Flupirtine — Another Potassium Channel Opener

I got it from a german pharmacy (katadolon S long 400mg)

 

@1MW
It seems that you're on a ton of different drugs at the same time. Could you possibly list all the drugs you're on? Do you think it's a good idea to be mixing drugs?

 

This time i get only flupirtine plus little dose RTG for sleep.
Only if i have a bad worsening i get corticosteroids.
I have stopped the other drugs.
Generally i have tested for T about 100 drugs but this happened the past not now.
I was almost T free for some years...
I got severe T & H that passed and before some months returned

 

So, does this drug have any permanent reslults? Or just contemporary? And how effective is it (in what dosage?).
Whoever tried it please sum up!

 

I don't know .
I suppose the results are tempoorary but for me works better than RTG.
To me corticosteroids > benzos > flupirtine > RTG

 

To me corticosteroids and benzos does ABSOLUTELLY nothing!
Also tried Neurontin and Tegretol, also NOTHING! To sum up, I haven't really found anything that affects my T, it has good and bad days, it is contsantly fluctuating. The only sure thing that agrevates it is loud noise!
Haven't tried RTG or flupirtine, I would if I could easily find them, but after many tries I just dont see what't the point any more...

In my mind, only drastic solutions may help, such as gene therapy, stem cells, surgery (mvd or HIFU). Pills like these are not supposed to help, I even don't put much hope in Autiphony's upcoming oral solution... and even that is years away. Things look realy bad right now and quite hopeless

 

Try flupirtine and retigabine for sure you will have results.
Both work to damage happened from noise/acoustic trauma model.
Drastic solutions like hair cell regeneration will not exist the next 10 years.
Stem cells lasers and other like these treatments are scams.
Only drastic solution today is surgery if found a treatable cause.

 

Find me someone who will make a definite assesment of microvascular compression and I would surely do a mvd surgery. My MRI shows signs of mvc, but an acoustic trauma trigered most of my T! I say most because it was there before, not to that extend though... In my case, it is a dead end. Nobody can diagnose cohlea damage, nobody can be sure whether the microvascular pressure causes T, nobody dare do anything!
Perhaps one day a cure will be found and mine will not be cured because it was a (now antreatable) case of mvc that was neglected for years...

 

right so you think @attheedgeofscience is a victim of scams?

 

@svintegrity , might shed some light for you.

 

@skoupidis as @NiNyu said, I had MVD surgery less than two weeks ago. It has decreased my T by 70-80%. It was a necessary surgery, because I had an artery that was just hammering my cochleovestibular nerve causing damage. I had sudden onset pulsitile tinnitus for a bit over a year, at a level that I called a screaming 10. I understand there is about a four-year window for this surgery to be successful. It looks like you are well within this timeframe. Other things go along with this surgery that are hard work, like learning to walk again, working on your VOR, and rebalancing your brain/vestibular system. I still have double vision upon awakening, but it is going away, as I work on rebalancing my brain. The only neurosurgeons that you want to do this surgery are ones that will not do it unless they have a positive diagnosis of MVC, and from talking with my team of neurosurgeons this condition is very rare. It is brain surgery. Mine was diagnosed by a neuro radiologist in a Neuroscience Institute. You want to have a very competent neuro radiologist. Feel free to PM me if you would like more information.

 

Yes but because he reports improvement placebo worked for him.
The audiograms posted before and after LLLT of dr wilden i believe 99.99% that
was a trick of dr wilden because both performed from him if these audiograms
was in independent doctor-hospital then will be true.Also in this case the improvement came on its own and not from dr wilden.
I saw his slides for LLLT and in my opinion is scammer that sells lasers which cost 50 euros from ebay
4000 euros.Its business.
I can not believe that big pharmaceutical companies give millions to reasearch and can not do
a trial with these cheap lasers...The true is that they have tested lasers and does not work.

@skoupidis if you mri shows mvc and T is a life problem for you go for surgery...

 

Thank you for your precious info. Apart from a similar avatar, we appear to have similar conditions! I have already been diagnosed by only 1 audiologist with mvc (microvascular compression) due to the MRI of the ear canals she sent me to do. Every other doctor I visited discarded this as a random finding! They attributed my T to acoustic trauma. I searched the net and found out some info about this surgery, I already have a topic trying to find out whether there is a connection to T with this condition, even if there is acoustic trauma involved. It is only a hypothesis but I think it is really worth digging into. I already know a couple of people with noise induced acoustic trauma and unilateral tinnitus that their MRI scans show signs of microvascular compression on the tinnitus ear, just like mine!

Feel free to continue posting on this topic I opened, people would really want to know about your post-surgery progress! This way we will not burden these topics that are not really related:

A Mixed Treatment: Acoustic Trauma and/or Vascular Compression? Do Most Have Both?

My best wishes for your full recovery, may you be a pioneer for many of us to follow.

PS: A couple of questions for you: 1) My tinnitus is mostly a continuous fluctuating high pitch noise, like a mosquito repeller sound, only it fluctuates a lot! I also have a hissing sound and a telegraph sound. What exactly was/is your sound like?
2) Did you have acoustic trauma involved or it just appeared out of nowhere? Please feel free to answer to the above link so we won't bother this topic any more with mvc talk.

