Bupropion Induced Tinnitus — Reduced by 70%!

I'm glad that you didn't have any discontinuation effects from Wellbutrin.

Thanks. Ibuprofen made my tinnitus spike back in July, but I was fine when I took it in June for a headache. I felt mixed about taking it a few nights ago, but I was in pain so I decided to risk it.

I can see how it took a lot of painkillers before your acquaintance had temporary tinnitus. During my first visit with my audiologist and tinnitus specialist, she told me about a patient who suffered from hearing loss after taking a lot of ibuprofen for twenty years. She said that the patient was an MD and that he should've known better. I was floored by that story.

 

Week 22

• Tinnitus is same as previous week
• I took Ondansetron for 4 days for gastric nausea. I couldn't find it in the ototoxic drugs list but my research shows that it affects Serotonin levels and it's been trialled for treating tinnitus. Right now I don't want to take anything that will have me wondering "what if it affected my tinnitus" so I'm going to suffer with the nausea and stop taking it.
• Still taking 40mg Pantoprazole daily to treat the gastric issue for 3 weeks now. Doesn't seem to have caused any issues.

 

Week 23

Same as last week. Quiet hissing. Not masking anymore. Hard to hear it when I'm outside.

 

Week 27

About the same.
Maybe a little softer or I'm just more used to it.

 

Hi,

Did you take low dose Naltrexone (LDN)?

 

Hi, no I didn't.

 

Week 40 / 10 months update approx

Very good news, the volume has reduced again. It is now relatively easy to ignore. I have to strain to hear it outside, inside the TV or fridge noise almost drowns it out. At the onset this was impossible, I had loud high pitched eeeeeeeee sound piercing in both ears and I heard it over everything.

Now it sounds like a soft hiss static sound accompanied by a soft ring. I hear it clearly in a quiet room but it's not intrusive. Sometimes I forget about it for 1/2 hours.

Feeling very thankful. This week I started back at work. Feeling angry and shaken and lucky, tinnitus stole 10 months of 2020 from me. I've also lost 15kg of weight gained from stress eating because of the tinnitus.

Wishing to the best to anyone reading this. I am proof that in some circumstances antidepressant induced tinnitus can improve.

P.S. I stopped taking NAC about 3 months ago but I still had improvements, so possibly it didn't make a difference.

Search keywords: tinnitus bupropion wellbutrin

 

This thread gave me some hope. I’m glad you have taken the initiative to mention your progress every week.

My tinnitus started while I was on 10mg of Lexapro which I was taking for anxiety. I was on it for 19 days and noticed the constant buzzing in both ears about 10 days in.

Eventually I decided to research the symptom and found that indeed this drug I was taking was ototoxic! So I stopped treatment in that instant.

It’s been a week exactly off the meds and I feel much better mentally (I should have never touched them in the first place but the doctor chucked them at me, sigh).

My tinnitus is in both ears, more in the right (also a little bit of ear pain).

I haven’t been to an audiologist or specialist yet as I’m hoping it will subside. I hear it inside my car and when I’m in bed. When I’m outdoors I do not hear it much. When I’m busy with my family (two daughters and wife) I practically forget about it. I haven’t had issues masking it to fall asleep at this point.

A couple of days ago the volume seemed less but has come back. I’m hopeful that this symptom will eventually decrease over time. I have also started with NAC thanks to you I might start posting a weekly update as well.

I really hope you are feeling even better.

Kind regards,
Arthur

 

Hi @Fightingscream, sorry you're here but good to meet you nonetheless.

Wishing you a speedy recovery. You were only on it for 19 days. Less than me. Hoping you will have a speedy recovery. Some people recover in 3 weeks & the only study I found said it was present at 9 months but there was no follow up. I think it's ridiculous that drug manufacturers aren't tracking this. One can only hope it's because they believe it's a temporary side effect.

It's interesting that yours is louder in one ear than the other.

Mine started in both ears but is now only in the right ear.

