Hyperacusis in Early Stage: Give Ears a Break or Expose Them to Everyday Sounds?

Hello,

Disclaimer: When I say expose ears... I mean everyday normal sounds.

Went grocery shopping for the first time since onset. My husband has been going since the corona virus lock down because I have asthma.
Didn't have hearing protection because I have read posts that state the worst thing you can do is to overprotect.
But the noise in the grocery store was almost unbearable! The music and the loudspeaker announcements.
I didn't get everything on the list because I wanted to get out of there FAST! My tinnitus spiked after that.

I have read that TRT and having sound at night is good for building up sound tolerance if you have hyperacusis but what should you do in the meantime in the early stages when you are out?

If you do use protection does it hinder the timeline to sound tolerance?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

im basically on my one year anniversery of my hyperacusis. On the 9 month mark had a BIG setback.....feels like im back to the start again. What I have noticed is that everyday sounds will initially sounds/feel horrible....but after a while you will get used to the sounds. Maybe have ear protection with you and just give your some of the everyday sounds.... especially conversations.... I could be very wrong though

 

Give them a break for a couple weeks if you can. Temporary sensitivity increases from overprotection are preferable to more permanent damage from more noise exposure.

 

I'd say expose yourself to every day sounds, as long as it doesn't bother you.

If you feel uncomfortable, take a step back.

 

@New Lionel
@Croaker
@Nobody19

Thank you for your input. Stupid me, after the grocery store this morning, I went to two stores this afternoon (it's my mother's birthday tomorrow).

No loud noises -just everyday noises but my T is up even more and my left ear (the one with T) actually hurts a bit.

Did I f@#$ myself up? Can it go back to baseline? (My T was actually improving...)

@New Lionel...what caused your set back at the 9 month mark?

 

what about when everything feels uncomfortable ?

 

an alarm went off in work... my fault.. i panicked and tried to turn it off.....instantly knew i did serious damage....beat myself up about every day........almost a years recovery gone in a minute.....

From my experiences other then wearing ear plugs 24/7... your going to get ear pain and spikes of H and T unfortunately.......i had recoverd maybe 50-65% by avoiding bars/cinemas/parties/ any loud places.....but there were plenty of set backs..... thats what was working for me...

i remember when the beep at the check out line stoped hurting my ears, i was making progress.....i think its all about a combination of not over protecting your ears and avoiding loud places.... and getting lucky with not many setbacks......

But maybe FX-322 fixes everything

 

and yeah you should go back to bass line....initially with Hyperacusis/Tinnitus .. its a lot more volatile and emotionally taxing (to say the least)

 

Thank you everyone.

@New Lionel

Sorry to hear about your experience with the alarm. You said it happened at the 9 month mark and you just had your one year anniversary. Have you experienced any improvement in the last three months?

 

@Michael Leigh

Would really appreciate your input because I read you overcame really bad tinnitus and hyperacusis.

 

I was doing ok last week.... but not great this week..... it was a very bad setback where my own voice was causing me pain/Turing a page in a book ... and my tinnitus is loud now... haven’t improved as much as I had hoped.... but progress is always so slow that it’s not really noticeable... at least that’s what I found... but yeah slight improvements... frustrating... but I think I’m going to try and go out and have a social life... I’m not sure being a recluse is healthy for the mind or body...

 

@NewLionel

I'm sorry to hear progress is slow. I'm glad to hear though that you have had some improvement.
It seems everything to do with tinnitus and hyperacusis takes forever.
Getting out and having a social life is good. We still need to live our lives.

I see you just joined the forum last month.

Have you conversed or read any posts by:

Michael Leigh
Bill Bauer
Billie48

They are very knowledgeable. They give good information, strength and hope.

Keep in touch!

 

In the early stages of hyperacusis, you should protect your ears by avoiding trips to the stores, busy environments, using garden machinery etc as much as possible. Find someone else to do it if you can.

And always take earplugs when leaving the house.

Over the weeks and months to come, start and gradually expose yourself to sounds at the rate that feels comfortable.

