Epileptic Drugs and Tinnitus

Interestingly enough, in the treatment section I see quite a few drugs (anticonvulsants) that can be used for epilepsy which may help some (not all) with tinnitus:

Trobalt
Carbamazepine
Neurontin
Pregabalin
Topamax

Not recommended long term:

Barbiturates
Benzodiazepines

I have read other accounts here where some other anticonvulsant drugs have helped people with tinnitus. I figured I would share this video to see if we could figure out if we could learn something and maybe come up with an idea or two on how this works. To give you a little background the guy talks about hyperpolarization and depolariazation. It has to do with electrical charges. Here is a graph from Wikipedia:




The video is below. I am not a scientist so I cannot verify if all of the following is true but I find it interesting. Do you think this could shed light on how some of these drugs may help with tinnitus?

Epilepsy pharmacology - Soton Brain Hub

By the way, I know tinnitus is very complex, but I wonder if this could shed just a little light on things.

 

I think it's pretty interesting. A neurologist I've seen likes to say I have "status tinnitus", a comparison to "status epilepsy" where people have constant seizures.

When epilepsy drugs work for people's tinnitus, it seems like we have to conclude that the drug is somehow slowing down or stopping some kind of hyperactivity. For me, benzos definitely do that, but other seizure drugs I've tried like Trileptal, did not have that effect. But, they clearly work for some people -- there was some amount of research that led me to try Trileptal in the first place.

 

I read online where the resting potential of a neuron is -70mv. I wonder in some people if certain neurons are overactive and more positive

The video above mentions the AMPA receptors. I found this...kind of interesting. Maybe you could ask your neurologist about it:

https://google.com/patents/WO2005049042A1?cl=en

 

that's pretty interesting and I could try, but, I wouldn't expect much. He's really good about letting me try weird drugs if I have an evidence based reason for wanting to do so, and he's also really good at waxing intellectual about life in a very wordy and slow way in a clear effort to impress the uniformly attractive, young, female med students that he has as fellows... but pretty short on actionable insight, AFAIK ;D

 

The only prescription drug I could find that worked on AMPA receptors was Perampanel and I am not sure if it is worth trying because of the possible side effects. Plus it isn't generic so it is rather expensive if you don't have insurance.

 

@JasonP Maybe you find this map over different anti-epileptics and their targets interesting

 

yeah, I think I personally am past the point of trying any drugs unless they have well established, not-scary side effects lists.

I'm gonna take a run at low-dose naltrexone because I'm curious to see what impact it has on my other health issues as well as tinnitus, but the side effects of a tiny 3mg of naltrex are nothing compared to nearly any of the psych meds out there.

When I was a lot more unhappy and desperate, I was more willing to eat stuff like Trobalt.

 

Good video. Although I was a little disappointed he didn't cover potassium ion channels.

Here is a good overview: www.medscape.org/viewarticle/570744_3