Habituating to Tinnitus for a Second Time After Pressure Release Valve Incident

Hey,

You may or may not remember me. I was the guy who got a possible acoustic shock from his brother's car. After almost 2 years I'd recovered. However, now I'm back to almost square one

The other day at work my stupid employee messed with a pressure release valve on compressed air accumulator (think that's what it is). It's what the engineers plug tools and air line blowers into.

Anyway, the resultant noise felt incredible.I don't know how loud or have anything to gauge it too. It didn't hurt but shocked the hell out of me. I managed to slip my ear defenders on after a second or 2 but now feel like I'm back at the start.

I didn't notice any immediate difference to my hearing. No dullness or ringing.

When I got back to my office, panic fully set in and anxiety through the roof, I noticed a mild ringing.

Now I've always had ringing ears but had tuned it out.

Right now it's hissing/ringing and driving me crazy. I can't stop checking for it. And all I'm doing is over-analysing constantly.

I have no burning etc, just some tension in my jaw and face.

Could this 2 seconds of noise have damaged my hearing further or is it my ramped up anxiety levels?

Worth noting I've protected my ears religiously for years. I just keep getting unlucky

Shaun.

 

I am sorry this has happened to you.

I honestly don't think your awareness of your tinnitus is due to any acoustic injury.

You're back in the fight or flight mode. It gave you a big fright.

I've been there.

Solution is pretty obvious, but hard to do when you're filled with worry.

Stop focusing on it if you can. Do something calming. I know this is tough. I'm back to having to rehabituate myself. Don't give it a foot hold.

I would put my money on the shock of the incident has kicked up your fear. Now your amygdala is awake.

 

Thank you You've set my mind at ease slightly which has relaxed me a little.

That's exactly what happens. I hear a loud noise. Panic. Go into fight or flight mode than constantly worry. Constantly think about it and then constantly over think it.

Hopefully in a week or maybe a month I'll have chilled out!

Shaun

 

Sorry to hear this happened to you, I'm in a similar situation trying to rehabituate for a second time. Been away from these forums for years now. I was completely habituated to my tinnitus. Yes, I still noticed it every single day bit it had stopped bothering me, no stress response whatsoever. Even smaller spikes couldn't shake me since I always knew they would calm down.

But now I'm back here everyday. Not sure exactly what caused my spike this time. I've noticed an increase in tinnitus volume the past weeks, started waking up from it again which I haven't done in years.

It's been months since my COVID-19 shots so that's probably not it.

The only thing I can think of is I've been slowly tapering my SSRI med for the past 8 months. And I just did another small drop in dose a few weeks back. I've been on them for 10+ years and have never before had an issue when changing doses.

I've also had a cold, I'm hoping that's the issue so it'll calm back down but to be honest this all started up before my cold.

I'm trying really really hard not to freak out but I do get panicky at times. Since I've been through this before at least this time I know I can habituate, I just don't want to go back down that black hole I was in the first year of tinnitus all those years ago.

 

Hi @ShaunR. I hope you get through this setback.

I was reading some of your posts and your story seem similar to mine, although not sure if you had hyperacusis with burning pain in silence or for how long.

The good thing is that you improved after 2 years. Did you post your tips for improvement somewhere? Any success story is a great motivation for all of us. Thanks!

 

Do you protect 24/7 @Taw? Since you are getting burning pain in silence.

 

I can't. Both earplugs and earmuffs cause me more pain. I try to stay in silence at home.

 

That is beginning to happen more for me also. When I wear earmuffs, if pain is triggered, I can definitely feel pain in my cheeks around where the earmuffs are cupping, and with earplugs, right where they touch the inside of my ears, I am feeling tender and electrical like pain now.

I don’t know what to do since it seems if I don’t protect that the whole face/ear pain cycles that last all day will just remain and get worse.

I’m sorry you are having pain in silence too. I wish we could find a balance that would work.

 

Hey. Sorry, I really wanted to write a success story but was terrified of jinxing my progress.

I went from constant burning ears, even in silence, to just aching jaw and ear. This progress happened over almost 2 years.

Until my latest setback I reckon I was at about 90% better.

