Tried Cocaine and It Has Made My Tinnitus Worse — Help

So, I stupidly tried cocaine at a stag do 1 week ago and I really regret doing it. I caved in to peer pressure - very stupid and it won’t ever happen again.

The next day my tinnitus was louder and harsher in both ears, and it hasn’t subsided at all for a week since.

I’m now starting to get worried because I was hoping and expecting it to subside, but it hasn’t and I’m worried this is my new tinnitus level - something I can’t really handle.

I have not been on Tinnitus Talk for a while because I’ve been getting on with life and not letting tinnitus get in the way, despite there being spikes along the way. However this now puts me in unchartered territory because I don’t know what’s going to happen.

I know it’s a sensitive subject, but does anyone have any thoughts or experience of if the spike caused by cocaine will subside?

I’ve taken it once before years ago before I had tinnitus with no effect.

I’m still so angry with myself.

Thanks, as always
R

 

It probably wasn't the coke, but maybe it allowed you to abuse your ears with music and loud voices?

If you are worried get some prednisone and really protect your hearing for a few months.

 

No, it was in a house so there was no loud music, just quieter speakers and loud voices. I also wore earplugs!
I just don’t know...

 

I will post back in a few weeks/month with how it’s going on.

In the meantime, does anybody else also have any experiences with cocaine and tinnitus?

 

How much did you do? Did you pass out?

There are no known literature on cocaine and its effects on hearing let alone benefits (at least that I am aware of). What we do know is that it highly effects the neuero transmitter dopamine. Some antidepressants drugs like Wellbuetrin which works on dopamine, is known to cause tinnitus, but there people who have taken antipsychotics to Parkison’s medication that claim it has helped-but much of those accounts are anecdotal, and with some claiming otherwise also.

The body can heal but give it time, weeks to months as some alluded too. Be positive (try I know its hard). If you’re concerned talk to your GP, get on anti-inflammatory medication and something to help with your anxiety. It (anxiety) is only going to make you more hyper sensitive and worse.

Above all please stay away from recreational drugs-much of that stuff is mixed now these days-meaning it could of been laced with something else. The heck with peer pressure!

Will pray for you-and here if you need anything. Keep us posted.

 

Cocaine is not good for you overall, and now as you noted, not good for tinnitus either. It might be time to find new friends.

 

Thank you for your detailed response @MichaelSF

I am going to try and give it some time. I’m very worried though and I wish I never did this. It’s hugely set me back.

I hope it goes down soon.

Thank you.

 

This is something I know. The focus of my question however was looking for people with advice and experience in the effect of cocaine on tinnitus.

 

Hi @Rust -- Sorry to hear about your spike. I'm assuming you snorted the cocaine? If so, you may have developed epipharyngitis, which is an inflammation in the back of the throat that can be either temporary or chronic, and can often be mostly asymptomatic. From what I've learned, I can easily see how it could exacerbate tinnitus. It's a relatively unknown condition, and many ENTs really don't know much about it. -- Here's a link to a 6-minute video (with good visuals) in case you'd like to check it out. -- Good luck figuring this out!

Chronic Epipharyngitis

 

Hi there @Lane. Thank you for the info - I’ll check it out

 

Sorry, I realised I didn’t answer the first part of your question. It was a couple of lines over the course of an evening. So not a big amount, but still obviously enough to cause harm to my tinnitus. I did not pass out or anything, no. I also was drinking alcohol. I’m very ashamed and angry with myself.

 

10 days on now and no improvement. If anything it’s a bit worse. It’s starting to affect my sleep and state of mind.

I feel like I am slipping towards the dark days when I properly acquired tinnitus almost exactly 5 years ago.

I now realise how far I had come from those initial dark days, and I am concerned to say the least about the prospect of things to come now. The new level of tinnitus is harsher and more annoying, and is not pleasant first thing in the morning and during the night.

I have been reading about the effects of cocaine on tinnitus - which seem to be mixed. But other legal dopamine affecting drugs seem that they can effect tinnitus negatively too, as @MichaelSF alluded to.

My absolute main concern is that my tinnitus won’t reduce in volume like it has done before with noise exposure related spikes. I keep telling myself it will subside, at least a bit - but I just don’t know - I don’t have experience of this.

Does anyone else think the effects the coke has had on me will at least subside a bit (in a similar way that noise related spike can)?

Thank you.

 

@Rust, my severe tinnitus started two years ago from a single dose of an ototoxic medication on (2-4-2018). The medication also significantly impacted my brain and nervous system. I thought the damage was so great, I might never recover. I tried to stay optimistic, and would envision myself writing a 1-year update on how much I'd improved. That never happened, and I wondered if things had even gotten worse. But I'm now hitting the 2-year mark (today), and though I still struggle with 5-9 tinnitus on a regular basis, I feel I've markedly improved over the past year.

