Huge Tinnitus Spike: Suspected Ibuprofen — Should I Get Prednisolone ASAP?

Hi everyone - I'm so glad to have come across Tinnitus Talk today. I have been wracking the internet the last few days - feeling pretty emotional - so trying to be careful about what I read. I wonder if anyone has advice for me?

About 7 years ago I experienced tinnitus for the first time - no cause I could put my finger on. Although I did get extreme ear infections when I was very young - I've always suspected this could have been a cause (however happened 10+ years before I got tinnitus). It was stressful in the beginning but I got used to it/there were full days even weeks I wouldn't think about it/notice it - Doctor and ENT specialist offered no specific help.

Last 2 weeks my tinnitus has gotten crazy loud - mostly in my left ear.

I went to the doctor last Friday who pointed out to me Ibuprofen can cause deafness and tinnitus. I'd taken them for a week recently due to a sports injury.

I feel like I may have a slight loss of hearing in my left ear which is why I can hear the tinnitus louder. From the papers I've read deafness can cause an increase in tinnitus because your brain over-activates the hearing circuits. Kind of like phantom limb syndrome - at least I've seen a paper describe tinnitus as this.

What can I do?

I've booked myself in for a hearing test tomorrow.

NHS ENT waiting time is ridiculous.

I'm concerned from what I've read about the golden window for using Prednisolone. I've also found a paper (I'm a scientist) which suggests injection of dexamethasone has better effects - how would I even go about getting this? Does anyone have experiences?

A few coping strategies I would have gone MAD without this last week;

- My partners BOSE noise cancelling headphones - I'm not sure why, maybe it's the white noise? They can completely drown out the tinnitus. Although after playing sport last night and getting a whistle blown close to my ear - it took them a lot longer to settle it.

- Cambridge audio speaker - even just on but without music - again imagining this is white noise benefit.

Should I be going back to my GP to get a course of Prednisolone ASAP? Which antioxidant/supplements would be best to try - am thinking of zinc, B12 and ginkgo.

 

Before you take Prednisolone, please keep in mind ...
It is also ototoxic (no good to ears).
It is kind of choosing the less between two evils (in your case).

 

Hello,
I've been in a very similar situation recently.
After an MRI test I had a huge spike and decided to inject 90 mg of Prednisolone after 23 hours.
It gave a huge panic attack and I felt it spiked my tinnitus more. I'm a very anxious person and had similar issues with Prednisolone before. I didn't continue the injections and I feel like the spike in my right ear (where there was no tinnitus before) has subsided somewhat, but didn't return to silence.

A week later I started Dexamethasone injections (8 mg). I'm on seventh injection right now and will be lowering the dose tomorrow. I think the spike in my left ear has become more soft, but it's still about twice as loud than before the MRI. My right ear feels a bit better too. One definite thing I've noticed that I had pulsating/thumping feeling in my left ear before and I has reduced dramatically since starting steroids. So I think they helped in a way, but I'm not sure about the cause of my tinnitus. She thumping sound might be from some sort of otitis or Eustachian tube problems or allergies.

Regarding Prednisolone vs Dexamethasone I also saw a paper about Dexamethasone injections.
They used 40-40-40-10-10-10 mg regimen and found no difference between first 24 hours and 7 days after the trauma and found out that it performed better than Prednisolone. I'm not sure what to make out of that.
The 40 mg dose is insane and my doctor said that I would be crazy to inject myself with that without any serious reason like a gunshot near my ear.

I hope you get better. I will post a few day later after I discontinue the steroids to report back about my experience.

 

Hi sorry to hear this, I am in the same issue but from Tylenol and only from a couple of pills.

I am not sure if there is anything you can do, I called my ENT and asked about predinosone he said it may help sudden hearing loss but not really useful for noise trauma or ototoxicity. Do you have an audiogram from before?

 

What dosage & for how long?

 

I am assuming you are from the United Kingdom so I am not sure how it works there but if you all have hearing aid places that give free hearing tests, I would advise that first. If you can ask for an audiogram printout to see if you have lost hearing in your left ear and if so, ask if they have demo hearing aids they can program to correct your hearing loss. If the new ringing "goes away" while wearing a pair of hearing aids, at least you know something that can fix the problem.

If that's the case, hopefully the hearing loss is only temporary.

 

400mg doses 3 times a day for 7 days.

 

That's what i'm keeping my fingers crossed for - trying to stay positive! Yes - this is exactly what I've done - booked an appointment today in a local pharmacy to get a free hearing test. Thank you for the advice. I had a hearing test on the NHS all those years ago when it first started to bother me - so hopefully i can get my hands on that and compare.

 

I really wish i knew before taking the ibuprofen! Irony is i always try to resist taking meds - but as my injury was holding me back from playing sports and the physio advised it - i went right ahead.