Anyway tinnitus has decreased a bit today and I've been able to focus more so maybe things are settling again

Shaun

 

Man, this is really great news. May I ask what you did? What's your "secret", was the progress linear? I had a noisy motorcycle for years, then I got an acoustic trauma from music and it was over. Same as you, constant burning and pressure in ears.

Can you now do normal things, listen to music, drive, go on holidays?

I don't want to jinx your progress in any way, just every pain hyperacusis success story gives hope to the rest of us.

Thanks and congrats again!

 

Well I was doing great lol. Now my face is numb and I have some burning again after the compressed air incident. I'm hoping it's just my mind overthinking the whole thing!

I've no secret how I got over it the first time. I didn't really have the normal pain or loudness to noise. I just had an achy face all the time and burning most of the time in my ear canal.

All I did was try carry on the beat I can. And eventually it either got better or my brain accepted it.

As I say this latest noise has set me back. So so frustrating to come so far and then be set back especially because of someone's stupidity.

Once again a bag of nerves praying the thing will settle down again.

Shaun.

 

Thanks for the explanations. I forgot to ask you if you could (or can) listen to electronic sounds (TV, laptop, phone)? I think this is tough for all of us. Cheers!

 

Hey,

The whole thing has been very weird for me as I don't *appear* to fit into any kind of category.

I can still listen to music, drive the car, go to restaurants. None of these things make it worse.

The worst bit about it is the feeling of burning that starts for no reason I can pinpoint. It just starts.

Thankfully (well I say thankfully) this time around it's not as bad as it was before. However, it's still incredibly worrying. I spent almost 2 years to feel like I had my life back so this setback is daunting... I don't want to go another 2 years hoping to get better.

I'm not sure if it's a stress reaction. My fight or flight response is through the roof and once again I can't stop internally monitoring my hearing.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

@ShaunR, it's hard to relax, but try to keep yourself busy, so you don't think about hyperacusis, otherwise the brain will be in alert mode.

Btw could you listen to music and drive the car in these 2 years of recovery?

 

Aye, trying not to think about it but every fibre of my body is on edge again! If I felt this way with no obvious trigger then I think I'd be OK with it. But because a loud noise happened and I can't stop thinking about that loud noise I'm heading back down the rabbit hole. Has it damaged my hearing? Am I doomed to feel this way forever?

Truth is I don't know how loud it was... I went to look at the airline filter today and was going to set it off and measure the dB but what's the point? What's happened has happened. The guy I was with had no side effects even though he spent minutes trying to turn it off... I only had roughly 2 maybe 3 seconds of it.

Anyway...

At the start I couldn't drive the car without earplugs. Not because it hurt but because I was terrified of making it worse. Same with the radio.

Eventually after a few months I started driving without earplugs and with the radio and it didn't affect me.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

Well, no real change. Neck and face tension continue. Ear hisses all the time. No hyperacusis or noxacusis that I can tell.

To make it worse, the guy I was with reckons it was 130 to 150 dB... If that's true then my ear really is damaged and it isn't stress/anxiety.

I was just starting to make progress and life had just returned to normal. Now I feel like I'm back at square one

Speaking to doctor today about anti-anxiety meds.

Cheers,
Shuan.

 

Well I woke up this morning to less hissing and less ear numbness. I thought I was heading in the right direction.

I was driving to work when a rock hit my windscreen. My left, good ear rang for a couple of seconds and now has a dull ache.

Besides wearing ear defenders everywhere it just seems that you can't avoid these noises.

Perversely now I'm not thinking about the compressed air incident so my right, bad ear feels ok. Now thinking about my left, good ear aching. Don't think there's any hearing loss. I really just give up.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

It is impossible to prevent all loud noise. Try to not to fixate on your good ear. My tinnitus/ear fullness is elevated right now but I know it’s due to an increase in anxiety. It’s unlikely that you have suffered any permanent hearing damage.

You could try wearing earplugs while driving though. It takes some getting used to, but it’s doable.

 

Compressed air is the worst. My initial tinnitus was caused by it, and a recent worsening as well. Both times caused by coworkers that set it off without warning. I've been through a handful of fire alarms, and a lot of other loud unexpected events since getting tinnitus and hyperacusis, but the super high pitched hiss from compressed air being released seems to be especially damaging to my ears.

 

I also had a setback after being recovered for two years... How are you now?