Had a Setback After Being Exposed to Music at a Record Store and I'm Starting to Get Nervous

I had recovered from loudness hyperacusis and noxacusis to the point I was able to watch television, listen to music, and other things at a safe volume without issue.

I went to a record store the other day. The clerk was not playing music when I arrived. As I began to shop (without plugs in or on me) they turned on the stereo.

The music seemed loud so I checked it with the dB meter on my phone. It said 65 dB. I have tested it's accuracy with against a decent SPL meter in the past (Galaxy Audio Check Mate CM-140 SPL Meter). The difference was a maximum of 5 dB. I can normally tolerate things nowadays in that range of 65-70 dB so I didn't leave the store. It was punk rock music on a worn vinyl with quite a bit of pops and clicks. I stayed for about 15 minutes.

After I left the store, within an hour I began to have jaw pain on the left side and deep in my left ear. It is not severe pain. I would rate it mild, on the verge of moderate. It has progressed to both ears at this point. It's not constant. It seems to dissipate for an hour or two then come back. I've been wearing plugs and muffs for most activities again to see if it will subside. I'm not able to listen to music or watch television currently without the pain coming back once passed for a bit. But it doesn't seem to always be triggered by noise. This morning I woke up and my ears were burning inside and pain came shortly after and that was in near silence, with just an air purifier running.

I had a setback in May when I got my second dose of the vaccine. It lasted about two months in total. However, it was mostly sound sensitivity and the pain wasn't as regular and as "deep".

I'm really worried that my foolish outing where I relied on the dB meter instead of my gut and didn't just leave has led to what may become a return to the hell I was in 2 1/2 years ago.

If anyone has any positive stories to share of improvements after setbacks like this, that would be great.

 

If you do have a setback, it’s probably just gonna be a small spike that should subside if anything...

 

I hope you’re right. Thanks for responding.

 

How are you now? Also it doesn’t seem too loud given the decibel rating but who knows nowadays lol.

 

Went to bed with pain, woke up with it. I know setbacks can take awhile to subside (months :/), it’s just that it seems to be progressing. Like starting in the left ear, spreading to both, pain becoming more regular throughout the day. I know how it can get much worse.

I have three kids that rely on me. After onset in 2019 it got to the point I couldn’t work for awhile. I’m really scared of that happening again.

 

It will settle. I can't imagine 65 dB doing damage. Maybe a spike that will settle, but not damage.

 

It seems to me more probably hearing fatigue than a true setback...

 

Thanks @Jack Straw and @Juan. I hope you guys are right.

 

Had the exact same kind of setback happen to me about 10 days ago by listening to a rock song on my phone at like 40 dB. I’m on the same timeline as you as well, my hyperacusis got bad 2.5 years ago in the spring of 2019. I had recovered about 75 percent by summer 2020 and I listened to a rock song in headphones (well within a safe range) and it started off a setback that took an entire year to recover from.

Well after this latest setback I decided to test the overprotection vs underprotection theory out. I just kept right on exposing myself to music and stuff within safe levels, because I thought that maybe I had overprotected during my 2020 setback and that had caused my tolerance to deteriorate.

I quickly realized this wasn’t correct at all. I basically started spiraling out of control and what could have possibly been a minor setback of a few days is now seeming like it’ll take several months to heal. The exact same burning sensation you’re describing with increased sensitivity in my ears. I *do* think I realized what was happening and started protecting my ears before this became a year-long setback.

There is something about the sound of electric guitars that just shreds my ears even at totally safe volumes. My LDLs in that range must be horrible. Maybe you’re in the same situation. All I know is that we can never, ever enter any establishment without a pair of earplugs on hand. Can’t make that mistake again dude.

On the bright side the noxacusis definitely hasn’t gotten worse in several days and appears to be slowly improving with less burning and less sensitivity until nighttime when I get tired. I’m just gonna keep protecting whenever I leave the house and stop listening to music for a month or two. It’s like I keep getting so close to the finish line and then setting myself back. Really annoying.

 

I wasn't able to listen to music in general till last October (was able to start television again a few months before). Then I gradually got to the point where I could stomach even a whole album by like the middle of 2021. I only listen for extended periods on my pretty decent system at home. The reactivity of my tinnitus in my right ear to music faded almost completely too over the summer.

