A Gong Is Resonating Inside My Head After Visiting Loud Restaurant

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some guidance as to how to lead my life with this relatively new T (and possibly H). First of all, I hope I'm posting this in the right subforum as I'm not 100% sure this can be classified as a case of hyperacusis. I've had T for two months, but after the initial onset it came back down and since then I didn't let it bother me too much. Last week, after a bad experience with microphone amplification, I've had it a bit worse. A hissing tone I've been hearing for a few weeks was suddenly more intrusive. I've been so anxious to avoid anything that could potentially make it worse, but at the same time I've been trying to expose myself to some moderate sounds to not lower my comfortability threshold too much. I find this to be a difficult balancing exercise.

I just got back from a (pretty) loud restaurant (measures anywhere from 60-80 db on my phone) and I thought I'd be fine without any protection, as I was in the past. The noises did not really hurt my ears, but I felt somewhat uncomfortable at times (when people started roaring at a table next to us or when the music was a bit more prolific). I thought I'd be fine and that this would be a good exercise to remain acquainted with moderate noise exposure. However, ever since coming back it feels like there is a gong resonating inside my entire head. This resonating does not really correspond to a tone I've been hearing in the past weeks and that just has gotten louder, to the contrary. All the other tones have remained pretty much on the same level as they were before leaving for the restaurant. It completely fills my head and isn't really exlcusive to one ear. This does disappear after some time and is easily masked, though as long as it remains it is deafening in silence. This has happened to me before, but I never really though much of it, but now I'm really starting to worry that this may exacerbate the T for a longer duration than just initially.

Can someone please tell me if this is a symptom of hyperacusis? Should I at all times wear hearing protection when going to public places? Or should I just do the opposite to prevent this effect from getting worse? Is it normal that I've been having this 'uncomfortable' feeling only with my left ear and that my right generally doesn't react badly to sound at all? I have so much questions right now and I thank God for this forum. It is really the only place where actual experience is found instead of health care providers just tossing around 'sound' advice. On that topic, who could I actually go and visit that can guide me through this life changing thing. Is an audiologist a good option? There is one nearby that is educated in TRT, anyone think this will help?

 

Since your T is currently acting up when exposed to noise, the answer is self-evident..
Audiologists in Belgium are rubbish unfortunately, even the ones working at the UZ hospitals, and just rehash the same old TRT adagio which you are probably already familiar with by now.
Invest in good, discreet filtered earplugs and wear them whenever you feel discomfort to not aggravate your T and gradually wean off them when you no longer react to noise.. this may take a while but better play it safe i’d say.

 

I feel like I have this or something like this. And I can say with certainty that I typically get it when my hyperacusis is spiking.