Cinnarizine/Stugeron

Hi,

Has anyone tried this? Someone who had pretty bad tinnitus told me this helped them. There does not seem to be much evidence whether it helps or not. So anyone have experience using it?

Thanks.

 

I recently had some success by using Stugeron (cinnarizine), so I looked up the drug to see what's what.
Here's an interesting snippet I found (from Wikipedia):

In treatment of nausea and motion sickness it was previously hypothesized that cinnarizine exerts its effects by inhibiting the calcium currents in voltage gated channels in type II vestibular hair cells within the inner ear.[6] However, more recent evidence supports the idea that at pharmacologically relevant levels (0.3µM–0.5µM), cinnarizine is not lessening vestibular vertigo by blocking calcium channels, but rather by inhibiting potassium (K+) currents that are activated by heightened hydrostatic pressure on the hair cells.[22] It is true that cinnarizine does abolish calcium currents in vestibular hair cells as well; it is just that this only occurs at higher concentrations of drug (3µM).[22] The inhibition of these currents works to lessen the vertigo and motion-induced nausea by dampening the over-reactivity of the vestibular hair cells, which send information about balance and motion to the brain.

So we may have another potassium channel modulator.
Which is weird, because Stugeron is a drug from the 50s.

Anyway, I just thought I might share.
Do keep in mind that Stugeron might have some quite nasty side effects such as causing Parkinson's (after heavy chronic use).

 

Cinnarizine always helps me in dramatic tinnitus spikes. Always a great old drug without serious side effects! Most recommended.

 

I have tried it for 2 months straight, 150mg (2x75) daily. I took it 2 weeks after tinnitus onset. Didn't provide any relief, so I stopped. Tried to take again for 10 days 6 months after onset, did absolutely nothing again.

Side effects: It does give me a bad case of xerodermia and dandruff which stopped after I quit. Never had dandruff before.

 

Would anyone know the dosage recommended for stugeron?
I got few boxes from overseas so would like to give it a go, my pills are 75mg forte!

 

75mg is quite a dosage, this thing has antidopaminergic effects and at large doses it might cause issues.
I once did 75mg three times a day and had quite good results tinnitus wise for about 2 weeks but I occasionally (like 1-2 times a day) had some strange twitches in my legs, which I found strange. After reading about the drug, I decided that it is a bit dangerous at such doses and quit it. I chickened out, sort of.
My ENT had originally prescribed 75mgs twice a day (12 hours apart).
In my opinion, it is one the most t "specific" drugs out there, even though it does not say so on the box, since it acts mainly on calming the hair cells and the labyrinth, with calcium blocking and possibly potassium channel modulating (as Wikipedia claims).

I might give it a go again at some point...

 

I was on Cinnarizine for nearly a month with maybe just a slight improvement, still had spikes and very bad days.

 

I tried Cinnarizine for a few days. Even 30mg knocks you out. I don't think it helped much with my tinnitus either.

 

30mg didn't even get a yawn out of me.
Are you sure you're talking about Stugeron?
It doesn't even come in a 30mg form. It's either 25mg or 75mg (forte) packages.

 

Ha. Yeah, it was Stugeron. I took 2x15mg tablets. Should I try again with a higher dosage? I bought 5 packets (15mg).

 

Cinnarizine is my temporary relief.

My tinnitus was caused by smoking. Two years ago my ears started ringing every time I smoked (the hallmark of an ototoxic drug), however the hearing loss of smokers occurs outside the frequency of normal every day hearing so I didn't think anything of it. After using audiogram hearing tests freely available on Itunes and Android market place, I have high frequency hearing loss above 10,000khz (completely deaf above 12,000 khz in my left ear) with a broad hissing noise caused by increased spontaneous firing rate up-regulated in the hair cells that died over the broad frequency range combined, and sometimes a specific frequency ringing. Vontrol(diphenidol) didn't seem to make a difference. Serc (betahistine) may have slightly helped.

After 75mg of Cinnarizine I noticed a 90% reduction in noise, that decreased to a 50% reduction at the end of a week. Vontrol's mechanism of action is unknown, but serc and Cinnarizine are both H1 antagonist anti-histamines. The ear is very complex and the vasodilatory effects of Cinnarizine at higher doses might have caused the difference in smoking induced tinnitus, as nicotine is a vasoconstrictor but I doubt it because Serc within the ear is also a vasodilator.

Damage to the outer hair cells have been implicated in tinnitus, and the activation of the efferent nerve fibers by increasing GABA and particularly Ach would imply Serc should have worked better assuming the effect on my tinnitus was due to nerve endings in the cochlea vs vestibular nuclei or the reorganization of the tonotopic map. Cinnarizine also inhibits Calcium channels which open in the hair cells themselves when Na+ depolarization occurs but I doubt this has anything to do with its affect on tinnitus, otherwise hearing real sounds would be affected.

 

It didn't help me, either in terms of PREVENTING dizzy turns or for tinnitus with Meniere's Disease. Indeed, some authorities say it is a bad idea to be damping down your vestibular reflexes with this medication, when they are already compromised: my balance is already poor.
I do still have some on standby to take in the event of an acute dizzy turn coming on, where it may possibly reduce the severity and duration of the attack.

 

I tried this as an attempt to lower tinnitus. I was supposed to take 2x 15mg pills three times a day.

