Hearing Distortion, Hyperacusis, or Something Else? Please Help

A few days ago, I made a very stupid mistake. I wore ear buds (which I almost never do) to listen to some cat video a friend wanted to show me. However, the volume on the laptop was cranked all the way up for whatever reason, and I was subjected to cats meowing and screeching at an insanely loud volume straight into my ears. I removed the ear buds after about a second or so, but it seems like the damage has been done. My left ear is fine, but my right ear is really messed up, and I'm not really sure what to do about it (my right ear being the one I have tinnitus in).

So, what happened was at first there was a bit of pressure and louder ringing than normal. That subsided quickly and has been replaced with something worse. Now, I hear a strange "distortion" of sounds in my right ear. It's hard to describe. It kind of sounds like a "whistling" or beeping noise that is overlaid on certain noises, like fans, running water, refrigerators , certain music pitches, etc. When present, it makes things incredibly hard and uncomfortable to listen to.

While I have habituated to tinnitus, I have no idea how to get used to this, or even what it is. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? Could it be a form of hyperacusis or sound sensitivity. What should I do? Would going to a Doctor or ENT do any good? I'm panicked, stressed, and at my wits end with this. I really need some help guys.

 

An ENT is only good for a predisone steroid


Hyperacusis is defined as the following

1: abnormal amplification of noise
2: noise induced pain, ear fullness, ache.


Abnormal amplification of noise along with hearing loss can cause distortion if some frequencies sound louder then others.

Reactive tinnitus and hyperacusis are not the same thing evidently due to tinnitus being hyperactivity in the audiotory brain and hyperacusis having more to do with outer hair cell sending pain signals, your distortion could be caused by low pitch tinnitus and tinnitus reacting to external sounds.

The biggest problem however is that there maybe two forms of hyperacusis, Amplification H and pain H
that are not properly classified but we don't know because hyperacusis research is still developing.




Another reason for distortion is background noise hearing loss, if speech in background noise blurs together that will produce a distortion effect. So basically hearing distortion AKA" dysacusis" is probably a combination of reactive tinnitus, hyperacusis and background noise induced hearing loss.

 

Thank you very much for answering, yeah sounds more like reactive Tinnitus/Dysacusis going off the description. What if anything can I do to improve my situation in that case? Should I be avoiding noise, or trying to gradually expose myself to normal sounds like with Hyperacusis? Would either of those things help? Just trying to find any relief I can, because this is really terrible, especially on Christmas Eve.

 

I am sorry I don't know if any of those things will help. Treating reactive tinnitus and any form of hyperacusis as if they were the same issue is not supported by any research.

The best you can do is take magnesium, it has properties to protect the inner ear as well as reduce anxiety, I'm sorry there is no guaranteed fix.

 

I will try Magnesium, thank you. I hope it can help somewhat. This is truly horrible, way worse than my T.

 

An update on this thread, could an Ear infection be the cause of this? Apparently, the ear I'm having trouble with is infected and also inflamed. Could this be the cause, or at least contributing to it?

 

The ear infection could be a contributing factor, and should get looked at by a doc before inserting ear plugs which would make it much worse.

Overall, from the ear bud noise exposure, it sounds like a TTS, or temporary tonal shift, which can happen after a loud noise. Would recommend to protect hearing from any other loud noises with total vigilance until the TTS dissipates, which took almost a week in my case after the original event, but everyone is unique. Given your concern of ear infection, ear muffs would be a better choice until you know there is no ear infection. Slowly after things improve, and we are talking several months here, you can try to liberalize the hearing protection, but never anything above 85db, and even 80 db is of debate. Other folks around here unfortunately can T Spike with even less.

Hope you feel better soon, and sorry you are going through this from a fellow sufferer.

 

aren't temporary thresholds always permanent due to hair cells recovering but still losing synaptic ribbons?

 

Maybe try some chelated zinc, I feel like I've read in multiple places that zinc has helped a lot of people.

 

Temporary tonal shifts can go on to be permanent in some cases, but in others they can be temporary. That is why it is so important to protect in this phase to give optimal chance for recovery and not reinjure at this point. In my case, it was definitely temporary, but of course it will depend on the original insult in terms of how loud, and for what duration.

 

This is very informative, thank you. Yeah, staying away from loud noises seems like the best option for me now. I was outside briefly yesterday near a Gas Station which was somewhat loud, and sent this T through the roof. I will try earmuffs, and will try to be careful until this (hopefully) disappates. Also, saw a Doctor yesterday, and am currently taking ear Ciproflaxin ear drops for the infection. It should clear up soon.

 

Also, I'm unclear on this @Digital Doc . Is it better to be protective, or not to be? I was very protective at first. Basically just sat in my room and kept things pretty quiet the first few days, but over the last few days have tried to gradually to increase the noise level I was exposed to. Yesterday, I went for a walk and into a store without ear plugs. Is this a bad idea? It did seem to bother my ears a bit for a couple hours afterwards. I thought you had to expose yourself to noise over time?

 

It was a loud video somewhat close to max volume wearing earbuds. Noise exposure was maybe 1-2 seconds. This was the video in question, when the door opens:

Every day. Every. Darn. Day.

 

I will look into Zinc, thank you.

 

Protective, but not very protective is how I approach it. Quiet at home is a good thing early on, but definitely no plugs in that situation.

I get nervous as I go outside, as I lose control, and there are intermittent noise exposures. Just in my backyard more than once a helicopter flew overhead so I now wear plugs outside unless it is short such as getting the mail. It took me a while to find the happy medium, and still adjusting to it. I figure we dont wait until there are flying objects to put on safety glasses, or soak our hands in cleaning products to put on gloves, so why wait for the noise-when there is a reasonable potential for it- to put the ear plugs in.

The store is a tough one, and I do not wear plugs to a supermarket, or in the parking lot outside, but my tinnitus is milder than many others here (although still damn annoying with a touch of hyperacusis as well). With that said, if I got a spike from going to the store, or another exposure, I would wear ear plugs the next time and see if it avoids it. I would also plan to overprotective for the first few months, and hopefully things improve, before worrying about backing things off.

I have figured out through trial and error it is better to be the guy wearing the ear plugs for no apparent reason to others, than to suffer through another of these horrible spikes that take weeks to months to work through.

You need to expose to moderate noises over time, but not loud ones as our ears are quite fragile, and who knows if it ever heals fully. Look around the forum, there are random stories who got past all of this, and then reinjured their ears years later after they thought it was ok to do so.

 

I appreciate the detailed post dude! Yeah, I'll try to be more careful, but just not overdo it. Seems like a tough balance to strike, but I will try my best, haha.

 

Good luck with it, and your insights will be useful as well. Hard to balance over and underprotection in a constantly changing environment. Just yesterday got to work, and there was a wood chipper across the street which has never happened before. Thankfully, no spike today.

 

Not at all. Hearing could be temporarily reduced due to a spasm in tensor tympani. This is the mostly likely cause. Pressure doesn't just happen after listening to headphones. That is a feeling of muscle tension. If you held a .45 next to your ear and started firing off rounds...sure you could get immediate pressure. But NOT from a trauma like this.

 

I've had this for about a year and a half now (since T onset). There are scattered threads on it. I do find it worse than the tinnitus sometimes. I try not to focus on it, but that is obviously difficult. No idea what it is. Could be hearing damage, could be something with TTTS, etc. Like someone else said, I take magnesium, and that does help a bit (I think).

 

How is yours characterized? For me it is a bzzzzzz that accompanies white noise. Interestingly it goes way in the morning and seems to come gradually back.