My ENT and I Believe Antidepressant Withdrawal Is Causing My Unilateral Tinnitus, What to Do?

Edit: Sertraline = Zoloft

I’m new, so I’m sorry if I’m doing something incorrect but I’m in desperate need of advice.

I’m 17, I had been on Sertraline (antidepressant) for 6 months until I stopped two weeks ago.

Three days later I began to hear a ringing in my left ear, a consistent, almost Morse code-high pitched “eee-eeeee-ee”

Today I went to my ENT and we discussed all the possible causes and tried to narrow it down. He looked at both ears, took out the wax, and noticed my left ear was slightly inflamed in contrast to my right ear.

We kept trying to figure out the cause when he asked me if I had been taking or am taking antidepressants, I said yes and that I had stopped roughly three days before the ringing set in.

He and I now firmly believe that the withdrawal is what is causing my Tinnitus. It’s been two weeks and it’s shown no sign of stopping. Sometimes the conversations I have and my environment overshadow it and I don’t hear it, only to have it be the cause of intense headaches at night.

Suffice to say, I seem to be stuck with a choice:

Continue taking Sertraline not for my mental state (which I have to say has improved to a point where I’m the happiest I’ve ever been), but for my Tinnitus.

Or stave off antidepressants in hopes that my Tinnitus will eventually go away and isn’t permanent.

I’ve endured two weeks of this, and I have the utmost sympathy and respect for those of you who have Tinnitus, some even worse than mine, and in both ears. All I ask is for advice, please. I don’t know what to do and I feel as if returning to antidepressants after turning my life around would be undermining all my progress, but this Tinnitus is starting to became unbearable.

Do you guys think this T is permanent or will it simply go away with time once my body becomes used to not have Sertraline?

Edit: I’d also like to mention that while at my ENT I took a hearing test, which I passed perfectly. Therefore I either have extremely minimal hearing loss, or none at all.

 

25 MG is what I took

 

Hello Kevin and welcome,

Sorry to hear about your ordeal, deciding what to do is a very tough call to make.

I think that you should not reinstate the SSRI, these are very powerful drugs and are not meant to be taken long-term. Perhaps the ringing started due to the inflammation you mentioned, it could be a side effect of Sertraline withdrawal, or something else entirely. I'd suggest staying off the Sertraline, as there is no guarantee that taking it again will stop the tinnitus, and see if the tinnitus lowers or goes away.

 

Thank you for the timely response, I suppose that’s what I’ll have to do and hope for the best.

I’m surprised I’ve seen others talk about getting T with Zoloft, but not during withdraw. I still think it’s responsible though.

 

I believe it was a bad idea stopping zoloft cold turkey after 6 months.
Didn't your therapist suggest a slow taper so your brain can re-adjust itself in a more proper manner? Sertraline (and quite a lot of other ADs) are total brain f@ckers, you should know that.

 

Yes, stopping suddenly is a big shock to the system. I've been through SSRI withdrawal many times.

 

Have you considered restarting at the original dose for a few days to see what happens? Then you could slowly taper off.

 

He did not.

 

Would tapering off after restsrting be a more viable option than just going through withdraw?

 

I don't know. You are probably still withdrawing. Do you experience brain zaps, malaise, fatigue, etc? If so then it may be beneficial to just jump on the smallest dose needed to alleviate these symptoms and then taper off over the course of a few weeks, or longer. Monitor your tinnitus. Ask your doctors about it.

It's a big stress to the system to stop these medications abruptly. I advise you to change doctors. Was this a GP or Psych doc?

 

This is 100%! It takes time to get off these medications.

*side note SSRIs and SNRIs are meant to be taken long term. They are not designed for short term use really. The can take around 4-6 weeks to really be effective and lots more to come off them.

 

It takes time for your brain settle coming off AD meds and stopping them causes missfiring signals but a slow reduction would have helped.
Give it more time but get help if needed.
Love glynis

 

Actually I am, headaches, fatigue, and dizzy spells.

It was a Psychiatrist.

 

Alright, thank you for helping me find a timeline.

 

You might want check out the recent NYT article on antidepressants.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/health/antidepressants-withdrawal-prozac-cymbalta.html

"The drugs initially were approved for short-term use, following studies typically lasting about two months. Even today, there is little data about their effects on people taking them for years, although there are now millions of such users."

 

Good read. Thank you. There is certainly lots of debate and thoughts on this and I don't want to hijack this thread.

 

Sometimes it can take 16 weeks or more for these drugs to Kick in.

 

I'm tapering slowly off mirtazapine and my tinnitus has gone crazy. I just taper 5% a month. I also take Ativan and temazepam.

