Your Thoughts on Retigabine Effectiveness

He has formal training, published research and extensive clinical experience in Clinical Psychopharmacology – the effects of medications on the brain

After reading this introduction to you Doctor I just had to come here and ask question about retigabine and tinnitus. There is a lot of discussion going on those forums regarding rtg and relief it might give (and anecdotally gave to some members here that post in rtg user experience thread)
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/retigabine-trobalt-potiga-—-user-experiences.6047/

1. From your experience do you consider that people experience placebo effect or is there solid scientific reason why they claim improvements (or worsening)?

2. Do you think taking retigabine now might have long standing effect on brain chemistry of users, is it possible future drugs targeting brain part of tinnitus will be less effective due to some permanent changes in brain?

3. Would you say its reasonable for tinnitus sufferer that doesnt want to try CBT/TRT and just accept sound in their head like some are able, to try and get prescription for trobalt and use it for relief that may or may not happen.

4. Do you consider trobalt last resort drug even for on-label use (epilepsy), that is so heavy on brain that risks outweigh potential benefits unless nothing else works for patient?

I'm sorry if my questions not make any sense, or don't really belong to your section.

 

Retigabine (brand names: Trobalt, Potiga) is a recently-introduced antiseizure medication. There are some technical reasons why such a medication might be of help in tinnitus - the theory being that tinnitus at some level is seizure activity. There is little scientific evidence to support this but a trial of an antiseizure (aka anticonvulsant) medication is relatively safe. The problem is that modern antiseizure agents (Epival, Lamictal, gabapentin, Keppra) also have some anti-anxiety and mood stabilizing actions so if there is some level of response, it is unclear what is responding - that might not matter to the patient who gets benefit, however. As always, discuss this with your doctor and remember that you might have learnt more about this than that doctor - so be gentle!!