know you aren't alone.
If it bothers you at night, do what I do and have some white noise going, such as a hummer, an AC, or a box fan. Even in the winter I sleep with the fan on, facing away of course, just for the noise.
poster:bleauberry
thread:842354
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080727/msgs/842414.html