Corticosteroids for Chronic Tinnitus

I want to share here my experiences of corticosteroids for chronic tinnitus.

My tinnitus baseline is left to central sound and mild to moderate.
But more bothering is a sharp sound more in my left ear which is severe and afflicts me about 2 - 3 days a week.

T origin is unknown. Onset 10 month ago. Only remarkable thing is a strong hearing loss in my left ear only between 9.5khz to 10.5 khz, which I don't notice in daily life, and I can not explain.

I have various somatic points where I can induce artificial tinnitus.
But only one point below my ear creates a matching sound in my left ear only. On the right side it doesn't work.

Periodical cycles in tinnitus severity and this unilateral pressure point makes me wonder if some chronic inflammation is involved.

So I started today Prednisone 40mg, following 20mg, 10mg, 5mg, 5mg....5mg for 2 weeks

My interest is if it is able to break the cycle of increasing tinnitus.


Day one: mild/moderate day. Pressure on point below left ear triggers tinnitus less then yesterday.


Updates follow

 

I think your dosage is quite low... My ENT gave me 60 mg per day for one week.

 

I think difference here is I'm not in acute phase and rather try something similar to people suffering from arthritis (chronic inflammation)

 

If indeed you have some sort of chronic inflammation, then try also wobenzyme-n.

 

Thanks. I will. But it seems to me to be a ginkgo like drug, what means rather for believers.

 

Update after 2 weeks:
It seems to prevent bad days.

 

How much hearing loss do you have in your left ear?

 

On professional audiogram with range up to 10kHz I have around -20db at 4kHz (both ears) and around -20db at 10kHz (left ear only). In between it's less hearing loss. The dip at 4kHz is probably due to my lifestyle. I'm ok with that.

The loss at 10kHz is weird, since it's in the left ear only and I can tell by checking by myself, that the hearing loss is much more profound here than the audiogram lets expect: Even moderate sinus tones between 9.5kHz and 10.5kHz I can hear only very little on the left ear. Feels like being deaf there. It's much worse than what I experience on 4kHz. With increasing loudness the stereo hearing equals again, so I hear on left again as loud as on the right ear.
I guessed it might be due to OHC loss. So I increased the loudness and tested myself for discomfort level. Same level on the left as on the right side: recruitment seems not to be damaged on my left ear.
To sum up: I have no clue what has happened to my left ear. MRT is next week, lets see what it brings up.

 

BTW I ran out of prednisolon on Saturday. Wednesday and today are bad again...
I was relatively good for 2 weeks on Prednisolon, which is rare.
Maybe I will give it another shot

 

@Marlino,
Hope you did a slow taper after on it longer than 10 days...lots of love glynis

 

I've been on 50mg for 5 days now, what would be the proper tapper for this dosage?

 

Usually you slowly reduce it by halving the dosage.
I woumd so like 25mg, 10mg, 10mg, 5mg, 5mg,5mg, 0mg

Did it have any positive effect on your tinnitus?

 

To be honest I'm not sure, my t has been all over the place so hard to tell.
But I think it helped with the blocked feeling due to cold.

 

@Marlino ,
I reduce down by 5mg every 4th day and when get down to 5mg stop !!! ....lots of love glynis

Make sure you get your doctor to give you his taper advice and he or she will work out how many tablets you need for reduction....

 

When I used 80mg per day of prednesone (and vasodialators) to successfully treat sudden hearing loss in my left ear, there were a few days while I was at peak dosages that it also seemed to reduce the chronic 5-month old tinnitus that I have in my right ear... but after a day or two of reduced volume it returned to normal, even though I was still on the steroids. So perhaps a transitory improvement but certainly nothing permanent.

 

My results were also inconclusive.
Even though I possibly had the best 2 weeks in the last year taking it, I'm not fully convinced. Also in the end I was taking merely 5mg and I had bad moments again.
So for a long term treatment probably not suitable

 

Would tumeric have the same effects as steroids since it's anti inflammatory?

 

I found out that I respond favourably to Prednisone so am currently trailing tumeric and some of the enzyme formulas (Wobenzym). Hard to know if any difference yet, but Prednisone is a very strong oral steroid even at lower dosages so I really doubt these supplements will be as effective.

 

Couple of people on another forum have had varying success using oregano oil ( which is not only anti bacterial/ anti inflammatory but also gabanergic).