Normally, I can listen to any genre, but I keep it at around the 60 dB mark at home. I think it was largely situational in my case and I was just foolish to stay like I did. I had ear plugs in my car, so there was no excuse not to leave or at least plug up and return. I think it was a small store with poor acoustics, a cheap stereo with an abrasive sound, a worn vinyl with lots of pops and clicks and DIY punk rock which has an element of lo-fi production quality to it.

Like you I tried to tell myself I was overreacting. Saying to myself the dB meter says it's in a safe range, etc. I had developed phonophobia when my hyperacusis/noxacusis was worse, which I had largely overcome. So I figured it's just a phonophobic reaction. But of course in this case I had to be wrong.

Sorry to hear you are going through the same thing. My deep inner ear and whole jaw pain has gotten better, but the general ear pain in both ears is now constant instead of intermittent. So I can't tell if things are getting better or becoming entrenched. Basically just waiting it out. Trying to protect like you. Hope that you improve soon.

 

Yeah and don’t beat yourself up for not protecting at the store. I have some phonophobia too and I had been healing for so long that I wanted to gradually expose myself to more and more. There is definitely some sort of strengthening concept at play where slowly exposing yourself to a little more than you used to the month before is a good thing. Theoretically you should have been fine. Just bad luck, and just part of our journey to a full recovery. The main thing is not making it worse.

I do think I’m recovering from my latest setback, today has been a pretty good day so far with reduced burning and pain. I’m just avoiding my phone speaker and not listening to any music whatsoever.

 

Well it’s been two weeks so far into this setback. While the deep pain has resolved, my ears are even more easily fatigued than in the initial period. Still hoping it clears up. Will follow up again in a few more weeks.

 

Hi there,

I too got my major hearing damage in Spring 2019. Was super careful about avoiding music etc till it felt comfortable enough but then got a major spike at the start of this year through listening to my new CDs from Christmas in the car too loud. Took several months to settle back down to my "normal" baseline but it did eventually. I even went to a couple of moderate volume concerts last month (I was performing in one of them) though I don't plan to make a habit of it. Just got to use common sense and not take silly risks.

 

Thanks for posting. Yes, I remember yours came from the Rush concert pyrotechnics or something.

Glad to hear you at least recovered to your previous baseline. Gives me hope. Glad to hear you got back to musicianship. I was actually working up to that point of feeling comfortable mixing again as my ears were tolerating music well in my controlled environment. Guess I’ll have to at least wait a little while longer.

 

We certainly get the chance to practice becoming more patient with this condition. If there's one upside, it's this - I don't yell at the kids quite so much as I used to before tinnitus.

 

Well it’s only been a few days with no improvement, but I just had a vertigo attack in my sleep last night. First one I’ve ever had. So I don’t know what to make of that. I have had some balance issues since an ear surgery in 2019, but I’ve never had a vertigo attack. The two issues may not be related at all, but damn it sucks when the problems start piling on.

 

Please note that artificial sounds are different than normal sounds. So music from speakers/phones/TV is a lot more damaging to all or us compared to voices for example.

I can tolerate voices at 60 dB but for the TV it's maximum 40 dB.

I understand your problem, I got a huge setback from the dentist (5 weeks ago) and it did not improve at all, the pain is constant, even in silence. When I wake up until I sleep, it calms down only during the night (don't understand why).

Unfortunately it seems that for noxacusis at least, every setback comes with greater revenge.

@GoatSheep, btw, may I read your story somewhere? Because it sounds very very similar to mine.

 

I don't think I ever made an introductory post. It's gonna be sloppy as I'm feeling like crap right now, but here goes.

Basically, June 7th, 2019 I was driving home from my mother's house and had sudden onset of tinnitus. Over the next couple of weeks I figured out I had also had hyperacusis as things were extremely loud all of the sudden and my tinnitus would react to them by getting louder and louder.

Doctors kept giving me seratonergic drugs as sleep aids and they all made my tinnitus go through the roof. My tinnitus went from a 7/10 to a 10/10 on the meds. I got to where I couldn't function pretty much at all. Over the next couple months after I detoxed from those meds and finally found one that helped me sleep and helped the volume of my tinnnitus (Clonazepam), I started to get pain from sound. It was what I'd consider mild to low moderate at worst. I also developed issues like TTTS, ETD, patulous Eustachian tube at one point.

