Can Hyperacusis Worsening Change Tinnitus? Are There Subsets of Hyperacusis?

I'm in a bit of a severe mental breakdown from a tinnitus tone that is now stuck that I prayed would never occur again, and it did. This is not my normal tinnitus, and I've battled tinnitus/hyperacusis for years from noise exposure.

Essentially, I'm wondering if hyperacusis, or any subset and combo of hyperacusis type issues, can lead to fundamental tinnitus changes. Not damage to ear tinnitus changes, but hyperacusis worsening making tinnitus worse? Is this possible?

Outside my normal tinnitus/hyperacusis (for a background my hyperacusis is essentially everything is louder than it should be, loud voices, clapping, pool balls hitting, laughing, bring actual discomfort to my ears. The ears will tense up and get full sometimes from the noise, there is pain from the muscles I believe inside constricting too easily. I also feel like my right ear doesn't have a filter. Like everything just goes through it undamped, it's a feeling hard to describe.) I've had for years, I briefly acquired a year and half ago an issue where I believe one tone shifted into this erratic up and down up and down high pitch sizzle. It was a constant assault on my nerves because instead of a steady tinnitus, it was erratic like electrical misfiring. To make matters worse, it winds up/reacts to other noises, A.C, hum of a cooler, water, outside noises. To that, I mean it amplifies and competes with said noises. I have gotten this back following a smoke detector being set off in my small room. 110 dB roughly, for a mere 5 seconds before I got some ear muffs on. Shortly after this, I started work after being inactive and in relative quiet environment for YEARS.

My theory is that perhaps I didn't actually "damage" anything (I hope) but instead I've worsen the hyperacusis, then aggravated it by working and being around noises more. This issues has been slowly getting worse now 5+ months into work. My ears are sore at times coming home, people talking loud bother my ears and even make them sore in that moment, like a deep ache. Sometimes it will even feel tense/slight full as if the muscles are constricting. My thought process is that the smoke detector + going to work shortly after, has kept my ears in a state of not being able to fully recover. Could this be possible? That I've just been aggravating it.

Some things I've noticed:

Being in quiet stops this reactive/winding up making it somewhat better, yet still giving the lingering tinnitus erraticness I described just on a lower level as there's nothing to wind it up.

A few times, I've noticed after my ears felt a bit sore from loud people talking, laughing etc., throughout the day I'd come home and the erraticness would almost be gone. Like the noise stimulation of all day had somehow overwhelmed the hyperacusis to a point to not be in a hyperactive state, or whatever state it's in to cause this. Which I don't get, as loud noise and exhausting my ears in general has been just making things slowly worse. But this is something I noticed.

When I had this same exact issue about a year and half ago, I even mentioned it here. I don't know what caused it outside I remember riding my bike a bit more, and using ear plugs going through construction that seemed a bit loud but not damaging loud. Also a scanner a week earlier that was so loud it caused discomfort to my ears when swiping.

To me, there's no way this is normal if I have the exact same change as before happening again, albeit more intense and lasting longer.. To me this isn't just a hey, you hurt your ears and now you're more damaged so your tinnitus is worse. I believe this has to be hyperacusis related, or a subset of hyperacusis somehow. Is this even remotely possible?

I'm so fucking terrified this will stay. I spent a few years trying to recover, only to be given something much worse. If I succumb to this being actual noise induced damaged, and that it's stuck this way, I don't think I can go forward. This has utterly killed me and I somehow feel there's more than just tinnitus at play here.

 

@Contrast Not sure what to make out of that. Are you saying the likelihood of this is more damage likely (hair cells, neural transmitters ect.) and not a hyperacusis thing? Can damage include making hyperacusis worse, which can cause other symptoms like tinnitus changes etc.?

 

Usually if hearing worsens tinnitus almost always will worsen with it and "possibly" hyperacusis.

Loud noise damages hearing.

 

I think that guess is correct. In the long run hyperacusis does change and it can evolve into a series of different things, like hearing loss, worse hyperacusis, tinnitus etc

I can relate to your description of working in a noisy environment, but there is noise everywhere, on the quietest street you may find really loud unexpected noise. One has to live with it, there is no other way.

 

There's no noticeable hearing loss, unless there's some hidden loss that is not detectable. There's no real shift outside of this issue. That does not seem like normal T where it would get louder after a trauma. These are not trauma's in my eyes, a few seconds of a smoke detector. Working environment with being talking loud or laughing occasionally. Yet these things fatigue my ears and seem louder than they are. I know that is H related somehow.

The component I don't understand, is the T shift. My other T is there and not changed. This shift seems different. It is literally aggravated by sound. If there is a sound source say my car A.C, if I turn my head so my left ear faces it, the sound coming in boosts the T on the right to wind up/compete. Not so if I face the right ear directly.

This type of things seems to be more complex than oh your ears got damaged and your T is worse, this seems much more complex and I really think H or a subset of H related.

Not possible? There seems to me that there has to be some correlation between being in a very low noise environment for many years then suddenly working right after a brief loud noise. The fact this same T issue occurred a year and half ago tells me something aggravated it then, and perhaps it was more of an H issue.

But I'm really trying to understand if any with H encounter this issue. Noise entering the ear and ramping up the T to compete with it. That sounds like there's some issue outside of your ears damaged and here's some T at a certain volume. The changing of it to wind up/react to these noises, and react with noise entering the opposite ear are very odd components that do not see inherently just "T" related.

 

That's very normal. Actually, the rule for most people is that T reacts to sound and may change, increase, be hidden or covered by sound etc. It does react to noise, and hyperacusis too, specially to very loud sudden impulse noises, those are the worst kind.