I made my tinnitus and hyperacusis so much worse in the early stages through not being careful enough, because I listened to my clueless ENT's advice not to protect.

 

@LindaS

Your oversensitivity to sound is an indication to me that you have hyperacusis. If this is the case then the onset of your tinnitus is Noise induced, possibly due to wearing earbuds which you mentioned in a previous post. Hearing loss by itself doesn't usually cause the acute oversensitivity to sound that you describe.

If you use Noise reducing earplugs with prudence and avoid overuse they can be very helpful. Recovering from tinnitus and hyperacusis can take up to 18 months sometimes longer. Specialist treatment with an Audiologist may or may not be required. Please follow the advice in the links that I gave you in a previous post. I will paste them below for your convenience.

Best of luck
Michael

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new-to-tinnitus-what-to-do.12558/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-a-personal-view.18668/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hyperacusis-as-i-see-it.19174/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/the-habituation-process.20767/

 

@Michael Leigh

Yes, I absolutely have hyperacusis and tinnitus due to noise.

I really appreciate your knowledge Michael.
I have read your well written and informative posts on what to do and I have started doing these things.

But I really need your help on what happened today.

What I am very concerned about is last week I went to a store. I wore my hearing aids. Everything was fine. ​

T pitch and volume were starting to go down. Outside noise did not bother me.

Today, I had to do some errands. I had my hearing aids in.
I did not think I was subjected to any loud sounds, just everyday road and store noise.

But now my T has spiked, I have ear fullness, and even some ear pain in and outside of my left ear (t ear) and even some fullness in the right one.
I have been using the Zen program in my hearing aids for hours during the day and trying to have sound around me like the tv etc. At night I use sound masking just under the t level.

I am two months in with T & H and was starting to see some improvement (T, not the H).

Did I just screw myself permanently? Can this go down to baseline again?

Your reply would be greatly appreciated.

 

@Mister Muso



Re: "I made my tinnitus and hyperacusis so much worse in the early stages through not being careful enough"

Did your tinnitus go back to baseline and did your hyperacusis improve after that?

How long did it take for you to get back to baseline?

​

 

@Mister Muso

I too was told by ENT to not overprotect.

I have hearing aids. So do I wear my hearing aids when I'm out or do I use ear protection? Not sure what I should be doing.

 

My existing tinnitus tones went back to baseline after about 6 months. The new secondary tones (wind chime effects) I added after the first exposure have remained constant, unlike my main tones I only hear them in a quiet room.

Between 6 months and a year, the hyperacusis began slowly fading but is still painful when my family scrape their chairs and handle kitchen crockery. I still use earplugs when they're doing that, but I'm weaning myself off the ear plugs when handling the crockery myself.

 

Not sure about hearing aids. Are they for hearing loss? Can you not hear speech without them despite your hyperacusis?

Perhaps you could wear ear defenders or noise cancelling headphones when in a noisy environment? Could you fare better with new hearing aids that limit the maximum volume produced? As it stands, it would seem like noisy restaurants for example wouldn't be possible for you at the present time.

ENTs are right in the long term that we shouldn't protect for too long, too often. Studies have shown if you wear earplugs for an hour or two, it can make your hearing more sensitive for the rest of the day and possibly longer if done too often. But because there is little research data on hyperacusis, ENT doctors lean too heavily on the research against over-protecting, and they don't warn about the dangers of not protecting enough in the short term. It turns out to be a balancing act which we must figure out and fine-tune for ourselves.

 

Thank you for your kind comments @LindaS if you have a printer I suggest that you print my articles and refer to them often. This will help to reinforce positivity and fully absorb the information I have written.