Things had all improved over time, but there was no improvement for over a year. Then in October 2020 I started to feel like my tinnitus volume was improving, then my hyperacusis/noxacusis started becoming harder to trigger. My general ear pain and facial pain started to improve, I got to where I could listen to music in short stints again (and built up from there). I went to physical therapy and that actually further improved my hyperacusis. I think it was due to having the more middle ear related reaction to sound where my ears would tighten up do to the Tensor Tympani overreacting or whatever. As all these things improved, my phonophobia did too.

Along the way I had some bumps in the road. The second dose of Pfizer set my hyperacusis/noxacusis back pretty bad for about 2 months, but it cleared up entirely. Prior to that I had a trash truck incident that had similar results. I guess after those things I'm kind of in shock that 15 minutes of music at a record store at that volume is seeming to have a worse effect on me. And then this whole sudden vertigo attack thing, I don't know what the hell is going on. Thankfully, it was only the one attack so far, but I've been really off balance since and moving my head certain ways will quickly have me practically falling over.

Sorry, I'm just rambling at this point. Like to say, not too coherent at the moment with all that's happening.

 

Thanks, consider yourself lucky, you seem to have moderate hyperacusis, which usually goes away. Just don't blow it like many of us, because each setback it worse than before.

 

Well, pretty sure the vertigo issue is completely unrelated. After researching and some pain in my neck and back I'm guessing it's cervical vertigo. Since it started in my sleep I'm guessing I was in a poor position that was applying the pressure that initiated the vertigo. Thankfully, I woke up and relieved the pressure. Still having some dizziness, but nothing like the initial onset. Hoping it will clear up also. The waiting game is so much fun!!!!

 

Hi,

Have you considered to take a short course of Prednisone for this setback? I feel you, I'm on one of my biggest spikes ever.

 

To be honest, no I haven't. The only time I tried to get Prednisone for a noise incident was when I threw a garbage bag full of glass bottles (not my bag, trying to be a good neighbor at old apartment complex and picked up bags someone had randomly left sitting near the compactor) into a trash compactor and it made a ridiculously loud sound that immediately hit my ear wrong.

It felt like the sound was being stuffed into that ear is the best I can describe it and I developed a new tone that took like 6 months to go away. My ENT at the time would only give me two 50mg pills so I don't think taking it really did much for me as it wasn't a full course. I don't have a doctor who will act as my prescription pad like many seem to on here. That may be my own fault for not doctor shopping, but it is what it is.

 

How is your setback coming along? I've not having much pain at all at this point, but the ear fatigue raw feeling is still consistently coming on. I've had to start wearing earplugs to rest my ears around my kids again...

 

Do you know what happened to cause the spike? How long has it been going on so far?

 

We were building a summer house. I was holding the construction, while the relative of mine, suddenly started to bang with a hammer on the metal pole in order to get it into the hole. He (the relative), was not near me, he was on the other side of the construction, but still it was load. Next day the tinnitus got loader and I had that feeling that something is not right.

Then a week later, I got a second jab of a COVID-19 vaccine. Two weeks after that ( so maybe it‘s not because of that) it started to get even more louder.Basically, I think I have that „my spike, has a spike“ situation.

For me it has already been a month. I get no fluctuations, every day it‘s loud, I can feel my ears and I‘m in a fight or flight situation.

How are you? Do you feel any better?

 

Sorry to hear that. The second shot of Pfizer gave me increased hyperacusis issues for 2 months so I can empathize. I mean the pain is gone at this point basically, but I'm not pushing it at all so that could be why. I've been wearing earplugs around the house just trying to rest my ears, not fully inserted, but enough to take the edge off things for now. In hopes any inflammation from the setback may clear up quicker. Probably just do this for a couple days since I work from home anyway and then see where I'm at next week.

 

Well the pain has come back over the past couple days...

 

My ears are burning almost all day long every day lately. I’m getting worried.

 

Sorry to hear that. Mine are burning also for months, tried different kind of medications, there are ups and downs.

Hope that your burning will fade away, it seems that you did not have a big acoustic trauma, like some of us did.

 

I’ve had absolutely no improvement and it’s been over 2 months.

Unfortunately, yesterday I feel like I had even more of a setback. I went into a bubble tea store where they were running a blender. I had in plugs, but they were light plugs. Probably 15 dB max inserted properly. Again the noise was under 80 dB, I checked it with my phone meter.

Afterwards within 30 minutes my ears began to get more sensitive. I guess it was stupid to walk in there with anything less than properly inserted high NRR plugs or maybe even muffs.