 

Still no progress. This is now probably damage. I had hoped this was some setback to Hyperacusis. I cannot see that anymore. The Tinnitus winds up constantly even in silence, this is probably a new tone. I don't know why I had this over a year and half ago and it subsided back to a normal pure tone, but this brief 110db smoke detector I was exposed to, followed up with starting a job after that injury, has made this issue permanent.

I cannot believe such a small exposure would cause a shift and make H worse and change my once static background T into this erratic, up/down high pitch assaulting in my right ear. It's unfucking bearable. I will be suing this company that did this to me out of negligence of setting off the alarm. Not even sure if that will suffice as I cannot and will not, live with this. I am not going to be in constant agony after years of already dealing with Loud T, to now have this irrational erratic T that isn't a regular pure tone that assaults one side of my head with these little bursts of high pitch slicing into my very being. As if someone just turns volume up, then down, then up, and down. Never consistent and then adding a second component of it REACTING to A.C noises, fans and general outside background noise to then compete with said noises.

I had hoped to god that this was H and I needed time, and it would settle. 6 months now. It's over.

 

I worsened mine again by doing something stupid.
Acoustic Trauma 3

 

Maybe there is also a reaction to stress, coming back to work, having more sound around, being in an environment you cannot control as well. The best you can do about tinnitus, even if it is loud or intrusive, is to see it as something natural and try to get used to the sound. Do NOT focus on tinnitus. If your brain or body see tinnitus as a threat then you will get more tense and will overreact, which creates a vicious circle with more tinnitus, worse hearing, more hyperacusis.. no good.

A very loud sound that lasts only 1 second can indeed make you worsen. I can relate to all you said in the original post and all the details you provided because what you are experiencing has happened to me too, getting worse after just a very brief noise. Tinnitus that reacts to noise, tinnitus that is there just when you wake up etc

The brain must have something to do with tinnitus because mine comes and goes, sometimes is real bad, sometimes it goes away completely. Sadly, hyperacusis does not want to go away in my case.

Really, trying to overthink about what is happening to you is pointless. I know it is hard not to think but it wont help. My negative thoughts are more related to practical matters like the way my hearing problems can affect work, etc A long time ago I accepted the fact that there is constant pain and my quality of life is sh-t.

 

I never accepted the pure tone, but when I got improvement over time I coped a lot better. I cannot cope to this and not listen to it or focus on it, when it is not a pure tone anymore. The right ear completely winds up and down over and over every second. It's a high pitch that just jumps in volume and pierces me. This tone goes up, down, up, down, like you're taking a volume knob and lowering and raising over and over. It's completely reactive now by default, and even worse with other noises as it makes the tone compete with the noise too.

Something utterly deadly has happened to my ear. I thought for sure it was H, and it would calm down. I though for sure since I had this same issue (albeit not as intense) a year and half ago and it wen't away, it would go away now. 6 months later after a brief smoke detector and a combined of work environment has seemingly killed me.

I would take and handle normal T. A constant tone. This is too much. 2 and half years of already bad T, getting a tad bit better in early 2018, to then get this last July with it getting worse since then. It's just a loss cause now. It's just not something i can cope with any longer. I'm becoming violent, inflicting self harm and I can see myself deteriorating. I will make the person/company pay for this hell they caused by incorrectly handling the outside control panel for the smoke detectors, that is the very minimum of what I will live to do.

 

I think you need to do relaxing activities like yoga, pilates or tai chi. Or some artistic activity, like drawing or painting, or quiet gardening, taking care of plants, stuff like that helps. Most people today do not have time or care for such things, that cannot provide any material benefit, but can help you spiritually and to improve your mood, focus on simple things and forget problems.

 

Impossible to do when those activities are overshadowed by a tone that causes pain because of the pitch. When something is not stable like a normal pure tone, and instead just ramps up, then down, then up, then down, never getting consistency, and then to have it compete over outside noises, makes it impossible to not have it assault your conscious.

Before I could at least mask, now I can't. One incident of a brief smoke detector did this to me. Which means that my theory of my ears being so damaged that further brief trauma's will continue to destroy the haircells, synapses or what ever is being destroyed, will continue. Which means no future.

 

Did you try corticoids the first days after the noise trauma? Deflazacort maybe?

 

I feel like I am in the same boat. However, within 3 to 5 years there might be a fix. Who knows what FX322 will do to H and T? Or oto413 (feels like more of a longshot though)

 

That's the same thing people have been saying about H and T in the last 40 years.

 

My ear has never been worse. The right side is completely out of control. I'm basically at my last mile and only holding out to try to sue this disgusting company that caused this permanent increase.

What I don't understand is that even moderate noise now just will send the ear into a hugely increased reactive/winding up state for hours and hours and hours. The only time I can almost stomach it is if I plug my ear with cotton and wear earmuffs for half the day. The reactive portion of the tinnitus, which I mean the tinnitus tone is a constant shifting in volume up and down and up and down never being able to have a pure tone anymore, well this component JUMPS up even worse with noise in the background. It makes it skyrocket this tinnitus and compete with said noises. In complete silence while the tone type going up and down is there, it's less intense.

But just going to store, using scanner to check out, normal cars driving by at 10mph, chopping carefully in kitchen and normal noises. This is skyorcketing this tinnitus competent.

I almost threw up tonight from being so upset/angry because it's piercing like little jabs constantly into the ear.

I can't believe 3 years of trying to recover and getting to a stable place early last year was ruined by a few seconds of a smoke detector and continued worsening through working in a front office type of environment.

 

Yeah, that can happen. Companies do not care about workers and safety at the workplace is always put in a second place.