Xanax

Hello everyone,

Just wondering you any of you have tried Xanax and have experienced a reduction in tinnitus? I am going to ask for it from the doctors next week. It seems like a lot of people and reports have shown it to reduce tinnitus. At the moment I am on herbal tablets from anxiety and ginkgo biloba.

Thanks in advance for your advice

James

 

Yes it did reduce mine (but it is not good to take this long term) and then I switched to Klonopin (another drug that isn't good to take long term but my T bothered the heck out of me). After several years the Klonopin stopped lowering the tinnitus and actually increased it. I'd say only use it here and there when your T really bothers you and you are extremely stressed. Don't take it every day or too often. Benzo withdrawal and tolerance can be a nightmare. My psychiatrist says she sometimes prescribes Trileptal instead of benzodiazapines. I have never taken it for anxiety so I don't know what it would do. I have heard of some people who get a reduction from T and others nothing and others an increase. It is tough to say what would happen. Ask a psychiatrist or a pharmacist what they think. I hope you feel better asap.

 

I will be very honest with you, pills like xanax, ativan, valium do not reduce the ringing but they do mellow you out totally that you do not care or pay as much attention to the tinnitus. The bad part about these pills is that once you take them more than 5 straight days, you build an addiction towards them and getting off these pills is hell.

I have had tinnitus (now very loud) since 1990 and i took a Dr's advice and was on a pill that is in the same class as the xanax pills and let me tell you that it was hell. At first i did feel very mellow but then the side effects and withdrawls of the pill started to make everything horrible. I'd take my tinnitus over the withdrawals that those pills bring on.

I have tons of experience with tinnitus and tons of experience with pills that can make things seem mellow.

One thing that works for me is listening to music with my iphone earbuds. The level of the music is not very loud but it helps somewhat mask the destructive noise i have been hearing since 1990.

Herbal is the way to go, i take them and they work at times. I'd hate to see you get addicted to those pills and with those pills, after a short while they don't work and you have to increase your dosage and keep on increasing it.

Take care

 

''The bad part about these pills is that once you take them more than 5 straight days''
Where did you take this number from ? I guess it must depend on the dosage as well. I took benzos a few times for around 5 days in a row when I just had to sleep and so far no problems withdrawing whatsoever, but I took small amount ( Xanax - 0,125 per night or an equivalent of lexomil ). Anway, @Jamclem , there are already tens of topics devoted to xanax and other beznos on this forum. Read thel and you will know all that ou need to know. Globally better don't even start. It's not candy.

 

I have been going through hell trying to get off a prescription of 8MGs of Xanax a day. I'm down to 1.75MGs of Klonopin daily and it has been awful. Of course I was on it for a number of years. I couldn't even handle a .5MG a month cut. I started taking it for Tinnitus. The ringing would get louder and so I was placed on a higher dosage.
In addition I read that Drugs in the same class of Xanax and Klonopin can inhibit the brain's ability to habituate to tinnitus. I've tried different treatments, sound therapy, others, but they won't work as long as I'm still on Klonopin. For ME, I would have never have started on Xanax. It's a slippery slope.

 

Kevin Hogan one of the leading T experts in the country states he has treated over 900 patients with 0.5 m of xanax three times a day in combination with zoloft and years passed palamar or generic notripiline and has reduced T in over 85 % of his patients. According to him he had no addiction problems with the low dose of xanax. He also treats his patients with hypnosis and physchotherapy for maximum results. I believe he stated masking 24 hours a day with classical or music that the patient felt relaxed with. He stated that folks taking over 2.5 m of xanax could experience a dependency to the drug.

 

If you're able to go without, do. For me Xanax makes the noise go down and if I take enough it will go away completely. But I feel awful while using it. Very depressed. Have tapered form 1 mg to 0,25 mg and it is hell. I'm going trough every emotion there is (except happiness) within each hour of the day. It is completely exhausting. Please don't start using this horrible stuf. I'm currently experiencing muscle pain, burning feet, constant thirst, deepening depression (seeing no other way to cope but death, well, thats not coping I guess). And I've only been awake for 4 hours. Have not been able to get out of bed. I might be very sensitive to the stuff or this might be normal withdrawal. I only know it is horrible. Been on Xanax for 5 months.

