Betahistine Helped My Severe Tinnitus

I have had tinnitus for 10 years and last time I asked my ENT if there is a drug I could try, he said there's no cure for tinnitus but I could try betahistine.

It is a drug for Meniere's and I don't have this disease. My ENT however wanted to give it a try since according to him the mechanism of tinnitus is not much different between Meniere's and noise induced tinnitus. However he told me it's unlikely to work.

I've been taking it for 2 months and have seen some quite dramatic improvement. It might be a placebo effect though. Has anyone else tried it?

 

I have. Did nothing for my tinnitus, but I may not have been persistent enough, I quit taking it the same time as piracetam, around 1,5 month in. In my country, it's prescribed basically for everyone with tinnitus, but in the local group, more people claim that it did nothing for them, than who think they have progress because of it.

 

Ah I'm sorry it didn't help you. What country is in question?

 

2 months on this forum and this is the first I’ve heard of this... certainly not mentioned from my ENT... who... you know... is a “professional”. (Sarcasm sorry)

 

Hungary (pls, don't make a hungry Hungarian joke. )

 

If it's placebo effect you'll know in some months because it won't last. Hope for you it does last though. Any reason in particular why you suddenly chose to mention it to your GP after 10 years? If anything I'd expect a sufferer to experiment with some treatments and medicine in the early days rather than after a decade.

 

I've been taking this for almost 2 years now, I've not seen much improvement from taking it.

 

That doesn't make any sense at all.

 

Enlighten us.

 

It would depend on how the person perceived the effect of it to begin with.
If they thought the medicine was permanently healing their tinnitus, and the effect lasted after discontinuation, then that could either be placebo or not.
If they thought the medicine was temporarily healing their tinnitus, and the effect lasted after discontinuation, then that would be more likely an actual effect.
If they thought the medicine was permanently healing their tinnitus, and the effect didn't last after discontinuation, then that would be more likely an actual effect.
If they thought the medicine was temporarily healing their tinnitus, and the effect didn't last after discontinuation, then that could either be placebo or not.

There's also a million other things that could have caused the effect. There would need to be a placebo group. You can't just judge placebo based on one person.

 

I wouldn't be so sure. It has vasodilatory effects, which helps a subset of tinnitus sufferers. It also increases GABA locally which can definitely affect tinnitus.

 

I was responding to the OP about his particular situation. The term placebo effect is obviously loosely used in this context. I still stand by my original statement, and it's what you seem to imply here:

Short of it being an actual cure, the placebo effect would wear off in time after cessation of the drug. I said months, but of course it's hard to put a timeframe on this.

 

What dosage of betahistine are you on?

 

I'm by no means an expert. I only went with what the OP said. In time the effect should wear off if it's a placebo.

About the vasodilatory effects... is it possible to improve chronic tinnitus with a medicine that aids circulation? All it will do is promote healing of the inner ear?
My GP proposed some anti-epileptic medicine but she made it sound like it probably wouldn't help even before I started it. I didn't even bother trying it out.

I'm just saying this because GP's mostly don't have a clue. Nor do ENT's.

 

Had no effect on me at all except to make me feel nauseous all the time. Was given this by GP to start with but ENT consultant advised to stop as would not help with t because she didn’t think it was Ménières. Was on it for about 4 weeks and felt sick as a dog all the time xx

 

I am not sure it's a large percentage of tinnitus patients but changing the hemodynamics of the ear seems to affect loudness in some people.

There seems to be lots if examples if this: heart meds, pregnancy etc can change tinnitus.