Best Approach to Improve Reactive Tinnitus?

I heard from many that their reactivity eased up over time. I’m on my eighth month and haven’t been so fortunate. Both my baseline and reactivity worsened over the months, and I was extremely cautious of loud noise. I can’t mask either. It’s pure torture.

Hang in there. Regenerative medicine is on the way. It just sucks having to deal with this for the time being.

 

What about Keppra?

 

What has helped people with “reactive tinnitus”? It’s more uncommon and I recently heard about it on this forum. I need to do everything I can right now so I can be a functional person with sound mind and body in the future.

Any sounds, even running water, cause prolonged spikes in my tinnitus.

I have hyperacusis as well, and I’ve heard that for some people the hyperacusis goes away but the tinnitus doesn’t. That being said, if the tinnitus is directly from the noise sensitivity, could that possibly mean the tinnitus could go away if the hyperacusis does?

 

When my hyperacusis improved - reactive nature of tinnitus improved too. Spikes were shorter (i.e. after driving car - a few minutes spike in comparison to a few hours spike before hyperacusis improvement). So yeah, I think reactiveness of tinnitus is a symptom of sound sensitivity in some way.

 

That's really interesting. How much did yours react, other than for car drives?
Mine seems to react to almost any sound whatsoever, causing short spikes and fluctuations. My reactivity has worsened the last month, coincidentally so has my hyperacusis (which I think is due to severe over-protection), so there may be a link. Hopefully this will improve over time.

 

Keppra marginally.

 

Any contiunous, high pitched or white noise kind of sound (like rain, frying food, sea waves, electric kettle) made my tinnitus spike. Interesting fact: music at 70 dB - no spike, my girlfriend frying chicken in the kitchen when I was in another room - spike. So it isn't only how loud the sound is.

 

That's really interesting. I'm having a very similar pattern of reactivity. Does these types of sound still cause spikes, or has it largely resolved?

 

In the same boat. Two months in and the hyperacusis and reactive tinnitus is stil playing havoc. Been careful around sound, but not overprotective and still no improvement. If anything it has got a bit worse.

It used to take 4-5 hours before the Tinnitus would react to sound of TV now it's more like 4-5 minutes.

 

This is exactly how I experience the reactivity and hyperacusis myself. Hope you are feeling better these days?

 

Time healed my tinnitus as well as anti-depressants (Lexapro). It took about a full year - from the onset of the pandemic until just a few days ago. I do think the Lexapro helped a LOT.

 

I hope mine does the same. But I started Lexapro when it first came out around 2002 and had been taking it until I developed tinnitus in early Nov. 2020 (around election time). Since then I have been on and off of it. If I go off of it my tinnitus seems to improve, but my anxiety comes back. Not sure what I'd rather have - anxiety and OCD or worsened tinnitus?

Anyway, after a few months off of Lexapro I decided to go back on it. I am hoping the tinnitus from it is only temporary.

 

After restarting Lexapro at 20 mg for 5 days, today is the worst my tinnitus has ever been! Will back off to 10 mg tomorrow.

Anyone else have tinnitus made worse by Lexapro?

 

I'm by no means an expert... far from it. A novice. But I would recommend a different medicine. Trial and error.

Anxiety will worsen how you deal with tinnitus. So you have to deal with the anxiety first. Easier said then done.

The thing I find odd and can't understand but I know it's real is the delayed onset of tinnitus after taking medicine.

Medicine will get you stable enough to where you can work on techniques in being happy like meditation and yoga. Not my cup of tea but I'm forcing myself to do it.

Also please understand we usually on hear on the internet when medicine doesn't work or has adverse side effects. We could be the 5-10% that is having adverse reactions. When a medicine is linked to tinnitus, it doesn't mean it is likely to exacerbate tinnitus. It's a numbers game.

What are the chances we try 3 meds and we are always in the 5-10% that get side effects.

Just my 2 cents. Again I'm a novice. One month in. What slightly works for me are Buspar and Gabapentin. Still tweaking it a bit. What we do control is finding a good doctor/psychiatrist/psychologist etc. Always get second opinions. We aren't married to them.

Hope this helps.

 

I have no experience with Lexapro personally. But I have read on this site that people have attributed their tinnitus to various medications and I’m pretty sure I’ve read at least one person had an experience of Lexapro causing or exacerbating their tinnitus.

It is listed as a potential side effect of SSRIs, although most people don’t have any problem on them. If you read some of the success stories you’ll see that many people needed these medications when they first got tinnitus to cope and then were eventually able to wean off of them.

I know people with tinnitus who have taken Lexapro and had no exacerbation at all. I took Zoloft for years and it had no impact on my tinnitus. As a matter fact I think it made me less anxious and better able to deal with it. But it was a bitch to get off because my dose for us too high.

Perhaps another medication?

Right now, I am trying to slowly, emphasis on slowly, taper off of Clonazepam so that I can avoid any tinnitus exacerbation as a result of my taper.