 

I am having the same situation with Cymbalta. In the middle of March this year (2018), I saw my psychiatrist. We discussed switching to Celexa. During the transition of tapering off Cymbalta and taking a low dose of Celexa, the tinnitus started. Since then, I stopped the Celexa, and have tried all sorts of combinations.... Going back on Cymbalta, reducing the strength, taking out half of the little beads in the capsule, etc. The brain zaps aren't as prevalent now. The tinnitus is less on some days, irritating on other days. Anyone else out there have the same problem with Cymbalta? I did read the NYT article.

 

Hi Kevin,

This is a long shot, but I'm wondering how things went for you?

My partner just had the same thing happen. He was being transitioned from Zoloft (Sertraline) to Cymbalta and developed unilateral tinnitus.

He has since stopped both thinking the Cymbalta caused it but now thinking it could've been withdrawal from Sertraline.

If you or anyone else had this experience, can you tell me what you did and what ended up happening? I'm hoping it will go away

 

For what it is worth, my ENT said that medication induced tinnitus would be bilateral, not unilateral. When it’s unilateral tinnitus they tend to look for other causes. However, my otologist also said that there are 100+ things that cause tinnitus and that quite often, it’s very difficult to know what the cause is for any one person and that for most medication induced tinnitus, it usually resolves once the medication is discontinued, unless of course it’s a truly ototoxic medication (damages hair cells) like chemotherapy drugs and certain antibiotics.

I’m a behavioral health clinician and I have never heard of tinnitus as a withdrawal symptom of Sertraline. I do, however, know that there are folks who report developing tinnitus while on antidepressants, not just the SSRIs, although it is not common. I have many colleagues who have seen many, many patients and have never had any of them develop tinnitus as a result of an antidepressant. And although I don’t practice anymore, I do believe that Cymbalta has a higher risk of tinnitus than Zoloft based on percentages of reports of people reporting the experience of tinnitus while taking the medication.

I hope it resolves for your partner soon.

 

Thank you for your helpful reply!

That's what I had assumed as well. I didn't initially know it was unilateral - he hesitated from telling me because I've had tinnitus chronically and he is sensitive to that.

I did some research and found a case study where a patient experienced essentially the same thing (unilateral tinnitus after withdrawal from Zoloft and ceasing of tinnitus once put back on original dose). The person who posted this actually has a follow up post I found where they said theirs stopped as well. Wish I could've saved the link to the case study but I search everything in private mode to prevent a million ads for tinnitus cures popping up on my social media.

Update:

He has been back on Sertraline for 3 days.

GREAT NEWS.

I've hesitated from asking him about if it has improved after restarting Zoloft because I didn't want him to focus on it if it hadn't - I know from experience the stress response to it is a major factor in perception.

Today I noticed he was in a quiet room most of the day looking very relaxed and acting like he used to. I still didn't want to press, but then he just told me he hasn't heard any ringing today. I just said yay (trying not to overemphasize it) while my heart felt 1000 lbs lift off it. I'm hoping it continues this way ❤ I thought it was worth it to post this update!

Upon my mini research, one explanation I found plausible is that serotonin has specific receptors in the cochlea that they believe can "enhance" hearing or at least tell the brain that it's hearing better. When stopping this serotonin supply so rapidly, your brain responds to lower quality hearing as hearing loss with resulting tinnitus perception.

I've also been praying hard nonstop this past week since I found out.

I hope this brings someone else going through the same some hope ❤

 

Or he may be in the rare category of people who get tinnitus due to depression, and then antidepressants actually cure it.

One of the few treatable kinds of tinnitus.

 

I developed tinnitus because of psychiatric medicine, Wellbutrin. All I would say is make sure you have a second opinion if you don’t already.

 

My husband has developed 2 horrendous tinnitus noises following a tapered withdrawal from sertraline. It has been near 4 months and it is getting worse. No-one appears to be able to help and we are so nervous for him to try any medication again.

 

25 mg seems to be a very low dose. I have been on and off Escitalopram many times. My tinnitus, or at least the feeling from having tinnitus, always seems to improve with higher dose of SSRI. The reactive part of my tinnitus seems to also improve. I just adjusted from 5 mg to 15 mg. It is too early to say how it affects me.

There are not too many antidepressants out there. I would argue that SSRI are one of the safest medications out there, and proven to have good effect.

 

I am going through something similar. My NP had me quit cold turkey Paxil 60 MG and immediately start Wellbutrin 300 MG. WHY, WHY, WHYYY did I not trust my gut on this one, what a horrible idea this was. 2-3 days into the Wellbutrin I became severely ill and developed tinnitus (I immediately quit the Wellbutrin after). I have gone back and forth about what to do... no SSRIs? Get back to original dose? Is this a withdrawal? A side effect? I managed to wean off of SSRIs but THEN became extremely depressed.

I have decided to slowly get back on Paxil. Hpefully when I reach 60 MG again... things will go back to the way they were?

Tinnitus is a cruel beast. My heart breaks for you all. Anxiety, depression, cPTSD is already hard but when you add tinnitus to the mix... it's nearly unbearable.