 

What, does he have a phd in tinnitus and that makes him an expert or something?
After a google search, all I can see is a football quarterback that goes by that name.

After searching for "kevin hogan tinnitus" I found a simple web page of someone claiming he had a noise in his ears back in '96 and read in Encyclopedia Britannica that its called "Tinnitus".
He also has a total fraud site where he sells body healing / hypnotherapty books and gives motivational speeches.
And yet you are gullible enough to consider him an expert, although he is no doctor of any sort and actually claims to go to the library for info.

Seriously?

 

I have been taking 0.5 mg of Xanax at night to help me sleep, sometimes I just take 1/2 of 0.5, it does not help the T! But if the T is caused by stress and anxiety it may help.
I never had any problems with insomnia or anxiety till I got SSHL,
If you are taking benzodiazepines be careful you do build a tolerance and will require more for same results then addiction becomes an issue.
Withdrawals symptoms can last years!!!!
I have been practicing medicine for 36 years and had several patients with benzodiazepine addiction.

 

undecided, I just quoted what Kevin Hogan Psy.D quoted in his book called turning the volumn down. Has nothing to do with me being gullible just stating the information in his book. Try reading more carefully befor insulting someone.

 

@undecided was decidedly curt in their response, but the point stands.

the idea that 2.5 mg of Xanax is a magic threshold below which there is no risk of addiction or neurological damage is nonsense. many people have suffered terribly from significantly less. 2.5mg a day is by no means a small dose.

 

Yes. It's very effective. I would suggest klonopin though as it has a much longer half life so you should get less withdrawals.

Just take it on bad days where you can't cope. I take it maybe once or twice a week and rely on the herb crap the rest of the time.

If you're the kind of person who is fairly addictive in nature, I would suggest trying some of the other meds in the treatment pages

 

I was on 0.25-0.5mg of xanax for a few months, and all I can say is, better living through chemistry. To me it was extremely helpful to get my tinnitus related anxiety under control. I would take it again if I had to, no doubt. Did it lower my T? Probably not. But my real problem at that time was anxiety, not T.

 

I have had a hell of a day with this tinnitus. I have some Valium. I know all have to take is a quarter of a 2mg tab and I can probably get this noise down anywhere from 30-50%. I have it really bad so it would feel like heaven and I would sleep like a baby. Then, I would wake up and feel super anxious and slightly dizzy all day. There are lots of people on here who got their T from Benzos. It's not worth it. Hopefully, I won't cave later myself.

 

But, how do you know it was the clonazepam itself? If tinnitus spikes when coming off benzos, then how do you know that its because of withdrawal itself, or is it that you are hearing your tinnitus with the mask off for the first time in a long time? I too would like to get out from under clonazepam. I keep tripping over chickens and landing on eggs.

 

Because I took 2mg klonopin one time and it didn't lower my tinnitus at all. The only way I have been able to reduce my klonopin is by getting on Lamictal because it helps with my depression swings. I am probably have a mild bipolar or have something that is very close. If you are withdrawing klonopin yourself, it seems like a little bit of melatonin can help at night. I would advise not taking fish oil. Fish oil made things worse for me.

 

What happened?

 

It made me feel really weird. Sometimes it made me really apathetic. I don't know if I can fully explain it. It exacerbated my problems. That was just me though. I guess if you want you could try to see what happens to you. I just called the doctor's office to see if they will give me Campral to see if that will help with tapering and with tinnitus. I have no idea if it will work or if she will give it to me. The first time I called and she said that medicine was for alcoholics so she gave me something else. This time I said I told the coordinator that I just wanted to try it for tinnitus as an experiment. I hope she lets me give it a shot. The past 6 days my hearing aids have been messed up and so its been a problem. Weirdly enough, sometimes I find that if I can take about 3 oz. of liqour at night before I go to bed, when I wake up, the T seems a little lower for a couple of weeks. I know that doesn't make any sense and maybe its just in my head. This T can really mess with me especially since I have depression issues.

 

Does Kevin Hogan know of a Xanax version that can be smoked in my pipe? I do have Hogan's book. Noise is bad atm.