Eating and Drinking Are Too Loud for My Hyperacusis

I am frustrated with dealing with hyperacusis. I think it has been a month and a half now. Everytime I get extremely upset and stop eating my parents force me to go with them to urgent care where I get bombarded with door slams and loud metal clanks and the doctors can't do shit for me so they just say to eat or give Prednisone and send me back home.

The loud metal clanks and door slams at urgent care cause a setback and the next morning I wake up with even worse hyperacusis. This has happened 4 times now. My hyperacusis is so bad I spend 24/7 laying on my bed in my room doing nothing but browse stuff on my phone.

Now I can't even eat properly anymore. Anytime I eat or drink my mouth makes all kinds of sounds and I can hear them so much louder. Every chew, bite, swallow is 10x louder than before I had hyperacusis. I'm worried this is causing damage to my ears. Every internal sound in my mouth associated with swallowing is so much louder. Even the saliva and food in my mouth can be heard loudly if my tongue brushes against it.

Eating is becoming so difficult now I can't eat any crunchy foods and I basically only eat rice and yogurt and bananas and drinks. I haven't talked in over a month either because it is too loud for my ears and makes the right ear behave weirdly. I'm just so fed up at this point.

How am I supposed to live if I can barely eat and drink? And if everything in my mouth is so much louder despite being an internal sound are these sounds damaging my hearing further? I don't know how to live anymore.

 

Hang in there, I know it’s nightmarishly difficult.
Your parents are coming from a place of caring and love, try and forgive them.

In the meantime, instead of urgent care, find an ENT or audiologist in your area that has knowledge of hyperacusis and tinnitus.

While not reflective on the many forms a majority of hyperacusis cases get better or resolve entirely.

Wishing you the best, also it’s not your fault you’re going through this don’t ever blame yourself

 

What caused your hyperacusis? What triggered it?

Have you looked into this?:

"SCDS is a rare condition caused by an abnormal thinness or incomplete closure of one of the bony canals in the inner ear. The problem can cause hearing loss, sound distortion and balance problems triggered by loud noises or intracranial pressure caused by sneezing or coughing. Patients often hear internal sounds — their voice, pulse, chewing ..."

 

I’m with you, my hyperacusis is severe as well. I can’t eat chips anymore, every noise bothers my ears horribly. And I keep getting worse. I hate hyperacusis.

 

Interesting, thanks for showing me this. I think it is simply just hyperacusis and the sensitivity ramping up to the noise that's made in my mouth when I eat or drink. Yesterday I got assaulted with noise at an emergency ward in the hospital and afterwards, the sounds in my mouth were negligible compared to what I had experienced earlier and so afterwards I went and got Chinese takeout and had no problems eating it. Like the sounds in my mouth seemed quieter than usual. Today it is back to loud again.

I had a brain MRI + CT scan of sinuses. Not sure if that would be able to check for SCDS, though.

 

I hope you find out what's causing your hearing problems soon.

 

It's okay man. I miss chips too haha. Hyperacusis sucks for sure. I hope one day we will get better.