arthritis drug and tinnitus

[Amanda150]

hello….i have rheumatoid arthritis, and i have been recommended to take a disease modifying drug to slow the disease progression. My issue is that i have constant tinnitus in both ears, and my rheumatolgy nurse has toldme that tinnitus is a side effect of ‘all commonly diagnosed’ disease modifying drugs.

I’m fearful of taking anything that may make my tinnitus worse, as i have no confidence that, if i take something that makes it worse, that it will reduce if i stop the drug.

i’m wondering if anyone as any experience of this? Or anyone take a drug that i could ask the rheumatology nurse to consider for me?

thanks in advance for your help

[Happyrosie]

this is a hard one. Everything you put into your body - whether it’s a sandwich, a medicine, a drink of water - has an effect and not all effects are predictable. Many things are “ototoxic” (that is, affect your ears).

You could talk to the pharmacist at your doctor’s group of surgeries (contact reception for details) but I imagine the nurse you’ve already spoken to is already the expert.

Experts can tell you the percentage of people who might be affected but probably not exactly who is affected. If you were to give the name of the drug here, you might possibly find someone on this forum who has taken it. And if that person says “yes I took it and it was all wonderful” then that might be helpful, and yet you might find the one person who wasn’t happy with the drug, too.

And supposing that you took the drug and nothing happened to your tinnitus, then a year later or a month later your tinnitus got worse (or better), how would you know if it was the drug or not? Impossible to say

I’m sorry to be so negative but that’s all I can come up with.

[Amanda150 in reply to Happyrosie]

Many thanks for your reply, i do agree with you, i guess im hopeful for any good news so i can have a broader conversation with the nurse. Right now, its quite closed and i have no info to even prompt a conversation on a wider drug family.