Can LDN (Low-Dose Naltrexone) Make Tinnitus Better or Worse?

@Samantha R hasn't stopped the LDN to know if her tinnitus increases... I think she plans on staying on it for life...

 

A functional doctor prescribed LDN to me and now I am over the fence again because it seems full of benefits but then there are some bad reports online.

Not sure what to do. He prescribed 50 micrograms (ultra low dose).

 

@juliob, and what are those benefits?

 

Hello,

I decided to try LDN, it seems pretty safe.

I just ingested 1 mg LDN -- does anyone know how long it would take to see any effect on tinnitus if there will be one?

Thanks.

 

Update:

LDN has completely gotten rid of my right ear tone, which was never bothersome, but I could always hear it in a quiet room. I have been taking 1 mg for 2 days, and then upped it to 1.5 mg the past 2 days.

If I plug my ear, I can hear it, but I cannot hear it otherwise.

My most bothersome tinnitus is still loud and clear on bad days, but I would recommend that people try LDN.

It seems like a very mild drug at low doses.

I'll go up to 5 mg in the coming week.

 

That is great! May you have even more improvements and healing!

Mind sharing what caused your tinnitus and if you have anything autoimmune?

 

Loud noise, but worsened significantly by benzo. The right ear tone was caused by loud noise.

The central head tinnitus, which is unmaskable, has not changed.

 

Hi @BrysonKingMe -- Not that I'm any kind of expert on LDN, but I seem to recall that moving up to 5 mg should be done over a fairly lengthy period of time, like weeks or something like that. Of course we're all different, but since you're having such great success at a lower dosage, perhaps patience is the name of the game as far as getting up to a higher dosage. Just a thought.

 

Thanks for the heads up Lane.

I will be going slow -- Dr. De Ridder suggested 5 mg off the bat but I am very wary of any medicine now. I think I'm going to stick at this dose for another day, then move up slowly as you suggested.

It does give me increased anxiety for a couple of hours which is not what I need during benzo withdrawal, but maybe it could affect my troublesome tinnitus if I go higher. We'll see.

 

The effect to kick in, for my friend, took a couple of days.

I thought your Korean treatment resolved your head noise?

 

I thought it did too, but it was temporary/made it so loud in my ears I couldn't hear the head noise.

Everything is so up and down now with my Clonazepam withdrawal.

 

Have you done blood work or tests for autoimmune diseases? I ask this because I have seen some people have success with LDN tinnitus-wise but they also deal with autoimmune issues.

I did some specific tests to test for autoimmune issues but they didn't detect anything in this sense I guess.

 

Good to see the LDN has helped you somewhat...

Do you experience residual inhibition with your peripheral noise?

 

Sometimes for the whole day, sometimes I wake up to my old mild tinnitus.

Sometimes it's an electrical wire in my ear that does not respond to residual inhibition and gets horrible throughout the day. Like today.

It's the benzo I reinstated. Fucking poison.

 

Hey everyone, I recently asked my GP to prescribe me LDN for my severe tinnitus and she surprisingly said yes. But she prescribed me 50 mg tablets which is regular Naltrexone and not LDN. I went to the pharmacy to discuss and was told it wasn’t available in 1 mg or 4.5 mg.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation? I’m curious why this same issue hasn’t been mentioned at all on this long thread. It seems to be commercially available.

BTW - I took half a 50 mg and dissolved into 1 liter of water. Every 50 ml should equal 1.25 mg of Naltrexone, but it doesn’t dissolve entirely in the water so I know this is a crude measurement at best. and it hasn’t helped either so far. It’s been about 2 weeks.

 

@randomEtc, you need to get it compounded at a pharmacy.

On a different tangent, my understanding is that all these medications and treatments on their own are unlikely to work as they only partially disrupt the tinnitus network. Eventually the network reestablishes itself. A combination or cocktail approach is what is often recommended by some researchers.

 

Hi, do you have any more information on you using LDN? What was your dosage? What did you start on and end up on dosage wise? Did your tinnitus start to reduce over a period of time or did it just stop one day and that was it?

 

I hope you're ok.

Are you still using LDN?

 

Any update?

 

I tried LDN and it didn't work for me. In fact it made my tinnitus much worse.

I had another go this week. Again my tinnitus spiked immediately after and I was on a small dose 1.5 mg.

I really hoped this would help me but it wasn't for me. Hopefully it will calm down again in a few days.

 

Do you know why tinnitus would spike from LDN?

 

I have pondered this myself, though it isn't my experience at 2 mg/daily.

I do know that LDN inhibits microglial activation, and suppresses NMDA receptors; hence inhibits Glutamate.

I was warned by someone well known to this community about taking LDN because of its ability to increase Dynorphins - increased Glutamate via activated NMDA receptors.

However, I have found a couple of papers that illustrate that Dynorphins are actually capable of inhibiting excitatory neurotransmission and increasing GABA.

I guess I will try a higher dose and see what happens.

My interest in neuroinflammation stems from the new revelation (OATS test with Mosaic diagnostics) that I have a very high level of quinolinic acid (a biomarker for neuroinflammation), high oxalates (making high histamine likely), and high markers for aspergillus (a known mold issue in a reno — tinnitus relapse around the time of starting reno).

Coupled with still dealing with Borrelia infection and menopause, I think I am dealing with MCAS (in case this helps someone else).