I felt obliged to diary this. Because there are so many horror stories with people saying they got permanent tinnitus from antidepressants but they don't provide a timeline or outcomes. I actually didn't post this in the successful room but moderator moved it over here. I don't feel particularly successful lol.

If you can please keep me posted on how you get on. There are a few of us here who got it from antidepressants.

 

I hope everyone is well and safe.

This is my 4–5-week update, so as mentioned prior, my tinnitus started shortly after taking the antidepressant LEXAPRO.

After my last and first update my tinnitus got worse. It got to the point where I could even hear it inside my car whilst driving and with the radio set to a reasonable volume. At times I had to sleep downstairs and on the couch with the washing machine on down the laundry corridor to mask out the noise. During the day and outside however I didn’t really pay attention to it and it didn’t bother me as much as I kept myself very busy. I did find that every time there was some stress involved, I would focus my attention to it and it then would become obviously more noticeable. I could hear more on my right ear and very minor and sporadically on my left ear. I was and I still am taking around 2500mg NAC spitted into two servings with water a day. I’m eating a very clean wholefood plant-based diet with minimal fats and oil and I exercise 3-4 times a week. As time was passing by, I noticed that the volume of the tinnitus was subsiding. The pain inside my left ear which I was having and mentioned on my previous post dissipated completely by week 3 of stopping LEXAPRO. The symptoms were getting better and better and now at nearly week 5 my tinnitus is vertically non-existent with the occasional and sporadic flare up which is seriously like a 1 out of 10 whereas before it was at between 5-7 out of 10. My advice is try your best not to respond to it in fear. Take NAC as soon as you notice the onset.

Honestly, I feel like a million bucks without LEXAPRO which I shouldn’t have taken in the first place, but Drs seem to just shove drugs down people’s throats as big pharma gives them ‘’incentives’’ and kickbacks. I’ll keep you posted soon with my further update. Have a nice day

 

11 Month Update - Good News!

So I stopped NAC for 3-4 months. and I still had micro improvements. Then last week I was feeling down, tinnitus was bothering me so I logged onto here. I read the this post on my thread & I thought - oh well let me just try the NAC again it won't hurt. And I increased my dose to 1800 mg.

When I woke up the next morning, the volume dropped!! It's now a very soft faint diffused ring. Now I can only hear it in quiet rooms and it's a bit louder when I'm lying down. It's been about 3 days like this, I hope it stays, it's the best I've felt since this ordeal started.

 

Hi @Fightingscream, glad to hear you're having improvements so fast!

 

Hi there!

Reading this thread gives me hope. I am another tinnitus sufferer here. Mine was most probably triggered when trying to taper off from Mirtazapine/Remeron. I dropped from 30mg to 15mg last Christmas and from one day to the other I started hearing this high pitch noise in my ears. I had never had tinnitus in my life. My psychiatrist was doubtful it was Mirtazapine what caused the onset but I was not taking any other medicine apart from sporadic Bromazepam when I had problems sleeping (no more frequently than one or two pill per month). When the tinnitus started I got very nervous and I reinstalled my previous dosage of Mirtazapine in hopes that this would go away, but no luck for now. I am in my 8th week with the previous dosage and I have not felt any improvement. In fact, I think it is going worse in my right ear.

Not sure if I should try to quit Mirtazapine again to see if tinnitus fades away or what. I am very confused now about what to do. Changing to another antidepressant as my doctor suggested?

If anyone using Mirtazapine has similar experience I would like to hear it.

Thank you!

 

Hi @Felipe.

Firstly so sorry you are here.

Okay, I'm going to give you my opinion, obviously I'm not a doctor but I swear I've read a ton of research papers etc. Also only you know your situation re: mental health and what you can handle.

How long were you on the meds before the tinnitus started?

Is it possible that the buildup of the meds started the tinnitus? Meaning is it possible that the ringing may have started even if you had stayed on the same dose?