 

I am in the same boat trying to taper Clonazepam as well. What dosage are you at?

 

Just lowered to .75 mg. Will be there for a good month and the go down to .625 mg, then .5 mg, then .375 mg, then .25 mg. You get the picture.

It isn’t even like my dosage was particularly high. It’s just that I’ve been on it for a really long time so I will be taking a very slow boat to discontinuation. About 3 weeks before I had another hearing shift in my left ear and my tinnitus got worse, I was completely off of the Clonazepam. Then I started to freak again about my hearing loss and worsening tinnitus so I started taking them again.

 

My high point late last year was at 0.75 mg. I am now at 0.3 mg. It never helped my tinnitus but it did help my anxiety and sleep some.

I was prescribed Zoloft 50 mg but have not taken it yet.

 

At times, we get nervous about noise, but that really does not make our tinnitus worse. Our emotions/stress can possibly play a big role in how our tinnitus reacts. This can be difficult to manage, but in time it is possible to achieve.

 

How on earth do you get a dosage down to .3 mg? I mean how do you chop the tablet up to get the dose so low. I mean that’s like nothing.

I have taken Zoloft in the past. It actually worked really well fir my anxiety. My problem is that my prescriber put me on a dose that was ultimately way too high. So it caused me to gain a lot of weight and it was a bitch to get off of due to the discontinuation symptoms. And I did a thoughtful taper. I just think the dose was way too high. I would definitely consider going on it again but at a more reasonable dose.

 

My Klonopin pills are 0.5 mg so I cut and weigh on a jeweler's scale. I am currently doing a daily micro cut taper. Wished it had helped my tinnitus.

I do not want to try Zoloft while tapering Klonopin.

 

For me reactive tinnitus would always disappear once I settled down and stressed a lot less. Now I don't know if that goes for everyone out there since the tinnitus can be reactive for several reasons.

For me at least it was stress related. I noticed a clear pattern that my tinnitus would always become reactive when I was stressed, angry or having anxiety.

 

I have the same experience as you @Raphael7713. It is so important to calm down. If your brain and body is on a high alert, and you are all stressed out, it is likely that tinnitus will react negatively - and thus reactivity wilw possibly increase.

 

Agree. One of the clearest evidences I have is I remember a couple of years ago when I was going to sleep in the middle of the night, and all of a sudden my neighbours above started to make noise and I got really pissed. I remember how it went from quiet to PEEEEEEEP and the next day it started to react off other sounds. A day after this it just went away when I settled down again.

 

Is that true? You know people with tinnitus who have taken Lexapro with no increase in the volume or their tinnitus?

 

I do.

 

Hello,

I'm about to start the taper from 0.5 mg too.

Do you crush your tablets and then weigh them?

If so, do you dissolve the powder in liquid?

And by how much do you decrease daily? I read on BenzoBuddies that it can sometimes cause the withdrawal symptoms to accumulate.

I'm so so scared it will make the tinnitus worse. But I know I cannot be on the drug.

Best wishes to you, thank you very much for sharing your experience.

 

I cut by weight starting each day and now every other day. My cuts are 0.001 g each time. Some times the cuts catch up with you and you have to hold. I use a jewelers scale.

Best wishes to you too.

 

Hi all,

Just wanted to bring an update. It could be coincidence, but here's a recent experience.

My tinnitus started in 2013 with hell of anxiety afterwards. After 2 years, I started with Lexapro. I was on 10 mg for many years. It took most of the anxiety and also made my tinnitus softer on some days. I guess it is a combination of Lexapro calming nerves and also making tinnitus lower.

Don't get me wrong. I still have periods of 10/10 tinnitus days. But after some days, I have some better days where the tinnitus gets lower. The first two years without any meds for 10/10 more or less non-stop. It was horror.

Some months ago, I tapered off Lexapro since I wanted to test Clonazepam. When stopping Lexapro, my tinnitus went through the roof. 3 weeks 10/10 horror tinnitus with extra chirps in my head. Every head move made a sound. I don't know if it was only stopping of Lexapro or something else, but besides that not much has changed. And maybe if I would have waited longer without Lexapro, it would have calmed down again. I don't know.

Whatever, I went back to Lexapro (10 mg) and things are much better again. Anxiety is gone to most part and tinnitus has lower periods (days and sometimes to a max of one week).

I hear my tinnitus non-stop, it is highly annoying and gives me still anxiety. But I know that my exhaustion (burnout), some depression and pressure in life also play a huge part. But I am sure that, at least for me, Lexapro was and is a great help.

I have read here that some people get tinnitus from Lexapro. Hence, I don't want to give any advice. It is just my experience.

If I still have 10/10 days (I would say those are 15-25% of my time), I mask.
And if I cannot sleep, I take a very little dosage of Remeron (just 3-4 mg).
I do sports more or less every day (with masking) and that also makes me tired.

Take care and all the best for everyone,
Martin

 

How is your reactivity now?