I'm new to this group (but lurked often) and noticed some questions
about Campral. I was prescribed the drug to "curb my cravings" for
alcohol by a psychiatrist. I never thought of myself as having
cravings, instead, I wasn't able to control my intake if I did drink.
The arguments for that logic are for another alt. group for sure. But I
took the drug as prescribed.

I researched the med and found info about a minor study of Campral used
in relation to tinnitus. It was not known if the positive effects were
due to telling the subjects that it might help (inducing a placebo
effect) or if it really did help. I have waited to post here until I
was sure there was a positive effect with the med, at least for me.

I have been taking it for 1 month, and after about 12 years of chronic
bilateral tinnitus, I can see a real difference in the level of
"noise". If I were to rate my tinnitus on a scale of 0-10 before the
Campral, I was a 9 most of the time. Since being on the drug, the noise
level is about a 2-6. The variance is probably due to threshold levels
in my system since I'm not always consistant when I take the med and
because I played with the dose amounts.

As an aside, the med didn't stop me from drinking. At our second visit,
the psych doc wouldn't renew my med since I wasn't compliant with
stopping drinking. I explained how it helped my tinnitus, but he had no
sympathy for that although he found it interesting. I mentioned this
group for research.

The med has no side effects if you do drink (at least for me) versus
Antabuse which causes severe side effects. I had 2 refills on the drug
however, and refilled my second script. I am doing lower doses to
evaluate the efficacy of the med on my tinnitus. To hell with the
drinking - I'm happy to have some happy moments of quiet in my ears.
Some of the time it is actually totally quiet - I like to think of it
as driving in a severe rain and feeling the relief of going under a
bridge for respite.

For what it's worth, I am going to ask my primary med doc to continue
the med after my current refills run out. I am only taking half the
amount prescribed in an effort to prolong the prescription ($40 a pop
under my insurance plan) and to see what dosage is effective. I'm my
own guinea pig. I figure I have nothing to lose by trying.

BTW, my T was created from -mycin based ear drops for ear infections.