If I were you, I would taper off and quit. And I would not try any other antidepressant. If the tinnitus is caused by imbalance of neurotransmitters > overexcited neurons > causing tinnitus, then my approach would be to immediately stop taking the meds, start on NAC and wait for my brain to rebalance. For some people on here the ringing stopped in weeks. For me it will be 1 year in March.

Only you and your doctor know what your mental health can handle. For me the tinnitus made me more depressed than I already was so I stopped the meds the same day the ringing started.

Wishing you the the best of luck & please keep us posted on how you get on. As I'm sure you know part of this ordeal is the lack of data and to even understand what a typical outcome looks like.

 

11 Month Update - More Good News!

Since my last post I'm not ashamed to say that I broke down and cried twice. I had not cried in about 5 months but this sh*t is still so difficult and I was losing hope that there was any more healing to be done.

This week I've been sleeping a lot and I noticed that the tinnitus was extra quiet when I woke up and stayed that way for a few hours. Like the tinnitus was losing its power.

I just finished a 4 hour work call from my mobile speakerphone. Usually the speaker sort of vibrates in my ears & makes it really hard. But actually the tinnitus volume has reduced AGAIN. If you've read my previous posts you'll know I have 2 tinnitus sounds, a hiss and a ring. It's now a very soft whisper/hiss and to hear the ringing I now have to plug my ears. As per my last couple posts I still take 1800mg NAC daily (I think it now makes my skin itch, which is weird as the Bupropion previously gave me the same burning itch. I feel like there a link but I don't know).

Anyway I am elated and thankful. Hoping it's still good when I wake up tomorrow.

 

Still 11 months

• Yes the trend has continued. It's even quieter than when I last posted!
• In the last 2 months the speed of change has been faster than the previous months. If I had taken the bigger 1800 mg dose of NAC consistently and sooner - I feel sure my recovery would have been faster.
• The bottle recommended 600 mg daily and I'm taking 3 x that. When I increased the dose my skin got itchy but the recovery accelerated.
• I still hear my tinnitus in a quiet room but it's so much quieter.

Sending strength to everyone out there. I will keep posting and I hope this helps others.

 

1 year with tinnitus

• Since my last post, my tinnitus volume has reduced 2 more times
• Now it's a very diffused hiss and a very faint muffled ringing. Still just in right ear. The noise is still constant but doesn't distress me as much.
• I added Acetyl-L-Carnitine to my 4 x 600mg NAC daily and that was a big mistake. The Acetyl-L-Carnitine spiked me for about 40 hours. I've never had a spike before so I feel very very confident saying that Acetyl-L-Carnitine was the cause.

 

Hello, sorry for asking, what is NAC?

Kind regards,
Roger

 

Hey everyone.

I have had tinnitus intermittently for a couple years now. Usually it faded pretty quickly, or maybe I was just too distracted to notice. I've been on Wellbutrin (Bupropion XL) for the past...seven or so years (300mg/day), and only now learned that it could cause tinnitus. I'm not sure if it is responsible, since I've been on it for some time, but I'm checking my causes and options.

I'm not sure what brought on my tinnitus this time around. I seem to have TMJ, since the joint in my jaw often cracks or pops when I open it. My audiologist (and the internet) told me this could be a cause, since my hearing is totally fine. The tinnitus has been pretty much non-stop for a week now, starting last Thursday. It might've been brought on by the extreme stress I was under on Thursday, which has since passed. That said, every other time I've had it, it's gone away in a few hours/days, or wasn't so bad as to be particularly noticeable.

This is the first time it's come around and hasn't stopped for extended periods, while being particularly distracting. It's not horribly loud, but it's loud enough, and everpresent. My new noise-isolating headphones are now as much as blessing as a curse, since when the white noise of my PC running is removed, all that's left is the high-pitched eeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I'm looking into potential solutions, and I'm glad I've found this thread. It gives me hope that I may yet enjoy silence in my life again. I'm going to talk with my doctor on Tuesday, and ask him about the Bupropion, among other things.

