Naltrexone as a Tinnitus Treatment

The effect of naltrexone on the perception and distress in tinnitus: an open-label pilot study

"Overall tinnitus distress was significantly reduced for the drug treatment group, while for the waiting control group this was not the case"

 

Waiting control group didn't get a placebo drug, they didn't get anything, of course active treatment group improved. Active treatment group would've improved with a sugar pill too.

 

I tried it at 3mg/day for a while.

Not willing to take 50mg/day for any length of time, as in the study. Drug is old and fairly well documented, but tinkering mechanically with dopaminergic reward pathways seems dangerous.

 

I was prescribed 25mg for tinnitus but after further research I have decided not to ingest any Naltrexone as of yet. My doctor agreed this was an ok decision to make.

 

I am on low-dose Naltrexone. Day 5 currently. The idea here is to titrate up to 4.5mg daily as a maximum. This is meant to help battle any auto-immune issues if that is in fact the cause of my problems. I have neuropathy pain as well and that is the original reason for the Naltrexone.

 

@Matthew Piecora, hello, I was wondering if you would like to let us know if you continued on LDN and if it has helped you much with the tinnitus? Thank you so much!

 

There is some interesting research looking at an opioid like peptide called dynorphins in the cochlea and why opioid receptor blockers may help (hard to say if low or high dose is appropriate for this though):

Evidence for a dynorphin-mediated inner ear immune/inflammatory response and glutamate-induced neural excitotoxicity: an updated analysis