2 Months In, the Worst Seems to Be Over

[SoundB0und]

Hello people of tinnitustalk.

I have had tinnitus since about 7 years ago, but it wasn't much of a hindrance up unti 2 months ago. I'm unfortunately not one of those people who was really careful with his ears and wore ear protection and avoided listening to music too loud. I think what also exacerbated my situation was staying on Wellbutrin, an antidepressant know for its ototoxicity, for many years. I am off of it now for 2 months.

Before the spike I had 2 months ago, I didn't have noticeable hyperacusis and I didn't think much about my tinnitus, though I was much more careful and hand't used earphones anymore for about 6 months. What happened 2 months ago was I got on a very new drug, I was the first person in my country to get on this drug. Even though my doctor said that it's impossible for the drug the be the cause if my tinnitus, or that even that group of drugs should not cause it, once I started to come off the drug it got gradually better and every day after taking the drug, my tinnitus would spike badly.

Rather than the drug causing my tinnitus, I think it was an interaction with Wellbutrin, because I have read one instance online of a person having tinnitus when mixing Wellbutrin and that particular drug. That drug is still very new and not many people have reported side-effects with it. I am now off both of those drugs, and my tinnitus has improved quite a bit, but its nowhere near as good as it was before I got on the new drug. I also fell ill with a cold about the same time and had an infection, which definitely made things worse. At the moment it's fluctuating quite a bit during the day, sometimes totally manageable sometimes intrusive.

My tinnitus was extremely loud after I got on the new drug and got on the target dose, it was about 4-5 different tones screaming away all day, I never imagined anybody could even have tinnitus that loud. At first, I was up 2 nights in a row while taking relatively strong sleep medication, it was hellish, I thought there's a good chance I'd die. Now it's about 25 percent of what it was during those days, it was so loud at first that even though it has gotten much better, its still bothersome. The hyperacusis has improved a lot as well, even running water in the sink and shaking a pill bottle used to be painful, those things are not painful anymore.

My plan is to try LLLT with a device I'm going to buy from Konftec in the upcoming days. I have researched about LLLT a bit and even though I'm not expecitng a miracle, I really want to try it, otherwise I'd be wondering "what if?" for years. I have been also sleeping with a white noise machine on every night, after I started doing that a month ago my hyperacusis got better, but it doesnt really mask the tinnitus or even lower it for me for some reason.

I tried signing up for this forum for weeks, but was unable to. I got a notification that my sign up resembled spam and I had no idea why. I tried different usernames, emails, deleting cookies even tried a different IP as a last resort, but it still gave me the notification. Nobody answered my inquiry about why that was the case, I guess beacuse there's a lot of spam registrations.

Thanks for reading.

 

[dnl]

I'm glad you've seen improvement in your tinnitus.
How long were you on Wellbutrin, and at what dose?
What type of drug is the new drug that you are on (antidepressant/anti inflammatory/etc)?
I'm interested, because the onset of my tinnitus is correlated with having taken an increased dosage of Wellbutrin (300mg XL). Like you, I wasn't really careful with my ears when I was young, so I have very minor hearing loss in the upper ranges, which may factor into my having tinnitus.
I know it's rough, but I'd talk to your doctor before trying any alternative therapies.
Hang in there... it could get better still. If your tinnitus is fluctuating, that could mean that it might get better.

 

[SoundB0und]

Thanks. I was on Wellbutrin for over 5 years. Most of the gains I've made have been within the past 1.5 to 2 weeks, before that it was quite bad. I should have quit the Wellbutrin sooner, but the tinnitus wasn't too bothersome and SSRIs, though they didn't give me tinnitus, were really bad side-effect wise. I was really depressed before antidepressants, but now being off it for some time I haven't gotten depressed luckily, I'd attribute that to the lifestyle changes I have made within the past few years. I was on 150mg XL, never tried other doses. The new drug was actually an antipsychotic. My hearing loss is in the upper ranges as well. I'm going to see my psychiatrist tomorrow and I'm going to talk to her about it(LLLT), but I doubt she'll know much about it, even though she's very knowledgeable in general medicine. Does your T also spike much more easily from "synthetic" sounds(speakers) than from natural sounds?

Edit: I went to your profile and saw that you mentioned using Ketoconazole shampoo in one of your posts. I was actually using a Ketoconazole shampoo also for about 2 years, it also had saw palmetto in it and many other ingredients. I didn't think it had a correlation with my tinnitus, I quit it very close to the time the tinnitus spike happened. Maybe it also played a part, who knows, but I would guess probably not.