 

Ok, if doctors suggest it after thorough examinations I would. Doctors in my country aren't helping at all!

 

Not sure why 9 members rated the quoted post "informative" when there are several passages that are wrong (and which would have been easy to verify - for anyone...). See this literature if in doubt:

http://bps.conference-services.net/resources/344/3046/pdf/EPHAR2012_0621.pdf

Retigabine is a so-called "dirty-drug" (= wide spectrum MoA). It works very well in relation to tinnitus for a certain sub-set of tinnitus patients. While a dirty drug may carry more side effects than a selective one, what matters is not the selectivity, but the potency.

Flupirtine acts on the same sub-units (Kv7.2-5) as Retigabine. So, yes, there is a possible impact.

a (concerned) passerby

 

Hi, your are quoting a post from last summer which was actually moved here from another thread. At that point tinnitustalk wasn't familiar with potassium channels and KvX.Y modulators so the post you are quoting is one of the first "translations" of scientific research publications/articles and it has some flaws but now we know better. Good reminder anyway.

Although these little flaws aren't as bad as the flaws in other threads where people keep stating something which has already proven to be wrong. (For example that Brivaracetam is Kv3.1 modulator).

This is a public internet forum and people should be more critical while they read things as you did there

 

The use of flupirtine in treatment of tinnitus.
Salembier L1, De Ridder D, Van de Heyning PH.
Author information

Abstract
CONCLUSION:
Flupirtine, a functional NMDA antagonist, does not seem to be efficacious in the treatment of tinnitus.

OBJECTIVES:
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether flupirtine has any beneficial effect on tinnitus perception.

PATIENTS AND METHODS:
Twenty-four patients were selected (6 female and 18 male patients) with continuous subjective tinnitus. Eight patients suffered left-sided tinnitus, 4 right-sided tinnitus and 12 bilateral tinnitus. We assessed the burden of the tinnitus by loudness visual analogue scale (VAS) and tinnitus questionnaire (TQ) according to Hallam et al., and Hiller and Goebel. All patients were treated with a 2 x 100 mg daily dosage of oral flupirtine for 3 weeks in an open prospective design.

RESULTS:
There was no statistical effect on VAS and TQ of the treatment with flupirtine. Only one patient (4.2%) experienced a positive effect on the tinnitus but discontinued the treatment because of amnesia and concentration disorders.

 

Only 200mg / day were used in the study. Which is 1/3 of the maximum dose. The study proves nothing (except that Flupirtine is not effective at those doses....).

a (concerned) passerby

 

The most serious side effect is frequent hepatotoxicity which prompted regulatory agencies to issue several warnings and restrictions....Not an ideal drug to use.

 

True. But that - liver toxicity - would have been known in advance of the study (and hence is besides the point). If a drug is going to be studied for specific purpose (i.e. symptom treatment) dosage needs to be considered. Otherwise, there is not much point in doing the study in the first place (at least in this case).

a (concerned) passerby.

 

I agree. I'm guessing they didn't want to risk higher doses due to it being toxic to the liver.

 

If you are a healthy adult with no excessive alcohol or hepatoxic drug use, you should be fine to take Flupirtine over 3-4 weeks 600Mg per day.

Flupirtine is widely used (by millions of people). There is 15 liver related cases per 100.000 people which isn't much imo.

When used right and liver enzymes are observed, I'd say Flupirtine is more safe than Retigabine with less side effects. Treatment cycles just should be kept short (1 month for example). This is why I actually tried to get Flupirtine but my GP couldn't get it for me because Flupirtine isn't sold in Finland.

@Danny Boy , little off-topic, but you mentioned earlier in another thread that Keppra lowered some ppls T. Who are they and where are their statements? I'm asking because I'm interested trying Keppra before Retigabine.

 

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/levetiracetam-keppra-worked-for-my-hyperacusis.8946/

Some people on here, read though. And Viking of course and his doctor trialled it on patients and got good results.

 

Well that was kind of the problem. Didn't find any.

 

Hm, there was some people? I swear there was.

 

Well I took only 10mins to eye it through so I may have missed them.

 

Well, it doesn't matter. It's up to you if you want to take it. In-fact go and speak to a doctor about keppra and if it'll work for hyperacusis. Good luck.

 

@attheedgeofscience I was wondering, did flupirtine have any lasting effects for you? On your profile you mentioned that you had slight to moderate effects from it. But were they temporary, i.e. only during the treatment, or did they stay after the treatment?

 

Hi people: i want try this drug before trobalt. In general is it effective? I have acoustic trauma with sensoneural H loss (just a little bit on 7000/8000hz)

 

At first stages the gold standard treatment are corticosteroids(dexamethasone-methylprednisolone).
If you have hearing loss then it's very difficult your T to pass away.
Try corticosteroids for a week but i thing its too late. Corticosteroids are effective the first hours-days.
Tinnitus with hearing loss is more difficult to treat.