Cognitive Changes/Problems — Feeling Like Not Myself from Exposure to Sound

This is what I feel on an everyday basis along with tinnitus and mild hearing loss in the affected ear.

“In both cochlear and vestibular hyperacusis, headache is common. In addition, many subjects with hyperacusis feel distinct cognitive changes during these exposures and will describe themselves as being “out of myself” or disassociated from reality, unable to take in other stimuli, having an immediate feeling of something being wrong or a sensation of being unwell, or experiencing severe confusion.”​

Is this something anyone else is experiencing with hyperacusis/tinnitus with or without hearing loss? It’s literally kept me confined to my house for the last year other than little snippets of normal.

I feel no pain, just that my tinnitus sound is louder and feels like an assault to my cognition.

 

In the last year I have felt like my brain goes more slowly, but I attribute this to the fact that I lost hearing so the sound input is different and my brain has to adjust to this change. My hyperacusis, unfortunately, is still with me, and probably to stay.

Also I have got very bad headaches and pain inside ears and around temples, and the feeling I am going to faint, sometimes at situations when I am just sitting. Also occassionally my heart races for no reason when symptoms from hyperacusis like pressure and pain are real bad.

Maybe these are just anxiety bouts but they are obviously link to hearing issues. I try to be optimistic and carry on with my life but with hearing loss plus hyperacusis plus some stress sometimes it is hard and often simple daily tasks, like going on errands can be an ordeal if the area is noisy or there is traffic etc

 

interesting

 

yep, I feel this way pretty much. I don't really go out unless to the store or to work or when my kid wants to go to the playground.

 

I’d like to get my life back at some point. Be nice to know when Frequency Therapeutics is holding the next trial. Sound causes me no pain just the distortion and heightened sensitivity. The way I describe it to people is kind of like a bad hangover with sensitivity to sound aspect.

 

After my T spread from clearly my left ear to my head in the span of almost two years, I've been feeling more this way. My poor understand of how tinnitus first begins is that the broken or damaged nerves that are attached to the ear hair cells begin to fire off randomly which is why it was clearly distinct for me that the ringing is coming from my left ear. As time goes on, your brain tries to equalize this stimuli and this is when you get the head tinnitus and synchronous firing of signals in your brain. I physically feel this vibration/sensation and this is the sensation that puts in the "out of self" state. It's a very uncomfortable sensation. I describe it as a vibration along with random spikes of mild to minor pain and this fullness in the ear sensation.

I think what's happening is tinnitus is using up the actual sound channels in the brain and this reduces the sound that's actually coming from the outside. What's also interesting for me is that hyperacousis always accompanies this head tinnitus. On good days it's almost non existent, on bad days it's very uncomfortable. Again I think it's the messed up sound channels in the brain that transmit the audio input and when this system goes haywire, all sorts of symptoms emerge. These symptoms could come and go, get better or worse which is why people in our situation start thinking they are going crazy because things are good for a few weeks or months then all of a sudden you get all these symptoms back and you try to find the cause and start blaming this or that.

I think once a treatment is found for the out of sync activity in the brain, it will treat many of the symptoms we experience. This is just my humble opinion of course.

 

Yes. If I’m exposed to a sound that is loud enough it makes me very irritable, distracted and confused for a while. Dizzy too. No headache or pain.

 

If I'm exposed to a loud and/or unexpected sound, it can leave me feeling "shocked" and extremely depressed for a few hours--and even 2-3 days if it's severe enough.

 

PTSD... or brain damage... speaking for myself.
I eat like a champ, exercise, and am fighting for what I lost.
I lost a lot.
Healthy food, devotion to my boys, but brain fog. Been an artist my whole life, my instinct tells me I'm going to be able to create again, but I can manage very little now...

blah...blah...
Keep fighting
Peace out

 

I think I'm experiencing this.
I've noticed that going out to reasonably loud restaurants (under 80 dB, but a lot of people + music) may induce dizziness or vertigo and general brain fog/confusion for a while especially if something loud happened.

 

Last year I had a car alarm go off (my own car alarm as I accidentally hit the panic button) and my brain just froze. Instead of just shutting it off or getting into my vehicle I just stood there in a panic trying to figure out what was happening. Not sure if it's the same thing, but the sudden loud noise impaired my ability to think straight. Thank god I happened to have filtering ear plugs in at the time.

 

That happens a lot and may be normal also for people with normal ears. These are startling sounds after all.