 

[dnl]

Yeah, I guess some people are just sensitive to SSRI's, I'm pretty disappointed that I'm in that small percentage.
That's great that you've made lifestyle changes and they have helped with your depression. I'm working on doing the same.
It's hard to pin down what has caused my spikes over the last four months. I think I've only had 2 significant spikes. One was probably related to a head-cold. The other may have been allergies.

I found a case pretty similar to mine on another message board:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/tinnitussupport92262/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15585&p=15242#p15242

In a later post, the author talks about how his tinnitus spikes when he watches TV, but I think at that point he was a few years into having tinnitus. I haven't noticed that mine spikes when I'm around synthetic noises, but it may if I listen closely. I've always been very sensitive to electronic sounds and buzzing.
I don't think topical Ketoconazole is related to my tinnitus. Not 100% sure, but the timeline of my use of the shampoo doesn't really match up where I it would be a causal factor. Good luck with your recovery and re-habituation.

 

[SoundB0und]

I've been putting off ordering the Konftec device because of the price but think I had a spike today, might be temporary but I don't want to risk it, so I'm gonna buy it I think. I want to have all bases covered. My tinnitus was great before the spike, almost only 2x of that of what it was before my ototoxic reaction. I've been using many things: notched white noise and music, Coenzymated B1, the Tone pills(I made a post in its thread about it), lots of antioxidants etc.

It was a gokart somebody rode about 6 meters from me, without a muffler(the guy is crazy he's gonna ruin his hearing, at about 40 he should be smarter), really loud. It was unexpected. The good thing was it was trough an open window passing by so maybe not as bad as on the street. I have some ear pain and fullness but nothing terrible, it's been a few hours since it happened and my T is only 2-3x of the baseline I achieved. It wasn't super painful when it happened. So those things are good. I knew about the fact that the LLLT works better if you do it soon but still avoided it because I'm low on cash and I was making lots of progress. Hopefully it's worth the 700 euros plus taxes and I can get back to the baseline I achieved before.

Hope you are good, @dnl , thanks for the link and good luck with your recovery as well. I know antipsychotics can raise antidepressant levels so maybe that's what happened to me when I got on the brand new antipsychotic. I'm debating taking the antipsychotic again in a few months, low dose, and see what happens, because the effect was that good on me in terms of my other illness, but it would be a huge gamble. I feel like getting bad tinnitus wasn't as bad for me because I have already been trough so much with my psychotic disorder, so it was like I had "already done it" once.

 

[Bobby B]

If your low on cash dont buy a a laser unit get a led much cheaper and far more powerful

 

[SoundB0und]

Thank you for your reply and suggestion. I'd rather use the lazer for 2 reasons. It's got a better track record in terms of how many people have used it and say its safe. The second reason is my eyes are really sensitive to light, I get a photosensitive reaction really easily, and I'd want the probes to go into my ear. Knowing how clumsy I am I'd get the light from the LED into my eye probably often enough for me not wanting to risk it.

I just sent the money for a Konftec lazer that has 2 wavelengths. I've been quite lucky with treatments in general, in that they usually work well for me, though I do get side-effects quite often as well.

 

[crd3]

I have tinnitus from acoustic trauma (musician) which I've had for at least two years. Recently my doctor prescribed me Wellbutrin to help manage my ADHD (which I've had since always, but never got on treatment until I became concerned it was inhibiting my ability to drive safely). I did 150 mg for 10 days, then ramped it up to 300 as the doctor said, but about 3-4 days after doing that, I noticed my T seemed louder; I could hear it at work in my office, which I normally can't over the computer noises or the humming ceiling light. I thought maybe it was a temporary spike, or maybe the stimulating qualities of the drug were making me more aware of it. I kept taking the 300 for about 10 more days until I accidentally skipped two doses (slept in; I'm not supposed to take it after 10 am). The next couple days I absolutely did not notice the T at work at all. Now, a week later after restarting the Wellbutrin, I think I can confidently say that it is amplifying my T; whether it's actually damaging my ears further or it's just making my brain more active in general, I can't really say, but there is a definite correlation. I'm really frustrated because I really wanted this drug to work for me.

So that's my story. Now for the question: when you stopped taking Wellbutrin, did you wane yourself off or go cold turkey?

