Antibiotics

Hello again. Something thats been running through my head lately... so i am alergic to pennicillin/amoxicillin.. Well i was at about 11 years old i think i got some hives from it.. Im now almost 24 and never took antibitoics since i was 11. My worry is that obviously sometime in the future im gonna need antibiotics and i know there gonna throw mycin drugs at me and im gonna want to refuse to take them.. But ive googled and googled and asked members on here if theres any other non ottotoxic antibiotic drugs other then the cillins to take and no one came up with an answer so im assuming no then. Im thinking of going to an allergist and have them test me for pennicillin alergy to see if i maybe outgrew it since i was 11 at the time i last had it. But if i am indeed alergic to it then what do i do in a situation when i need antibiotics if it be strep throat or an infection of some sort.. Is there other options out there in getting better other then mycin drugs? I just read so many people on here have developed T from them and i dont wanna risk my noise induced T getting worse after telling my doc i dont trust them but most docs will just say "youl be fine" and persuade you into taking them cause they dont wanna actually look into it and see if theres ofher ways around it. Im almost at the point where if they threw them at me that i would pretend to be allergic to them too cause i wouldnt wanna take that chance in taking them. Obviously im not talking life/death situations but just infections of any sort if it be bladder, strep, etc. thanks for any reply.

 

Hi @Grace -

As I recently wrote elsewhere, the list of entities that can potentially aggravate tinnitus is just about long enough to circle the globe ... stress, fatigue, humidity, various foods, various medications, various weather conditions, moderately loud noise, total silence, and on and on. Indeed, you can make a lifelong project out of avoiding anything and everything that can potentially aggravate tinnitus. But it wouldn't be much of a life, now would it? Fortunately 99.9% of the things that can potentially aggravate tinnitus do not potentially cause irreversible auditory damage. And that includes the drugs.

So I say, the hell with things that might - or might not - potentially aggravate tinnitus. Focus instead on the things that can potentially cause irreversible auditory damage ... and beyond that, don't worry about it. That's my approach, anyway.

And the antibiotics that can potentially cause permanent auditory damage are the aminoglycoside antibiotics, when administered systemically. The thing of it is, aminoglycoside antibiotics (gentamycin, amikacin, etc.) are only given systemically in the case of certain potentially life-threatening infections when there are no acceptable alternatives. In other words, the vast majority of folks in the world will never be in a position where one might be prescribed. And even if it is, we now have ways to carefully monitor serum levels of the drug so that doses can be carefully titrated to minimize the chance of kidney damage or auditory damage.

Can any other antibiotics potentially cause auditory damage? Yes, but it is incredibly rare. I don't give it another thought, and I most certainly would not hesitate to take one of them if prescribed.

Hope this helps more than frustrates.

Dr. Stephen Nagler