Tinnitus from Azithromycin

Hi Guys,

My name is Mike. I'm 31. I unfortunately joined the tinnitus club back in March from taking a few pills of Azithromycin for trying to treat a suspected UTI. It's coming up on me having tinnitus for almost 6 months now so I figured I'd finally post. I have it bilaterally in both ears and the only things that completely mask it is the shower and being outside in the city.

I've developed chronic migraines in the past month which I swear is from my brain never being able to rest from the tinnitus.

I've lurked Tinnitus Talk for a while and I just want to say it brings hope. It's not all doom and gloom. I really feel like this condition will be solved eventually. I'm out here in Boston, MA and if there's anything I can do to bring value please let me know.

One note of positivity I can bring is my audiologists are part of the Harvard team out here and they are working on a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus. A few of them even have tinnitus themselves and are passionately working on moving things forward. They told me not to be hopeless because there is extremely high hope for a cure in my lifetime. When I pressed about a timeline, it seems like 10-15 years is where the goalposts are right now.

I hope to connect with the community here and be a help in any way I can.

Best,
Mike

 

Welcome to the club nobody wants to join and most do not know it exists.

Your audiologist sounds like Dr. Maison.

 

Sorry that you have to join the club so young Mike, I am only 30 myself and my tinnitus can't be masked by anything except the shower. Very interesting that you have some insight to the research going on at Harvard, hopefully they make some significant progress in the hair cell regeneration game. Unfortunately, medical research moves at a snail's pace and tinnitus research is extremely underfunded. I am really hoping that the Dr. Susan Shore device will give us some significant relief for the mean time.

 

Yes he is excellent! Calmed me down a lot.

 

Thanks man. It sucks but it's good to know I'm not the only person in the world with this and there's a ton of us!

From my limited knowledge, what I understand on the Harvard stuff, is it works in mice and they are confident it could work in humans. Basically for hair cell regeneration all we have to do is inject Neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) into us and something else and there's a good chance it will work.

They have to perfect the delivery method in humans first but there is hope. The biggest obstacle seems to be funding from the NHI and the timelines and slowness of the FDA as well. Right now they are working on a way to measure hidden hearing loss. Once they get that right they can go back to the NHI and be like look at all these people with hidden hearing loss; we need more funding and we need to expedite to move to animal and human trials.

From my perspective I don't feel like we are merciless and there's nothing we can do besides wait for Susan Shore's device or hearing regeneration. I think we can speed up the timelines by creating more awareness and pressure.

1. Tinnitus is the biggest veteran disability so why not solve it? All we need is one senator or rep to push this and put it out in the open. Also solving this would save the government a ton of money as well. We should write and call every politician we can until someone backs us...

2. We need more celebrity awareness about tinnitus. There are a ton of celebrities that have tinnitus, especially musicians. I know personally of a few that have it but have never talked about it. Imagine if we had a few good spokespeople who are pushing for a solution, not just habituation? Also same thing here... I feel like we can contact all of them to see who has it and who doesn't and, for those who do, maybe we can get a few to help. These people may not know there's anything in the works and would certainly use their status to push for a cure if they knew.

All that said, I'm happy to be a part of this community and to be able to contribute.

Mike

 

Oh cool, I'll be 55. Just in time to become a senior citizen.