Hi all, I am interested in knowing more about your experience on Betahistine, AKA Serc. I understand that it is not readily available in the USA but here in Australia it is often prescribed to patients with MD. I guess I would like to get a sense of whether your attacks (in particular the vertigo and nausea) tend to stop or become less sever when on the medication? Cheers
Hi Dario, welcome to the forum. I’m in the US and with a prescription was able to attain BH from a compounding pharmacy pretty easily. Unfortunately it didn’t improve my MM at all but just because it didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it might not work for you. Antivirals were what tipped the scales for me we have to each find our own magic with this disease.
Thanks for sharing - appreciate it. Tell me a little more about your experience with antivirals as I seem to see that on here quite a bit. Are you free of symptoms and if so how long has it been?
My symptoms decreased with the start of AV’s, vertigo and dizziness left and my tinnitus along with ear fullness subsided to almost nothing for 18mos. Then I had a bad run with when my pharmacy decided to change the brand of AV’s I take and I got really run down from work and way over stressed. Once I sorted out those issues (stress is bad for me I’ve found) I’m back on track after about a month relapse. Search Dr. Gacek here and there should be some links to the theory behind the treatment and a description of the regiment too.
Unfortunately Betahistine did not help me. I am also in the US and a compound pharmacy was able to fill my prescription for 16mg 3x daily.
Hi Dario! Betahistine has done absolutely nothing for me. However I know there are people who have had good results with it. All the best
I am currently giving Betahistine, (Serc), a try. I received a prescription from my ENT and I am purchasing through a pharmacy in Canada. At this point I can not say, one way or the other, whether it is helping. My ENT started me out on a low dose, with gradual increase in dosage. The ENT told me he has had a good response from the patients he is treating. So, we will see.
I posted this on another thread but I’ll post it here too. When my ENT suspected hydrops she put me on betahistine. She believes in high dose treatment so I was titrated up to almost 200mg a day for a month. It did nothing for me. I actually had all my symptoms intensely for the last 2 weeks of it. (Vertigo has never been one though, just lightheadedness sometimes). I stopped it. I’m in Canada. The longest amount of time I’ve been symptom free in the last year is 3 weeks... no rhyme or reason. I’m going to give valtrex a try
Hi Dario and everyone else, I just started a three month period of trying out Betahistine to see if it helps with my symptoms. I will let you know how it goes, probably once every month. My symptoms at the moment are: - Tinnitus left: high pitch tone, low tone, fuzzy sound. Tinnitus right: steady high pitch tone. - Occasional very high tinnitus bouts. - Dizzyness always lightly present, when I touch my ear it's a lot. - Left ear is like 50% deaf, sometimes it's less sometimes it's almost 100% deaf. - My mind is very clouded and it is hard to do mental work. - Hyperacusis. Let you know!
Tried it years ago. I was one of the rare folk who feel drowsy on it. I can’t remember if it made any difference to the vertigo attacks.