The AudioNotch Tinnitus Treatment Blog

Lidocaine patches are sometimes used for pain analgesia, such as for diabetic neuropathic pain. They can be applied locally to the skin and then diffuse into the affected area. There have been reports that intravenous administration of lidocaine can relieve tinnitus temporarily, but lidocaine isn’t the kind of drug that’s safe to be providing intravenously (hence the suggestion of a local system of administration, like a patch). However, I doubt that the patch would effectively diffuse into the cochlea (and I’m not even sure if the site of action is the cochlea itself or the actual CNS – i.e. the … Continue Reading

Here is a link to an abstract on a paper about the effects of Lidocaine on tinnitus. Lidocaine is a medication that is used as a local anesthetic and an anti-arrhythmic agent (suppressing cardiac arrhythmia) . Via brain imaging, it was found to produce both increases and decreases in the loudness of tinnitus. This constitutes proof that there are pharmacological pathways that can be manipulated in order to effects changes in tinnitus volume.
Using a single-blind placebo-controlled design, we mapped lidocaine related changes in neural activity, measured by regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) with (15)O-H(2)O positron emission tomography. Intravenous lidocaine … Continue Reading