However, after the morning 2 pills I felt incredibly depressed. I read that it acts on D2 dopamine receptors, could that be the reason?

On the plus side, at 7pm felt incredibly sleepy, had to go to bed early and slept a lot, which is a rarity for me, I usually sleep 3 to 5h per night. Anyone with similar experiences?

I can use the sleep but the depression was too strong and it had no effect on the tinnitus volume.

 

Hi. Hope someone sees this.

I was wondering if it would be safe to take 50mg of Cinnarizine daily for a month long.
(1x 25mg in the morning and 1x25 mg in the evening)

It is helping my sleep a lot and therefore making my tinnitus less noticeable. I would like to see if it will have even more effect after taking it a month.

Just wanted to make sure it is safe. I don't take any other drugs (nothing works).

 

I started taking Cinnarizine in the morning and evening (2 * 75 mg). I hope it lowers the volume of my tinnitus.

 

And please remember to update again later Cinnarizine has had mixed results here, I think...

 

I will update. I reduced the dose to 75 mg. 2 * 32.5 mg. In summary, I cut the tablet in half.

Half a tablet in the morning, half a tablet in the evening.

 

I reduced the dose today to 25*2 mg.

 

Any updates on this? I would like to try this drug. It's not available in the US though. I wonder how many drugs are already out there that have the potential to treat us which we don't have access to?

 

Anyone else tried this?

 

I'm taking Cinnarizine (Stugeron) 75 mg, 1 tablet a day, just before going to bed.

I have had a tinnitus spike since September, 15, 2022, and I started to take Stugeron 75 mg before bedtime, and it seems to help me sleep by slightly lowering my tinnitus. It also makes me sleep a little more.

I'm going to take it for 60 days (I'm going in day 36).

Only in the end of the cycle will I see if it really lowers my tinnitus during night time, but till now I have the impression that it really lowers my tinnitus a bit.

I'm also getting slightly better from my tinnitus spike, but since the spike was caused by the use of more powerful hearing aids that caused some kind of acoustic trauma, I can't say for sure whether my slight improvement (from a 8/10 to a 6/10) is the result of taking Cinnarizine, or the stabilization of my inner ear (my tinnitus baseline was a 2-3/10 for 7 years), or even both...

When I have finished the Cinnarizine cycle of 60 days, I will post an update here.

Best regards.

 

OK, I chickened out on Cinnarizine at day 40 (yesterday).

I suffered very mild side effects from the drug: balance issues, sleepy during the day, feeling my head was a little bit "off", and maybe some joint pain in my knees.

So, I decided to not risk further, although I repeat, the side effects above are very mild and only appeared after, maybe, day 30 of the treatment.

I'm also not quite sure if I felt any real improvements in my tinnitus since I started taking Cinnarizine (Stugeron 75 mg, one pill before bed time).

These are my thoughts for now.

Best regards.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Cinnarizine is a dopamine blocker, anti-sickness type drug. They help some.

 

OK, final update about Cinnarizine (Stugeron), 10 days after I stopped the treatment:

I took it for 7 days more, for a total of 47 days (with 2 or 3 days off in the middle of the treatment).

I was taking 1 pill - Stugeron 75 mg - before bed time.

Positive results

Cinnarizine helped to lower the volume of my tinnitus by just a little bit during the night, and helped me to sleep better.

Negative side effects

Worst side effect: After day 40-41 of the treatment (75 mg a day, before bed time), I started to experience mild twitches and tremors in my left hand thumb, and in my legs (this was the worst side effect, and caused me stop the treatment at day 47 - the treatment was supposed to last 60 days).

Mild side effects: slight disturbance of my balance, slight joint pains and it made me felt sleepy during the day.

Final conclusion

Cinnarizine helped me a bit during my sleep and morning hours by lowering the volume of my tinnitus by just a little bit, and helped me to sleep better. But the side effects, especially the twitches in my left hand thumb and legs made it impossible for me to take Cinnarizine till the end of the treatment.

Right now, 10 days after the end of the treatment, the twitches are almost gone. Nevertheless, I'm not planning to take Cinnarizine/Stugeron again

I hope this testimony helps others on the forum.

Take care and stay strong.

 

Thank you very much Ricardo for your testimony.

 

I started Cinnarizine yesterday at 30 mg 3x a day, it does seem to lower my tinnitus by a noticeable amount.

 

Cinnarizine has helped me with tinnitus slightly, I will probably continue to use it occasionally when my tinnitus is particularly spiked. However, my main issue is pain hyperacusis and this hasn't helped it.

The tinnitus reduction effect seemed most powerful after the first few doses, I feel like I got some tolerance after a day.

Also I can't handle 90 mg a day (I got crazy hiccups in the middle of the night), but 45-60 mg a day is okay.

 

I took Stugeron for around 2 months. 30 mg (one pill) at night before sleep. It helped with sleep and I had no side effects.

Today my tinnitus and hearing sensitivity are more than 90% better. And I’m enjoying a normal life. But I cannot say to what extent Stugeron helped as I was taking other medications such as Xanax and vitamins B, D, Zinc, and Melatonin as well.

 

Can Cinnarizine also help if you have muffled hearing in one ear? An ENT prescribed me it for this reason and not for tinnitus, so I got a bit skeptical.

I am also on antidepressants and other drugs so I don't entertain too much the idea of taking it.