F#$king NHS England! ENT Waiting Times

[Mathieulh]

I am not telling anyone to do anything. You have clearly not endured severe intrusive tinnitus for a sustained amount of time. When tinnitus is this severe an option is to take a benzo such as clonazepam. It helped me immensely. This is completely different from people that take benzos on a regular basis which I do not recommend.

When my tinnitus reached very severe levels back in 2010 which I have written about in my post: My Experience with tinnitus, on my "Started Threads". My ENT consultant so the distress I was on and prescribed me clonazepam. I was advised to take 2x 0.5mg tablets only when my tinnitus was severe and for a maximum of 3 days. I am immensely thankful to her because whenever I take Clonazepam it reduces my tinnitus to complete silence. I have one of the most severe forms of tinnitus, according to my ENT consultant and Hearing therapist. I ranges from: complete silence, mild, moderate, severe and can reach very severe levels.

Michael

I have had severe, debilitating tinnitus for 23 days, I know exactly how bad it can be. Even then Benzodiazepines is the last thing I would use, in fact I did use some, 3 times at low doses, with 3 days in between each intake, out of all those 23 days (until I decided it wasn't worth the risk, despite how bad my tinnitus was) because I knew how bad the side effects were and how worse tinnitus would become once I get withdrawal symptoms. Instead I moved to much less riskier relief options, such as magnesium glycinate, magnesium citrate (both are relaxants and have anxiolytic properties), curcumin (it's anti inflammatory and calms tinnitus to some degree at significant doses), NAC, Zinc (no direct effect on tinnitus but protects against noise induced spikes), Melatonin (help getting sleep), I also was on the ketogenic diet, although I started long after tinnitus, it's also anti inflammatory, which helps, since tinnitus perception is tied to the limbic system).

I was also on prednisone, which helped a bit (although I don't advise using it long term either, though it's at least nowhere as addictive as Benzodiazepines are), I only took these because I was (and still am) on the acute phase, which means prednisone could have a lasting effect on recovery.

Eventually my tinnitus subsided all the way to moderate, I eventually started HBOT and now, after my 3rd session, it's been mild all day, which is the first time that happened since I took prednisone (which I stopped at day 30th after tinnitus initial onset).

From day 1 to day 23rd, my tinnitus was a severe, very high pitched, 65 dB(ish) noise, debilitating enough that I couldn't focus enough to read more than one sentence at a time. Or reply to post (or anything else, really).

 

[TheDanishGirl]

Telling someone to use SSRI (Benzodiazepines) is the worst medical advice you can give, even for severe tinnitus.

You need to understand that those drugs become less effective after chronic use (which requires an uptake in dosages to get the same effect, which triggers dependence, that is until even the larger dose have no significant effect), this means that comes to a point, after years of intake, when you eventually have to stop taking the medication.

This is where withdrawal comes in. Benzodiazepines' (and other GABA stimulants) withdrawal effects are so severe that not only they will (with a 100% risk factor), increase your tinnitus, making it (much worse) but they will come with a plethora of other (quite serious) conditions, induced by the withdrawal symptoms (this can even include death! Go figure) a lot of which most people who tapper off the medication (stopping at once, aka cold Turkey, after years of exposure, would amount to extreme, unbearable, often irreversible, suffering).

Withdrawal effects can (depending on how long you were on the drug) and usually (in most cases, sometimes after only weeks of exposure), last for years (2 years on average, often longer). SSRI will basically mess up with your brain chemistry, inducing a lot of nasty side effects, most which would make severe tinnitus (which, by the way, is also one of those side effects) seem quite insignificant (I know that's hard to believe, but trust me (and scientific literature, and people who actually had to go through SSRI withdrawal) it's not a myth and this is no overexagerated or alarmist post, it's reality.

While the brain eventually recovers from its GABA/Glutamate imbalance (and other SSRI withdrawal related issues), it takes time, time that you would spend suffering (a lot).

Who, in his right mind, would risk that, for what would be temporary tinnitus relief? You would be essentially decreasing your perception of tinnitus for a while (weeks, months, years?), trading it for what will become years of unbearable pain, including increased perfection of your tinnitus (one of the longest withdrawal effect to go by the way, some lasting up to four years, because glutamate increase overstimulates (read, messes with) the auditory cortex (whoops!).

This usually translates (long term) into increased tinnitus loudness, more tones/frequencies/noises, increased and prolonged spikes, limbic system based tinnitus (the Tinnitus in your head rather than in the ears), bilateral tinnitus (since the auditory cortex is affected, which is why Benzodiazepines induce tinnitus to non tinnitus sufferers, you increase your chances of having tinnitus on both ears as it's no longer only an hearing loss issue).
Why would you risk any of this is beyond my understanding, I know I wouldn't.

I have to correct you on that statement. I was on benzos everyday for about 1½ years and I am off benzos for almost a year now, and my tinnitus is not any worse. I know of others who have withdrawn from benzos and not had tinnitus get worse.

The same applies for SSRI, I have withdrawn from two kinds since tinnitus onset, without any effect on tinnitus. It's simply not true that the risk factor is 100%.

Listen.......I would almost always advise against benzos, because the addiction and withdraval from them can be brutal (can! not always).

BUT if you're at that point where it is either suicide or taking the benzos, surely you must agree that it's better to try the benzos, than to die without trying.