Thanks for being here, guys. You give me hope for silence in the future.
-Hasp

 

You're a beast for logging all of this. You really did more by actually coming back and not just posting the WORST part of your experience. How are you feeling these days?

 

NAC is N-Acetylcysteine.

 

Hey man. Sorry you're here. Have you searched the forum?

For some people they didn't get tinnitus with antidepressants until a couple of years in so it does seem to be possible.

As for the TMJ cause, I'm not sure, I guess you may be able to change the sound by moving your jaw? I hope you get some clarity soon.

From my experience and most people here, the Doctor Who prescribed you the anti-depressants may not be able to tell you much about tinnitus. Good Luck.

 

13 Month Update - NAC is bad?

• As per my previous post I added Acetyl-L-Carnitine which caused a spike so I removed it. At the same time out of curiosity I also stopped taking the NAC. Within 24-hours the tinnitus was the quietest it has ever been!
• In the last month the volume has reduced 3 more times. The volume has never reduced this quickly. Now it's super quiet. Like I forget about it for a few hours of the day. The television now can covers up the noise. I have to be in an extremely quiet room to hear it. Or a plug my ears to hear it. Last few days have been AMAZING.
• I do wonder whether I delayed my recovery by taking the NAC for so long.

 

Mate, there are so many posts with just the worst part of it and no follow-up for recovery and that is terrifying when you first start to research tinnitus. I wanted to do something different. I've just posted an update. On the one hand, it's good news I'm better. On the other hand, I'm not so sure that NAC is good for antidepressant induced tinnitus.

 

An ENT I saw prescribed Nortriptyline because of Wellbutrin-induced tinnitus. FFS. What the hell kind of healthcare do we have. I’ve started referring to it as Hellcare.

 

Every time I've taken NAC it's spiked me, so maybe you were on one long spike all along.

 

Damn it's crazy. Very possible that I extended my recovery time by months! Oh well, at least other people can now find this information and be careful about monitoring their tinnitus when they take NAC.

 

13 Month Update - Good News!!!

• The volume of my tinnitus has reduced again. It bothers me less. If I turn up the TV, I don't hear it.
• Amazing / Grateful.

 

I appreciate the reply. I searched the forum but I haven't found all that much. Sorry I took so long in replying myself, I never got a notification.

As for the antidepressants, I'm going to talk with my doctor about it (he's a cool guy, and not the one who originally prescribed the Wellbutrin), see what he thinks and how things go from there. Took me a while to find a doctor who actually cares about his patients. What a world, eh? I've got a physical coming up, so we can go over some issues including the TMJ.

I can't really change the sound by moving my jaw, but it seems to be least present when I wake up, and as the day wears on and I chew and talk a lot, it seems to get worse. Might just be that I wake up more muted and it just gets worse over the day. In either case, I do have TMJ. All the grinding and cracking practically confirms it.

It seems that many people react to things differently. No surprise I suppose, that's why most of us are here. I personally find the NAC helps to some extent, but at the very least it doesn't seem to make it worse. Still, worth looking into. "Your mileage may vary," and all that. I'll discuss it with my doctor and audiologist and see what they think.

Hopefully my doctor and I can work something out and fix it. I've also been practicing more mindfulness and generally moving into a different, better frame of mind where things bother me less on the whole, and that helps a lot with managing it in the meantime. It's still a problem, I still treat it as a problem, but at least I can deal with it for now.

We'll see what happens. Stay strong lads. And I would also like to give my earnest thanks for mapping out your tinnitus journey.

 

To anyone in the world reading this -- DON'T take Acetyl L Carnitine. Tried 3 times specifically only to get a horrible spike in T.

Its very likely that NAC put your neurotransmitters back in order; and its a good thing you started it soon. Stopping it later did nothing but give your brian more time to balance out the neurotransmitters / inflammation; something that had already been kick started by NAC.