Please Help — Loud Spike That Won't Stop

Please help, I'm being tortured, barely any sleep for nights.

I have a loud hissing sandwiched in between two ringing ears. I have some mild mid level hearing loss maybe from antidepressant reaction. I had some old Morse code type low ringing in my right ear but the hissing seems so disconnected from this that I feel it might be different cause all together.

Everything was pretty low for a long time and barely there for a long time when about 5 days ago, everything got very loud. It has been going up and down pretty drastically for days. It usually wakes me up in the middle of the night and sticks around for the entire next day.

Anybody experience this and did it go back down to baseline? Clonozapam doesn't help at all, in fact I can't tell if it's making it worse. Is there something else I should try? Also has anyone experienced this specific type of hissing in the middle of the head with ringing overlayed in both ears?

 

@Cal18 Can you think of anything that you have been doing that could have caused this spike in your tinnitus? Listening to music through headphones? Or going to clubs where loud music was played? If you are sleeping in a quiet room consider using "sound enrichment" Please click on the link below and read my post: Tinnitus, A Personal View. It covers: tinnitus, hyperacusis and different treatments. Also coping methods that you might find helpful.
Michael
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-a-personal-view.18668/

 

No, it's nothing like that. I recently had a reaction to Celexa because I tried to reinstate it during the withdrawal period (during my withdrawal I had H and some mild tinnitus mostly in the evenings. But that was almost 2 months ago, currently I still have akathisia from the Celexa reaction which is an overstimulation of the nervous system. I need someone well-versed in this area to tell me what happens in the withdrawal. Is it in the cochlea or the nerves and will this stop once the nerves calm down? I am also having regular ear pain and my ear (the louder one) feels slightly more full in a deaf way. I need to do something. ENT is not much help, where should I seek help and what should I ask them to do? Would hyperbaric work for this or is that just for loud noise incidences?

 

@Cal18 Sorry I am unable to help as I'm not familiar with the meds and the condition that you describe. Hope someone can help you
All the best and hope things improve for you soon
Michael

 

Keep sound on around you to help not focus on it as much and cause anxiety and get ears checked for wax or infection or fluid behind your drum.
Have a chat with your doctor to see if can give you something else to try just for bad spikes ....lots of love glynis

 

BenzoBuddies I think they're called?
Anyway they're an online group who discuss withdrawel from drugs usually Benzos hence the name but they often discuss tinnitus and Hyperacusis from withdrawels over there,might be worth your effort having a nosey and see if it helps.

 

@bill 112 I'm familiar with that site as well. I'm no longer on any medication so in some sense this was an ototoxic reaction like many others on this site. Every time I start to feel a little better, my ears will start hurting and then the T gets louder. I also have H. Do you think because the H I'm overreacting to the sounds and it's causing the pain followed by the increased T? I noticed that if someone talks too loud my T reacts instantly. I think I read somewhere that this was the case with you as well.

 

"Citalopram and Tinnitus


by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man wrote,

I started taking Citalopram (Celexa) in mid-April. I was on it for a week and got ringing in my ears. This was 7 days at 10 mg., and 2 days (days 8 and 9) at 20 mg. when the ringing became severely loud.

I got off the Citalopram right away, and found out that tinnitus is a common side effect. However, it has been 3 months now, and I still hear the ringing. I don’t know what to do. Some people say it will take up to 7 months for it to go away!

Citalopram (Celexa) is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI). It causes tinnitus in perhaps 1% or more of the people taking it.

In hindsight, you should have stopped taking the Citalopram as soon as the ringing started. Taking the increased dose and getting worse tinnitus obviously wasn’t a smart move. However, that is all in the past. You want to know to deal with your tinnitus now.

You now know that your ears are particularly sensitive to Citalopram, so this drug is not a good one for you to take in the future, as you will likely get even louder tinnitus if you do.

Tinnitus is a strange “beast”. Sometimes getting off the offending drug is all that you need to do, and your tinnitus will go away on its own in a few days to a few weeks to a few months. Unfortunately, sometimes it never goes away—especially if you are anxious, worried, stressed or depressed over your tinnitus. You see, tinnitus has an emotional (psychological) component. (You can think of it as a psychosomatic condition.) As a result, worrying about your tinnitus makes it even louder and more intrusive.

Thus, one of the better ways to deal with tinnitus is to learn about it (we are anxious about the unknown), then choose to completely ignore your tinnitus by focusing your energies on the loves of your life. As you do this, your tinnitus will (hopefully) fade into the background. This will take some months (or even a couple of years depending on how strong the emotional bond is that you need to break). This is known as becoming habituated to your tinnitus.

If your tinnitus never goes away (it may or may not), when you become habituated to your tinnitus, it will not bother you even though it is still there. For example, I’ve had tinnitus for many decades now. It’s always “there”, but I don’t let it bother me—although my ears are ringing away rather loudly at the moment since I am thinking about tinnitus while I am writing this. However, my tinnitus will soon return to its usual level when I focus on other things. You, too, can have the same experience.

Celexa does have tinnitus listed as a side-effect, so you could taper off and it could go away, but we won't know until you do.

"Other
Very common (10% or more): Asthenia
Common (1% to 10%): Fatigue, fever, pain, tinnitus
Uncommon (0.1% to 1%): Vertigo
Rare (less than 0.1%): Facial edema, malaise, rigors
Postmarketing reports: Spontaneous abortion"


I would see your Doctor and tell him about these side-effects if you haven't already. Good luck! Happy holidays/New Year in advance.

 

"A Case Report of Onset of Tinnitus Following Discontinuation of Antidepressant and a Review of the Literature
Jane Clewes, MA
Author information ► Article notes ► Copyright and License information ►

Go to:
Abstract
This case report describes a 46-year-old woman with long-standing episodic severe depression (ICD-10 code F33) who discontinued venlafaxine over a 4-week taper after taking the antidepressant for 8 years. Severe discontinuation syndrome was experienced. Panic and relapse of depression occurred 2 months after achieving discontinuation, and the development of tinnitus took place concurrently to the discontinuation. The experience of the tinnitus as a side effect of discontinuation is different from cases reported in the literature in which the tinnitus was experienced when the antidepressant was started and ceased when the antidepressant was stopped. Here, the patient experienced the tinnitus as a discontinuation symptom, and it persisted even after the antidepressant was reintroduced. A review of the literature on antidepressant discontinuation syndrome is also provided."





https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3357564/

 

Thanks @Danny Boy i had actually seen both of those already. I know the drugs are the cause - ototoxic - but the question is what I can do or take now supplement wise to tame this. If I can stop the pain reaction, I think that would ease the onset of the extreme tinnitus. Would the oxygen chamber help in this case? LLT? Zinc? Magnesium? I'm kind of desperate and delerious after 2 nights of no sleep. Thank you so much for your support.

 

Have you gotten any relief?

 

The ear pain has eased down a bit but I still get it occasionally and sometimes the T gets a little lower on some days. There's still a lot of fluctuation. Sometimes it goes from a 9/10 to a 2.5/10. I also have some H and pressure on and off.

 

For those that get ear infection, whats the best things to do? and what should we know going in, to NOT let them do? Thanks,,,wish you the best!

 

Treat the infection and follow doctors advice
..lots of love glynis