Cinnarizine/Stugeron

[TinniGone]

Can Cinnarizine also help if you have muffled hearing in one ear? An ENT prescribed me it for this reason and not for tinnitus, so I got a bit skeptical.

I am also on antidepressants and other drugs so I don't entertain too much the idea of taking it.

From my experience, Stugeron had no side effects with the exception of sleepiness. I took it with Xanax, multivitamins and Melatonin.

I don't think there is any downside in taking it.

 

[TinniGone]

Can Cinnarizine also help if you have muffled hearing in one ear? An ENT prescribed me it for this reason and not for tinnitus, so I got a bit skeptical.

I am also on antidepressants and other drugs so I don't entertain too much the idea of taking it.

From my experience, there's no downside in trying Cinnarizine at the doses prescribed by your doctor. The only side effect I had was sleepiness. I was taking it along with very small dosage of Xanax, multivitamin and Melatonin.

 

[StoneInFocus]

However, after the morning 2 pills I felt incredibly depressed. I read that it acts on D2 dopamine receptors, could that be the reason?

Yes, but the H1 receptor blocking properties of Cinnarizine might also have contributed.

Do keep in mind that Stugeron might have some quite nasty side effects such as causing Parkinson's (after heavy chronic use).

Nifedipine might be a safer CCB in regards to Parkinson's:

"Finally, persistent CCBIP might be due to toxicity of CNZ and FNZ on the dopaminergic system. Recently, Mena et al. showed the toxic effect of CNZ, FNZ and diltiazem (DTZ) on dopamine-rich human neuroblastoma cells in vitro; these drugs reduced the number of viable cells and levels of DNA. Interestingly, the toxic effect was limited to CNZ, FNZ and DTZ, whilst other CCBs including nicardipine and nifedipine lacked any significant toxicity in vitro."

I haven't seen any evidence yet that Nifedipine interacts with H, 5-HT or D receptors.

Interestingly enough, an in vitro study found that Nifedipine blocks ATP induced inward current in guinea pig Hensen's cells and protected against NIHL:

"ATP (0.1–10 μM) reduced the potassium current (IK+) in the majority of the recorded Hensen's cells (21 out of 25 cells). An inward current was also induced by high concentrations of ATP (100 μM to 10 mM), which was reversibly blocked by 100 μM suramin (a purinergic antagonist) and blocked by nifedipine (an L-type calcium channel blocker). After the cochleas were perfused with artificial perilymph solutions containing nifedipine and exposed to noise, the amplitude increase in the compound action potential (CAP) threshold and the reduction in cochlear microphonics was lower than when they were exposed to noise alone."

 

[StoneInFocus]

Cinnarizine has helped me with tinnitus slightly, I will probably continue to use it occasionally when my tinnitus is particularly spiked. However, my main issue is pain hyperacusis and this hasn't helped it.

What are your pain hyperacusis symptoms?

 

[StoneInFocus]

According to this well-cited paper, Cinnarizine is an histamine receptor 4 antagonist with a Ki of 142 nM, which is below "pharmacologically relevant levels (0.3–0.5 µM)."

However, there seems to be a lot of discrepancy between the Ki values reported for some antidepressants and antipsychotics in that paper and in another one. For instance, the Ki for H4 of amitriptyline is reported to be 34 nM and 26,300 nM on Wikipedia.

I couldn't find any source on the Ki for H1 of Cinnarizine except in this Australian Public Assessment Report for Cinnarizine / Dimenhydrinate. In that document, it says that the Ki for H1 is 47 nM and the Ki for H4 is 7 nM, which I believe must be taken with a grain of salt as no sources are provided.

Indeed, some authorities say it is a bad idea to be damping down your vestibular reflexes with this medication, when they are already compromised: my balance is already poor.

Who has said that?