 

[SoundB0und]

I quit cold turkey, but I was on only 150 mg. The thing with the pills I was on was that they have a built in extended release mechanism, you're not supposed to break them because you'd break the mechanism. So even though I was on the pills for over 6 years, I had to quit them like that. Wellbutrin(or Elontril as it's called here) doesn't really have the withdrawals like the SSRIs have, I can't even say I felt much withdrawals and I was on it for a long time.

I think you should ask your doctor but I think because you've only been on it for a short amount of time, you could cold turkey the 300, that's what I'd do, because of risk of damaging your ears further with every dose.

 

[crd3]

Ok. I regret not stopping sooner, but I had to make sure that it was in fact the drug causing the spike. I don't want to give up too hastily on something that could've really helped me.

 

[dnl]

@crd3 I quit Wellbutrin cold turkey also. My doc recommended that I stop immediately. I had only been on 300mg XL for 2 days at that point and 150mg XL for 4 weeks prior to that. So, my total time on the drug was pretty short. I would ask your doctor to be sure..
Anecdotally, I noticed a gradual drop in volume a few weeks after I quit. I have continued to have spikes on and off for the past 6 months (usually related to head colds). Now the level seems to have settled in at a 3 or 4 on a scale from 1 to 10. I'm hoping it gets better.

I didn't have tinnitus prior to the Wellbutrin, but had slight hearing loss in the upper ranges due to being in a band a long time ago. My ENT thinks that the Wellbutrin has likely caused permanent or long term tinnitus for me.

Wellbutrin was helpful to me while I was on it, and I was disappointed to have to quit the drug, but tinnitus can be brutal and is not worth it.

Hang in there. Everyone is different. Things can get better. I recommend reducing alcohol and caffeine, minimizing headphone use (or just use at low volume), exercising and getting a good amount of sleep. I've noticed that those things have been correlated with good days and recovery/habituation for me.

I've been updating my status over the past 6 months in this thread:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-from-wellbutrin.25849/#post-339697

 

[SoundB0und]

I thought I'd give an update. It's now been 6 months since I got my T and it's been quite a ride. By now I'm starting to forget what really intrusive tinnitus sounded/felt like. Which I'm glad about. Most of the day I don't notice it anymore, like a third of the day it's really quiet almost at the level I had before the spike.

I believe I had a really bad case. At my worst reading a book was out of the question. It was maddeningly loud, I haven't posted this on the forum yet(because I didn't know, I went back and checked my records) but the audiogram I had 6 months ago showed 85 decibel hearing loss at 8kHz. I imagine it was even worse than that at the higher frequencies because I remember there being a huge dip from 7k to 8k Hz(when I was at the ENT they showed the graph and I didn't ask about specific numbers and the records online didn't have the graph only the assesment from the ENT).

They obviously didn't test higher than that nor did I know anything about hearing issues back then to get it tested at higher frequencies and I'm not sure it's even possible in my city.

My H has improved tremendously as well, that was a huge problem also. Slowly turning a pill bottle was painful and sounds from speakers were really bad. Listening to music at a volume where I could barely hear it at all over the T would spike it badly within 4 seconds or less.

I thought about posting a success story but I feel I'll still make plenty of improvements and also I want to get another audiogram for that. I'll continue using the laser for sure and take Nicotinamide Riboside if I can (been taking 7 doses of that and using the laser for nearly 3 months).

I'm glad about how I handled the whole recovery process so far and how careful I have been.

 

[SoundB0und]

Posting this here because it doesn't really warrant being posted as a success story. I had a second audiogram 2 days ago and it showed absolutely no improvement from 1 year ago, which is really baffling to me.

My hearing loss is still apparently 85 decibels at 8k Hz and my audiogram is exactly the same. There's just no way my tinnitus can be the same it was a year ago when I was being tortured every second and was up 3 nights in a row with 3x dose of sleep meds, not even close.

At times, when I get some residual inhibition, I have pretty close to silence. In the mornings when I wake up I have very good levels of tinnitus, and I'm never bothered by it anymore during the day. Most of the day I forget about it.

So I don't have concrete proof the laser has done anything but I suspect my tinnitus would be worse without it, it's just my hunch though. At least my audiogram hasn't gotten worse.

I don't think I've just habituated. Either the brain has turned down the signal by itself or the laser helped the tinnitus. I will continue to use the laser because I figure it can't hurt.