Fire Alarm Caused a Tinnitus Spike. Should I Get Prednisone?

[punkaddict]

My fire alarm was beeping a few hours ago so I pressed it assuming it would stop it and it did a test alarm, a quite loud piercing sound and I was right under it. I closed my ears after like a second and went back to my room.

I think I may have a spike, not too sure, I don't think it's louder but it's more aggressive and continuous.

Should I get Prednisone? I don't really feel ear fullness or anything but I guess my ears feel kind of 'shocked'. Really scared I've made it worse.

 

[Rb86]

How long ago was your original onset?

I'd remain calm and see after a day. I had a bad spike yesterday followed by a much better day today.

Stay calm, stay distracted, and mask. I know that's easy to say but listen, if you actually did serious serious damage, you can wait a few days before using Prednisone. I didn't get it until 2.5 weeks after my noise damage.

 

[BrianofDC]

YES! I read it was a 2 day window. My doc gave it to me and said "it may help" during my appointment about 6 days after I developed ongoing tinnitus.

Get the prednisone and consider the supplements known to help after an event and with tinnitus (e.g. magnesium, zinc, NAC, etv.)

Let me know if you ever got it and status if you get a moment, thanks!

 

[linearb]

personally, I definitely would not; I've been blasted by alarms in this same situation a number of times over the years and it's never caused any long term issues.

Prednisone, on the other hand, is more dangerous than a lot of people seem to want to admit.

Literature reports several cases of depression related to the use of corticosteroid therapy with an incidence of 40.5%; mania, psychosis, and delirium are also very frequent with an incidence of 27.8%, 13.9%, and 10.1%, respectively.[23] Emotional lability and irritability are common symptoms sometimes accompanied by auditory hallucinations and paranoia.[22] Rarely, altered consciousness and disorientation may be observed.

The mechanism by which the corticosteroid induces symptoms such as mania, depression, and psychosis is not clear.[22] The administration of prednisone is associated with decreased levels of corticotrophin, norepinephrine, and beta-endorphin in the cerebrospinal fluid. Furthermore, corticosteroids induce an increased release of glutamate that induces neuronal toxicity due to accumulation effect.

so, would I take a potentially neurotoxic drug that is guaranteed to make me a sweaty insomniac mess for 2 weeks but has no good evidence supporting its use in this situation? ...neeeeeeerp.

I also have a fire alarm positioned over my bed; I sleep with earplugs sometimes, and waking up for sure with as much time to get family out of house is priority one.

The beeping might be low battery? ours are hardwired but have 9v backup and start to chirp when they're low

 

[Fifth Business]

I always had negative associations with prednisone because my little brother had to take it as a young child due to a chronic illness and it had seriously nasty side-effects. Its only been back in my purview recently because of people posting about it here. I guess ymmv on a short-term dose? (my brother had to take it chronically).

I kinda question the efficacy of going to the ER or urgent care for something like this...