From a scientific POV i'm a little confused why predinsone wouldn't help noise trauma induced hearing loss - from what I've read the steroid effects help boost ear fibre growth/renewal/regulation and therefore it should help any event which has damaged them....!?

 

So glad you've seen a positive change! How did you go about getting the Dexamethasone injections? Did you get them injected directly into your ear? The papers I've read did this by intratympanic injection...

A little worried to try Prednisolone with it being stated as also ototoxic.

 

Did you T just get more loud or did you get new tones?
I got 4 new tones after the Tylenol

back in 2016 I got a huge spike from shouting really loud I look some Prednisone 6 days later, though it was not a very high does only 30mg/day for 3 days as I could not bear the side effects of not being able to sleep, it did not help at all. It's a pretty nasty drug and you will feel awful on it.

 

It sounds like it's just a lot louder. But to be honest I'm not sure if i could tell you as before it was a lot, lot quieter and I'd gotten pretty good at blocking it out. How long ago did you take the Tylenol?

 

A month and a half ago, I had another hearing test after and the results did not change but these tests are not sensitive enough or could miss where the damage is I guess. I tried to take some supplements like Vitamine E , NAC, and B12 unfortunately that did not help and I continued to get worse as time went on so now I don't even trust the supplements.

It's a good sign that you did not get new tones, earlier in the year I took Tylenol for a week for a flu and it made T louder - but no new tones - after a few weeks but I dismissed it to the flu as being the cause, but I eventually got better and the spike went down after a few months. Not sure why this time it had a devastating effect from only two pills.

 

Those numbers make me seriously doubt that Ibuprofen was the culprit.
If I were you I'd go down the diagnosis path to make sure you're not missing anything, especially since you don't have a root cause for your "initial T". This flowchart can help: https://www.tinnitusresearch.net/index.php/for-clinicians/diagnostic-flowchart

Good luck!

 

I've had spikes from Ibuprofen and Naproxen a couple of times (had to take the drugs for inflammation). Just stop taking it, try to relax, and in a few days the spike will quiet down if the cause was really from the NSAID. I would not suggest taking a heavy drug like prednisone, that's asking for trouble.

 

I will advise you to not use headphones to block out the noise. Also stay away from medication, just makes things worse. Do what you did for 7 yrs - nothing. I'm trying to do exactly what you did for 7 yrs. How did you do it?

 

I agree with @GregCA that it probably wasn't the Ibuprofen. Knowing about your sport injury might help. Besides from your actual injury are you experiencing any other problems, such as a sore neck, sore jaw, sore anything?

 

Sure - It was pain/inflammation/potential cartilage damage in my knee - so i'm pretty sure it's not related.

Well it's promising to know the dose of ibuprofen i took is unlikely to have caused the issue.

The ear my T initially became noticeably louder in - is definitely experiencing something different to my right - the best way i can describe it is the feeling you'd get if you travelled to a higher altitude/went over a large hill in the car - the strange, slightly cotton-woolly feeling you get.

I've read T is suspected to be caused to an extent by inflammation/edema in the ear - I wonder if i have an increased amount of inflammation in my left ear and therefore it's caused T to become louder.

I had a hearing test at a local pharmacy yesterday. Result - normal hearing and surprisingly my hearing is better in the ear which initially experienced the T spike. The audiologist was very helpful - he also explained how ibuprofen can cause hearing loss/T which is by effecting hair growth - apparently it does this to all hair cells in your body - interesting 'eh.

I had an ENT appointment today which was disappointing. I believed i was seeing a consultant but turned out to be a GP with specialism in ENT. Not a helpful meeting. They've now refereed me to a consultant. I'm interested to discuss the findings of this study with them > https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10753373

 

Thankyou!

 

I grew up in the countryside with complete silence so you can imagine the onset of T was hard for me. Luckily (!?) at the time I was living in a town so at night/during the day I would focus on background noise - like the sound of cars or environmental noise pollution. Concentrating on the tones of sound which are different to my T. Aka distraction!!

Have you ever had someone call your name but be so immersed in a task you don't hear them? They're literally talking to you at a volume you'd normally hear but because your brains focused on something else - it blocks the sound out.

Training my focus helped a lot! You can't be giving what you're doing full attention if part of your brain is focused on hearing the T - it's similar to what's taught in cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety etc. You need to focus on what's outside of you. Give it 100% attention.

It can be done - I promise!

Also to say - the power of your mind is huge. I'm a scientist by training - and the placebo effect is very real and very validated. If for instance a company tested a new pain med - they'd have 1 group who did nothing, 1 group who took a 'sugar pill' and 1 group who take their new med. Group 1 - about 20% would get better - it's called natural progression to the norm. Group 2 - sugar pill - about 50% would get better i.e. some are getting better because of natural progression to the norm and some are getting better because of the placebo effect (about 30%!) - then the group who took the med might see about 90% reduction.

Your mind is extremely powerful - and you can train it.

 

@CherylAres How are you feeling? Did your spike go down?