Lidocaine or Propofol Dangers? Can They Make Tinnitus Worse?

I had tinnitus for 20 years already before taking Azithromycin totally unaware that it could cost me my high range hearing and quadruple my tinnitus (which it did last October after just one Zithromax Zpack). After 20 years of being so careful I couldn't believe that one pill (that I didn't even need) cost me so much.

It seems like everyone but my doctor knows that Azithromycin can make tinnitus worse especially for people with already weakened ears.

Now I need to have some dental work done where they need to use Lidocaine and a colonoscopy where they need to use propofol. And I'm terrified because after some research it seems like these medications too have the potential for worsening tinnitus. And when I ask for alternatives I can't find anything they use hat seems danger free.

Just looking for some thoughts on those two medications and tinnitus. I know Lidocaine was also used in treatment (unsuccessfully for the long term) but studies seem to reveal it's potential to make tinnitus worse.

Anyone aware of safe alternatives or more information on these?

Thanks.

 

I've had Lidocaine (Lignocaine) several times for root canals...

Propofol twice.

No negative impact on my tinnitus whatsoever.

 

I had more than 20 lidocaine injections in total in Jan & Feb this year for 2 fillings and 4 wisdom teeth removal (one of them was severely impacted and the surgery was quite traumatic so I had maybe 6-8 of them just for this procedure. No negative effect on T. Actually it eliminated my morse code type tone almost but it came back once the lidocaine wore off.

If you get an infection for not having that dental procedure you'll possibly need to take more antibiotics. This is what I'd be more scared of honestly.

It is impossible to know what exactly can cause T to worsen or not. I had 20 lidocaine injections with zero effect, but one harmless TMJ MRI was enough to send my morse code tones through the roof. At some point you need to just do what you gotta do and hope for the best.

 

I was given Propofol two times with no effect on my Tinnitus. But you sleep very well with it .

 

Your circumstances mirror my own! I was given an intravenous injection of an anti nausea medication called ondansetron which further damaged my high frequency hearing and vastly exacerbated my existing tinnitus. The hospital claim they've never heard of such a reaction before, but when I checked it's Wikipedia page, there it was. An anecdotal report anyway. Go figure!

I too have to have dental work as well as an endoscopic procedure. I have had lidocaine before however, with no effect on tinnitus. And forum members have spoken of the antibiotic cephalexin to be a safe antibiotic to take post dental work.

I have not heard of the danger of propofol with tinnitus and I'm wondering where you've read that it can be. It seems to be the anaesthetic of choice for endoscopic procedures and I wonder if you would be met with resistance from doctors if you insisted on using something else. The other drug that I've heard of used procedurally, is one called midazolam. Are you familiar with this drug and it's affect on tinnitus? I'm not certain, but I believe I've had it administered once, many years ago during a procedure, with no effect on my tinnitus.

These are very real issues of concern for us. We definitely have some kind of predisposition to auditory damage, from any source, whether it be from volume or ototoxicity. It seems almost impossible to avoid.

 

Viewing of the following data, I would say that both substances are safe.

https://www.ehealthme.com/ds/propofol/tinnitus/
https://www.ehealthme.com/ds/lidocaine/tinnitus/

 

Lidocaine can actually temporarily mute tinnitus in some people. Both of them should be safe.

 

Thanks to everyone who responded, I'll respond in one post.

Initially I check ata.org's list of ototoxic and also another site. I also check ehealthme.com though the propofol stats and the Zithromax stats are not that different, yet anecdotally it seems that zithromax (azithromycin) is much more known to cause problems with hearing and ears, so I'm not sure about the reliability of those reported stats.

It is comforting to hear that many people here have had both with no ill affect.

The doctors here would not even do the procedure without propoful, I would need to go to different doctors who use something else which I've not investigated yet but will. And in my experience so far the patience of doctors is mixed. Some still don't believe the Arithromycin caused my problem (which it did 100%), while others simply can't believe the doctor would ever prescribe that to someone with known ear troubles. I spoke to the makers of Zithromax when filing my report about it and their response was basically the hearing loss and tinnitus was "expected ." Just for fun this is their response to what has been a life damaging experience for me.

 

Dr. Shim gave me rhinitis surgery on the first day. I think the local he used on me was lidocaine and he was injecting it way way up into my sinuses and then stuck lidocaine soaked strips up my nose almost every subsequent visit and I had them in my nose as I got my injections and then at the end of my appoints he would remove them. So that's about 2-3 hours of lidocaine up my nose everyday for about 2 weeks. It was safe for me.

 

Just need to vent a little about my experience.

