Hello from Japan!

Hello everyone, been lurking the forums for a few days now as my T and H started around 2 weeks ago.

I'm a stay at home dad.
Been playing a lot of computer games with headphones recently, been under a lot of stress as well.
My temper hasn't been in check these days, been raising my voice/shouting on a weekly basis.

When the T onset started, my ears were feeling full and started to notice a high pitched hissing in my head. (both ears, i guess)

A few days after the onset and went to a local Japanese EENT.
Standard audiogram 8khz shows not hearing loss, never did a 12khz.
Ear pressure was good, no signs of redness of the eardrums.
No vertigo/dizziness.

I started off with 7 + 14 days meds:

Prednisolone 5mg 1x a day
Rebamipide - protects the GI from toxicity from meds/possibly used for aged related hearing loss here in Japan.
Adetphos KOWA 10% - brain blood flow med (I think this is not FDA approved in the US)
Kallidinogenase - supposedly dizziness med/widens peripheras blood vessels
B12 500mg

After the 7 days of prescription i went back and he gave me another 14 days of the same meds.

Caught a cold 5 days in. I refused to take any painkiller/antibiotics for it as i am avoiding anything ototoxic.

9 days in, cold seems to be going away - no noticeable T spikes from it.

After 10 days feeling better from cold, on a whim i decided to go to a local barber iv'e never been to before.
I was caught off guard when the haircut was finished, they had this vacuum cleaner with a brush on it - he vacuum cleaned the hair from behind my ears, neck, head etc.!

It was on MAX power and because of my H, i got frozen from shock and was not able to stop him until he was done with it. Took him a few good seconds to clean up the little hairs around my neck.

That night my T spiked! i was so anxious and was blaming myself even more. How could i have let that happen during this onset!?

Well now a few days after that, T level is a bit higher from when it started, anxiety is a bit better but i'm still scared.

 

Hello!

I found myself in many situations where I was caught off guard by a brief, loud sudden noise. I don’t think anyone would really enjoy the sound of a loud vacuum to the back of the neck or head. A simple warm towel would quietly do the trick. I’m sorry your going through this. The best thing to do is remain calm and not stress about if the vacuum caused your T to get worst. In many cases it’s just the anxiety from the noise that brings the T up in volume. It should subside for you. The same happens to me I usually get worried from the noise exposure, which causes my T to get loud. After i settle myself down it subsides. Stay positive. Unfortunately, the world is a noisy place and it’s very hard to avoid a sudden loud noise.

 

The T doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as the H does.

At least you can habituate to T, or so I'm led to believe. I don't think that's possible with H.

 

Because your tinnitus was caused by loud noise exposure via gaming headphones and you have painful hyperacusis you certainly have some degree of hearing loss that isn't detectable on a standard 8000hz audiogram. Avoid headphones, take anti anxiety medicine and give your ears a long break and hopefully you make a good recovery.

I also should mention in many cases stress + acoustic trauma seems to be a common trigger for tinnitus.

 

Also, it’s entirely possible you experienced a temporary threshold shift. Meaning it’s not permanent damage!

 

Charles Liberman explained in a paper that temporarily threshold shifts do cause some even if minor permanent damage. This adds up over time. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2812055/

 

Thanks for this! However, it does not come to that conclusion. The conclusion it draws is that at a certain point, from which a TTS can be obtained, permanent damage can occur. This does not mean all TTS's lead to damage. Just that there exists a threshold, for which they have discovered, that you can induce a certain amount of damage and the "hearing" recovers in certain animals.

For example, let's use walking as the measure for whether or not I can totally snap my leg in half, yet the bone will repair. If we use walking as our measure, we say, yes the bone totally healed. But as we know, that is not true. However, my bone can have a fracture, which hurts like hell, but fully recover, and yes I can walk.

But now change the measure to ultra marathoning (which is what lieberman is doing). Now, can the person who has snapped their leg do that? Probably not, there is some permanent damage from which the bone can't heal. BUT, can the person who fractured their leg, have a 100% recovery and run an ultramarathon? That he has not decided, and didn't prove.

This is a very important distinction, and one which, the author acknowledges, has not been tested nor proven in humans or animals.

TL;DR It is still possible that a TTS exists from which, no actual permanent damage has been done.

But, that article is very sobering. Thanks!

 

Agree !
Hyperacusis really bothers a lot of T patients.
We hate it.

 

I also wonder WHY hyperacusis always goes together with tinnitus ?
A lot of tinnitus ppl have this problem.

 

I can feel your ANGER !
I have both tinnitus and hyperacusis.
My ears are very sensitive to loud noise and easily SPIKED.
But, sometimes, accidents may happen at unexpected situations.
I got spiked and got angry very often too !

To tell the truth, this kind of life is like HELL !

 

Actually I'm having a really nice moment as we speak where I'm in complete silence in my room... and the T is almost non-existent. It'll probably rear its ugly, squeaky head when I wake up in the morning, but I think this is good news for my progress after almost three weeks since my mallet-on-reverberating-metal accident.

It's just that dreaded H that continues to be a thorn in my side. Hopefully that fades away soon.

 

Naturally when people are exposed to noises of 120-130 decibels the cochlea's outer hair cells begin to act as pain receptors

Scientist suggest damage to the outer hair cells in the cochlea causes them to leak chemicals to activate a sub subsection of nerve fibers which act as pain receptors to common everyday noises giving the victim painful hyperacusis.

https://hyperacusisresearch.org/2016-aro-symposium-pain-hyperacusis/

It is absolutely amazing that a decade ago there was virtually no research done in hearing loss research and how far things are coming along when science actually does its job.

 

I think that it is connected to your anxiety and not just trauma... you have a good therapy and I think that with time you will fill improvement, but you have to give it time...

 

I have read in several places apart from this forum that suggests that H can stem from anxiety. Though I know this may not always be the case. Also some ADs can cause H as a side effect as well as withdrawal (discontinuation syndrome) from the medication. It’s very interesting to say the least what anxiety can do to the body. This is why therapy is so important. When we think negatively about something our body releases all kinds of chemicals which can make your whole body feel a weird and bad sensation but the same thing happens when you think positively, chemicals are released making you feel good. That’s why it’s very important to remain as positive or atleast neutral about tinnitus and even h.