Hyperacusis Got Much Better

3.5 months ago I got hyperacusis (and a fairly mild tinnitus) after being on a boat with a very noisy motor for 1.5 hours, and some more exposure to loud noises in the week after. The hyperacusis was quite bad and often made me feel anxious and hopeless. The daily noises were already hard to bear (cutlery, boiling water, talking to people etc) and I spent a lot of time alone. So I know how horrible it can be and how tough it is when you don't know if it's ever going to get better. So that's why I want to share my story.

I'm doing much better now. I don't wear earplugs anymore when I go outside, I can join small gatherings, talk for hours one on one, go out for dinner in (fairly quiet) restaurants, I can even go dancing (wearing earplugs). I can stand traffic noises. So I've got my life back for 90% and I am super grateful for that. There's still a light tinnitus but that doesn't really bother me. And at times it's totally quiet in my head as well.

I think it rapidly got better after I gained a better understanding of what exactly is happening in my brain and that my ears themselves aren't broken, and that it is possible to re-train your brain and get used again to sound. Sound is not the enemy.

So hang in there and don't let fear get the best of you. It'll get better.

 

Did you use pink noise?

 

Hi Dja. Yes, I did. 432 Herz from Spotify. Some days just half an hour, some days several hours. So not in a very structured way.
About a month ago, when I felt I really understood the mechanism of hyperacusis (and especially: that I could have a role in reversing it) and when it started to improve faster, I stopped listening to it. Not that I made a decision to stop, I just didn´t feel the urge anymore and slowly shifted to 'normal' music that would make me happy.
So maybe the pink noise also helped, at the time at least it felt like one of the only pleasant noises around. I wouldn´t listen to 'normal' music for example.

So it's hard to say which influence the pink noise had in my recovery, but if it feels nice listening to it, it wouldn't do harm either, I would say.
What also helped me was to comfort myself and tell my body/brains that the perceived danger wasn't actual danger. The sound of a spoon on a plate is just a spoon on a plate. I've heard that sound thousands of times in my life and it never hurt me, so it's not going to hurt me now either. It is not a dangerous sound. The same goes for all the other 'daily' noises. It's just a door, it's just a car, nothing more nothing less. And then I would deepen my breath, relax my shoulders, feel my feet on the floor (my yoga experience helped in this).
Of course I would stay away from noise with actual loud Decibel, or noises that I feel were really too much.

 

I started to have some hyperacusis in my right ear only with tinnitus that jumps from ear to ear, sometimes if I pop my ears it gets better but soon comes back.

Any exact 432Hz playlist you listed to, since there are a lot of 432Hz?

 

Hi there, sorry, I saw your message only now. I hope things are already better for you now.
I basicly had two tracks I would listen to. In the beginning, when all sounds were a nuisance, this waterfall sound was the only thing my ears actually liked. It really felt healing. I found it on Spotify, the track is called Hawaiian Waterfall with Pink noise. I would just loop it.
After a couple of weeks, I felt the good effect was fading, I needed something different for this new phase.
I switched to this other track called ´432 Hz Healing music´by Jason Stephenson. It´s a 60 min recording, very peaceful.

I´m now 90-95% recovered, there's many days that I don't even think about my ears anymore. My ears are silent mostly, sometimes a light tinnitus, but nothing that bothers me. I feel so grateful.
It's funny, because when I listen to the Waterfall track now, I cannot imagine that that ever sounded so pleasant and delicious! Now it just sounds noisy.

I think there's a different type of pink noise for all of us, I hope my tips will help you, take care!

 

How long did you have tinnitus and hyperacusis? How many months did it take before they got better? Thank you!