Do I Have Hyperacusis?

Hi everyone,

A few months ago, I damaged my ears by playing piano constantly at loud volumes. I have an electronic (digital) piano, and I used to play an average of 2 to 4 hours every day.

One day, I noticed that my ears hurt after a session, so I took a break. The pain subsided after a few minutes.

However, the next day, I played the piano at a very loud volume again. The pain returned after an hour, causing me to stop playing. Unfortunately, the pain didn't subside until several days after.

Ever since then, my ears have been bothered by noises containing high frequencies. An example would be the squealing of metal scraping on metal.

Music, even at moderately low volumes, bothers my ears now.

I do my best to avoid noises that bother me. I no longer play the piano or listen to music. Interestingly, watching TV at a moderate volume doesn't really bother my ears.

Unfortunately, I have a factory job where loud noises abound, and my ears are stressed most days after I leave work, so that may be prolonging the time it takes for my ears to heal. The noise at my job never used to bother my ears before I got this problem.

Every time I am exposed a loud noise, I feel pain inside my ears as well as aching throughout my cheeks, temples, and jaw. I can relieve the aching in my face with trigger point therapy, but not the pain in my ear.

The pain typically takes a few days to completely subside.

I've seen some websites define hyperacusis as hearing sounds abnormally loud; but in my case, sound levels are not distorted at all. Everything sounds the same as before, but I feel a sharp pain inside my ears whenever I'm exposed to high frequencies at moderate to loud volumes.

I feel that resting my ears is the best solution, but I'm curious what kind of ear problem I have exactly. Is it hyperacusis, tympani tensor syndrome, or something else?

 

Hi Silverlight:

It sure sounds (pardon the pun) like you have hyperacusis. I have had it for 21 years and so I know about the questions, and worry at the beginning.

You do not want to make this worse so start thinking seriously about getting another job in a quiet environment. I know that is easier said than done. But, really, you have to give your ears as much quiet as possible so that they can start to heal to a more tolerable level. You might check out the Hyperacusis Network for a lot more on hyperacusis.

You brought up a very good point about the major identifying symptom of hyperacusis: sensitivity to normal sound. What is this more precisely? For those who are normal, or are new like you, they may ask the reasonable question as to whether one means that one hears sound as higher and-or as some type of distortion or hard-to-define irritation. I would say more the last. If normal sounds are bugging you even in some yet unclear way, then you have hyperacusis, in my opinion.

Check out other definitions on the Net, and ask other people. In the meantime, protect yourself at all cost from further damage. You do NOT want to get extreme hyperacusis, bcause that is real Hell.

Marco

 

Thanks for your advice. I feel like my hyperacusis is going away very gradually, even though my ears get reinjured by the noises where I work. The pain and sensitivity is not as bad as it was in the beginning.

Getting a quieter job is a good idea. In the meantime, I'm going to try using some high fidelity ear plugs to see if they reduce the sound levels enough while allowing me to still hear people talk.

I also tried the Sensgard hearing protector. It worked very well at reducing the volume of everything except voices, but the ear pieces were a little too big for my ear canals. The pressure exerted by the Sensgard caused pain on the outside of my ears where it made contact.

 

Dear Silverlight:

I would also recommend you see a hearing specialist to discuss your case in detail. I am not such a specialist, and it would be more indicated in your case, in my opinion, because of its uniqueness. You might wish to go to the Hyperacusis Network Message Board and consult the list of hearing specialists there that have a particular expertise with hyperacusis. I beleive such a list is at the beginning of the column of threads on the Message Board (I can't remember because I am banned there). You might also start your own thread requesting such referrrals, especially asking the help of a Dr Stephen Nagler , a regular poster there, who seems to have made it a mission to refer persons to qualified professsionnals near where they live. He seems to have a worlwide list of referrals. In any case, just ask clearly and you will be given the info you need.

So be careful, and good luck. If there is anything else I can help you with, just ask. I'll check up on your thread here once in a while.

Marco