Since your tinnitus exacerbation was also caused by a drug, my inclination would be to believe your spike will most likely subside with time. Whatever part of your "system" got "jolted", I would be surprised if it wasn't able to calm down in the coming days/weeks/months. I'm mentioning less time than what it took for mine to calm down, as my drug reaction(s) were quite extreme. Our bodies can do amazing things when it comes to healing, but when it comes to ear, brain, and neurological injuries, it takes time. The more you can do to calm your system in whatever way(s) you can think of will likely help. I myself spent a lot of time in nature the past two years to facilitate the calming and resetting of my nervous system. I also did a lot more; many things to choose from.

My honest opinion is that your prognosis for recovering from this setback is actually quite good--just needs some time.

All the Best...

 

Antidepressants work on the 5HT receptors, commonly called Serotonin receptors. People who use antidepressants get their tinnitus worsened. People who never had tinnitus, have their tinnitus started from antidepressants.

A quick google search of the effects of Cocaine on the CNS, gives us info like :

Cocaine affects certain serotonin (5-HT) receptors; in particular, it has been shown to antagonize the 5-HT3 receptor, which is a ligand-gated ion channel. The overabundance of 5-HT3 receptors in cocaine conditioned rats display this trait, however the exact effect of 5-HT3 in this process is unclear.[61] The 5-HT2 receptor (particularly the subtypes 5-HT2AR, 5-HT2BR and 5-HT2CR) are involved in the locomotor-activating effects of cocaine.

Since people get T from antidepressants and now you got it from Cocaine, i assume it is the increased Serotonin (or upregulation of Serotonin) that causes T spike, not dopamine, as other user pointed out.

 

Cocaine also works on glutamate receptors:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5413205/

I doubt single use would result in permanent harm, though it may take awhile to recover.

 

People have taken a single dose of Wellbutrin and gotten their T permanently worsened. If this guy still experiences it 10 days later, it's not going anywhere.

 

@Grand05 -- Just gotta strongly disagree; I think the odds are it will improve. Tinnitus is so complex and unpredictable, there's just no certainty it can't improve. Besides that, most situations do improve over time. From my perspective, if mine can improve, than that bodes well for those whose situation is less severe, and who are also younger than me, which seems to be the case here.

 

What ototoxic drug made yours worse/caused it?

 

The ears/tinnitus are a delicate issue. There is no prediction, on how long the possible healing can take. It can take possibly days and maybe a lot longer for it to get better. There is no clear answer or assumptions on how tinnitus works.

 

Tinnitus is not an ear disease, it's a brain disease. With time, drug induced tinnitus becomes less bothersome because of habituation. Actual improvement could be seen in rare cases with ear infection or minor noise-induced tinnitus. Drugs that alter the neural system do this permanently unfortunately. You need to take other drugs to somehow reverse that effect, what drugs work is something that is still debated now.

 

For the majority of sufferers, it is a cochlear disease that results in neuroplastic brain changes due to altered input. You have glutamate receptors in the cochlea, too, and the glutamate surge is what contributes to oxidative damage, neuro excitation and maladaptive plasticity. If it was a brain disease, you wouldn't see the improvements you do with cochlear implants (and this is even in quiet).

 

@Grand05 -- In the ER, I was given a single 25 mg dose of an "anti-nausea" medication called Promethazine, also known as Phenergen (it was originally formulated as an antipsychotic drug!). It falls into the category of anticholinergic drugs which are known to be oxtotoxic . I went from vague signs of tinnitus to full-blown 10+++ screeching cicadas tinnitus (and so much more) within hours of taking it.

If you have any interest in reading a harrowing tale of my experience, I posted fairly extensively on it in THIS POST. If you do read it, you'll likely have a better understanding of why I think that if I can improve, then most other situations--less severe than mine--are likely to improve as well.

 

If cochclear impalnts work, then why don't people get one? Why don't you get one?

 

I think ototoxic drugs should be used more in regards to actual drugs that damage hair cells, like aminoglycosides antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs. I didn't find what are the rates of toxicity on that regard related to Promethazine, but looking at its mechanism of action, it has weak to moderate affinity for the 5-HT2A, 5-HT2C, D2.

It comes as no surprise to me that it could worsen tinnitus, other antihistamine drugs that act on serotonin do the same.

 

For one thing, they won't let you unless you have a specific audiogram. And even if I could find a shady Dr to do it, I'm holding out for regenerative medicine instead.

 

Can you post, where it says that MOST people with tinnitus have it due to meniere's disease. Majority of folks that have tinnitus, have it due to exposure to loud sounds and loss of hair cells. Meniere can be a reason, but I don't think majority of folks have tinnitus due to it.

If we lose our hair cells, then the brain will not pick up the noise/signals it use to. So, it will have to do other things to cope with the loss.

 

Where are you getting Meniere's from?

 

You mention cochlear disease. What type of cochlear disease are we talking about?

 

I meant generally. Perhaps I should have said "diseased cochlea" or "damaged cochlea" rather than "cochlear disease." And by this i mean damage to cochlear hearing structures: OHC, IHC, synapses etc. which you agreed with in your post.

 

@fishbone, the first definition was what i intended. I think this is a semantic confusion:

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/disease