Tinnitus Caused by Lyrica/Pregabalin?

[HarveyWalker505]

Hey all,

Last Tuesday week (6th October) I started 25mg Lyrica/Pregabalin twice daily for anxiety. The medication didn't help me and in fact made my anxiety worse.

On the third day I noticed a faint ringing in my ears. My hearing in general was very sensitive on this medication. On the fourth day the ringing was louder so I stopped the medication.

In total I was on it for four days (eight doses).

However, it is now four days since my last dose and I still have ringing in my left ear.

I've read other people describing their experience with this, but I'm just wondering if it will go away soon as I'm a little freaked out about it.

Many thanks.

 

[Chinmoku]

Hopefully four days is not enough to to impact you permanently. The medication is known to start altering synapses in just one week. You were also on a low dose. Hopefully this subsides in time. I was on this medication without problems for months when an ear infection caused tinnitus. Unfortunately as I wean off the medication the tinnitus became horrible. There is no systematic study but the anecdotal evidence is that this drug is not good for your ears.

 

[HarveyWalker505]

Hopefully four days is not enough to to impact you permanently. The medication is known to start altering synapses in just one week. You were also on a low dose. Hopefully this subsides in time. I was on this medication without problems for months when an ear infection caused tinnitus. Unfortunately as I wean off the medication the tinnitus became horrible. There is no systematic study but the anecdotal evidence is that this drug is not good for your ears.

Hey there, thanks for the reply. Yes I'm hoping it does eventually subside. I have read multiple accounts describing how when you go off this drug the tinnitus can get worse before it becomes better. Something to do with withdrawals. Fingers crossed.

 

[Chinmoku]

Hey there, thanks for the reply. Yes I'm hoping it does eventually subside. I have read multiple accounts describing how when you go off this drug the tinnitus can get worse before it becomes better. Something to do with withdrawals. Fingers crossed.

Forgive me to say this but you have been lucky to have found out the problems with the drug at such low dosage and only after 4 days. You have a very good shot at full recovery. There are people who get stuck on it for years, it works but then it starts turning on them with horrid symptoms you don't want to know. You possibly escaped a terrible trap.

If I could go back in time I would never have taken any psychiatric/neurologic drug in my life. For anxiety I would have tried many other approaches but no medication. Medications like these should only be used as a last resort in life-threatening situations.

Pharmacology in psychiatry and neurology is a pseudo-science at the moment, I hope in many years it becomes a real science. I hope this for my children.

 

[HarveyWalker505]

Forgive me to say this but you have been lucky to have found out the problems with the drug at such low dosage and only after 4 days. You have a very good shot at full recovery. There are people who get stuck on it for years, it works but then it starts turning on them with horrid symptoms you don't want to know. You possibly escaped a terrible trap.

If I could go back in time I would never have taken any psychiatric/neurologic drug in my life. For anxiety I would have tried many other approaches but no medication. Medications like these should only be used as a last resort in life-threatening situations.

Pharmacology in psychiatry and neurology is a pseudo-science at the moment, I hope in many years it becomes a real science. I hope this for my children.

Thank you for the kind words. I am getting a bit anxious because it's been 4 four days since I've my last dose and I still notice it. I pray it goes away soon. Would you have any idea of how long it might take for it go away?

I will definitely be more wary of psychiatric drugs in the future. You're right, it's far too dangerous at the moment. Hope you are dealing with your tinnitus okay at the moment.

 

[Chinmoku]

My tinnitus is literally killing me but my story is much worse than yours.

It's hard to predict what will happen to you. Some people jump off huge doses of benzos after 15 years and heal in one year, other people take pregabalin two weeks and are stuck with tinnitus for two years. I think four days at only 25mg should allow your system to reset but how long this will take is hard to tell. Try not to focus too much on it if you can (easier said than done) and avoid loud noises.

 

[T_Almost_Gone]

Hi @HarveyWalker505

Welcome & I'm so sorry that you're here. You were on a low dose for a short time, I hope this means good chances for your recovery.

Did you say it started in both ears and now it's just in your left ear? You may be similar to my case.

 

[Heidi Claus]

Hi there,

My tinnitus was caused by depression medications, I tried three in three weeks with my GP. The first SSRI was Fluoxetine (Prozac), which caused tinnitus after 2 days of use so I stopped after researching and finding out about ototoxic medications affecting the ear. Then I was offered a different SSRI Sertraline (Zoloft) and the same thing happened. After stopping taking the SSRIs, the tinnitus stopped. Then I tried an SNRI, venlafaxine (Effexor XR). I had one half a pill of Effexor and the tinnitus started instantly. I did not take anymore anti-depressents, but the tinnitus continued.

In April I had emergency spinal surgery and started taking Lyrica (Pregabalin) for the nerve pain. It was super helpful for the pain and I experienced a reduction in the tinnitus! yay i thought. I started with 75mg twice daily, but upped it to three times daily. In June I started reducing by 25mg every 2 weeks. I'm back down to 75mg twice daily, but the tinnitus is now worse than it's ever been.

I'm not impacted by the tinnitus most of the time. I have noise around me all the time, except when I go to bed, and if it gets too bad, I'll put on some meditation music. I know I'm lucky compared to some instances of tinnitus, but I am concerned because as I reduce Pregabalin, the tinnitus is worse than it was previously. I'm going to be completely shitted off if I end up with really loud tinnitus, but it seems like there's not much that can be done about it. There's stuff all money going into research, we can't measure it, we can't really understand it. Sometimes it's physical, but the ototoxic variety, well it's actually in our heads - my GP, who is generally pretty amazing, kind of just looks at me blankly. There's not much she can do about it.

I've got more pressing health concerns at the moment, mainly getting rid of the incontinence that has happened since surgery, but one day, if the tinnitus doesn't go, I might get around to investigating sound therapy. But I'm not very hopeful of a "cure". Time will tell.

Thanks for listening
Heidi

 

[Derek26]

I took one dose and it permanently spiked mine. I'm not a fan of these brain pills for hearing loss and tinnitus. For me it makes it worse.

 

[Ben_the_Ben]

I have tinnitus for about 8 years now. First months were horrible, but then I got used to it. I even could "black it out" and didn't hear it anymore.

Well, then I took Lyrica.

I took around 500mg (way too much) Lyrica every day for a few months, and when I stopped abruptly it spiked my tinnitus. I'm not sure if it started while I took the medication or after I stopped it abruptly, because when I was on it, I was so f**ked up that I didn't notice and cared.

I saw a doctor and he told me that Lyrica withdraw symptoms include louder tinnitus, but it is temporally. And – THANKS GOD – he was right. At least for my experience. So instead of stopping it abruptly, I decreased the dose slowly. It worked! My tinnitus slowly faded back to "normal" after a few weeks. I had the fright of my life I tell you that .. Now I don't touch this medication anymore and I don't recommend it to people suffering from tinnitus.