Today was the day I was supposed to have the dental work done. I went in and they were all set up and I wanted to just confirm that it was going to be lidocaine they used and he said "with epinephrine" and I'd not heard about this and didn't know what it was, so I said I needed to look it up and tried to explain why. He actually barely understood, he was definitely unfamiliar with tinnitus, odd for a dentist. Note he's been great up until know and is quite respected though. But I was nervous and trying to look it up on my phone and he started suggesting other things. He suggested carbocaine mostly and then I said I needed to look that up, but I don't have my research bookmarks in my phone, so it wasn't working then he got impatient and said basically we should waste both of our time. He didn't want to reschedule... I'm not sure if he meant at all or just until I did my research on these two new things. I told him that I'd tried to do all this before, I did call the office and ask to know all the possible options, but this was new info. My whole new tinnitus nightmare started just like this when a doctor decided to give me azithromycin rather than give me a test for something telling me specifically it would not hurt my ears. I can't just trust a doctor anymore. This is upsetting every medical person around me. And it's upsetting me. I'm still really emotional from the experience this morning and I know they're upset too though probably have brushed it off by now. It's like everything now is so hard.

 

You're right to question every doctor on the medications they are administering to you. You've been affected badly by a drug that you were told was safe.

The dentist's impatience and not wanting to reschedule, indicates he views you as problematic. He doesn't want any holdups and sounds like he doesn't care about losing you as a patient. Do you really want to go back to him?

You are in charge of your health and safety, at least until you put yourself into the doctor's hands. Don't feel bad about holding up the treatment until you are comfortable. You're the one who has to live with the consequences if it goes badly. If he won't oblige you, try and find someone who can. And just to remind him of his obligations, drop a line of complaint to your local health services association. Lest he does the same again to someone else.

 

I went in today for the dental work (two fillings). My teeth were feeling a bit sore a week ago and I thought I'd better take care of it. By today they were okay, but I figured I'd better solve the cavity issue. It was supposed to be very surface and simple, but it turned out to be much more serious one tooth possibly requiring a root canal. I'll know in a week or so (basically if it becomes super painful, I know).

The drill was so loud. I wore earplugs but it was in my head. Immediately after the procedure I did notice an increase in the T. Could be stress, I was nervous. But now, 2 hours later there is a definitely warbling tinnitus in the side that the work was done on. I'm hoping this is a temporary bump from the super loud drilling and general activity and that it will die down.

But I'm nervous about it and trying to stay calm. When the azithromycin reaction started it creeped up like this at first and went crazy. But I'm trying to stay confident that it is just a temporary bump and will die down over the next 2 days.

She said to expect it to ache for a couple days and to take advil, but I think advil makes T worse, right?

 

I was so focused on the lidocaine concerns I didn't think about the sound of the drill, it's been like over 30 years since I've had a drill in my mouth and I didn't research what to do. I used ear plugs (when I guess you're not supposed to). I didn't use NAC. I didn't ask to have her stop every 5 seconds. Now my ear is driving me nuts. I'm guessing it's the drill because it was CRAZY loud and so many others had no issues with the Lidocaine.

 

I hope it calms down soon. It’s happened to me on a number of occasions where I’ve read about things to avoid after the fact. I’m worse off for it too.

Also I distrust doctors. There are so many conditions/drug reactions/etc. that are poorly understood. Their breadth of knowledge is either very broad and superficial, or very specific. They are actually quite clueless in general and are only doctors because they have good memory recall.

Drug companies don’t give a f except about profits. Made me furious reading the response they gave you.

 

Injections of lidocaine of trigeminal structures in therapy of tinnitus patients

Introduction: Tinnitus is defined as the perception of noise without an acoustic stimulus. Due to the heterogenity among the group of tinnitus patients there is a lack of an unique therapeutic concept. Many studies showed associations between somatic manouvers of the neck and the temporomandibular joint and perception of tinnitus. Therefore, the concept of a therapeutic use of injections of lidocain in trigeminal structures was developed.

Materials: Data of two studies with 19 and 20 patients treated in the Practical Practice of Otorhinolaryngology in Traunstein were analysed at the University of Regensburg. After three injections in the anatomical area of the ganglion trigeminale and the ganglion oticum by an oral approach we performed a follow-up investigation during 12 weeks. In addition to changes of the subjective tinnitus complaints, potential side effects were documented.

Results: There were no relevant side effects, and we found that patients showed a reduction of their tinnitus complaints in both studies. The effect on the TG and the CGI Score was higher in patients with headache complaints.

Conclusion: Our analysis showed that injections in the area of trigeminal structures could result in changes of tinnitus perception. In another study, additional research with placebo controlled injection should help to investigate the effects in detail and develop new therapeutic approaches.


https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-0040-1711252

 

An fMRI Investigation of the Effects of IV Lidocaine on Tinnitus

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04192773