As I have previously said, recovering from tinnitus and hyperacusis can take many months. Sensitivity to sound caused by hyperacusis can be particularly problematic because it can cause spikes in the tinnitus. Unfortunately this is the way the conditions behaves. Whilst one can take certain steps to make this easier upon themselves by using Noise reducing earplugs, they shouldn't be overused as I have explained in my post: Hyperacusis, As I see it. Deliberately avoiding normal everyday sounds is also not a good idea as this can induce fear, stress and anxiety and could exacerbate the problem, if continued long term as explained in my post: The complexities of Tinnitus and Hyperacusis, in the link below.
You are very new to tinnitus and hyperacusis and both conditions will fluctuate a lot but will usually improve with time.

I am not familiar with the Zen program you use with your hearing aids. I don't have hearing loss. I have advised people that use a hearing aids that incorporate white noise generators to treat tinnitus and hyperacusis. Some have approached me when having difficultly using white noise with their hearing aids which can cause tinnitus to spike.

You have tinnitus, hyperacusis and hearing loss. Therefore, I will assume that you were or still are under the care of an Audiologist who supplied you with hearing aids because your audiogram showed you have hearing loss. A quote from your previous post is below which I have included for clarification.

Some people that have: Tinnitus, hyperacusis and hearing loss, find using sound therapy either white noise or the Zen program within the hearing aids can spike the tinnitus. A workaround is to slowly introduce the sound therapy. Often people find turning off the sound therapy and just using the hearing aids is better. Many people that develop tinnitus due to hearing loss notice once fitted with a hearing aid/s the tinnitus reduces over time. The reason being, the brain turns down it's internal gain so it doesn't have to work so hard to hear sounds from the outside environment. In doing so the tinnitus is also reduced.

Try turning off the Zen program for now and give your ears and auditory system time to get used to the hearing aids alone. The hearing aids will be supplying additional sound from the outside environment and thus, enabling your brain to turn down its internal gain. Perhaps after a few weeks you can introduce the Zen program. Using for a 1 or 2 hours then turning it off. Continue doing this throughout the day and slowly build-up the user time - instead of using it straight-off for 4 or 6 hours. Some experimentation will be needed so see what works best for you. I believe this is a better approach and hopefully wont cause irritation to your auditory system.
​

I don't think you have caused yourself any long term problems just take things slowly and be patient. Remember, you are just a couple of months in and it will take time to adjust, as you go through the habituation process.

All the best
Michael

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/the-complexities-of-tinnitus-and-hyperacusis.25733/

​

 

yeah was a member for a year but can’t log into my old account. I hadn’t realised how much progress over the last year until I had the setback.
I had stopped using the forum as much because I had been improving, but now talking with people who understand the struggle really helps, one doctor last year told me to go to the cinema and try to forget about my problems (he is one of the leading ENT doctors in Ireland, lectures at the biggest college) so I get much advice here then medical professionals.

 

I am not surprised by what your ENT doctor told you and have every confidence, he is a leads in Ear, Nose and Throat because this is his area of expertise. However, he is a physician not a tinnitus specialist which is an entirely different kettle of fish. If there is an underlying medical condition within the auditory system that is causing the tinnitus, he will try to treat it either medically or surgically and there are many. A few are: Menier's, otosclerosis, ETD, acoustic neuroma, hearing loss etc.

When the tinnitus is Noise induced, as in your case caused by headphones, this is not normally treated by an ENT doctor. You should be referred to Audiology to see either a Hearing Therapist or Audiologist that specialises in Tinnitus and Hyperacusis treatment and management. Many of these health professionals were either born with tinnitus or acquired it at some time in their life. They will have much more understanding of the way Noise induced tinnitus affects a person's mental and emotional wellbeing than most ENT doctors.

These health professionals can provide treatments such as: TRT, CBT, Sound Therapy, hearing aids, counselling and medication. These are typical treatments/therapies for Noise induced tinnitus.

Michael

 

There has to be something you can tolerate? Like a silent TV?

 

If you have hyperacusis you do need earplugs to go to the supermarkets, simple as that. Just being under one of those loudspeakers blaring may be enough for a setback.

Better to err on the side of caution. Hyperacusic ears usually need more rest than normal ears.

 

Because most ENTs do not have a clue about how hyperacusis works.

 

Hi hon, sounds like we're in the same boat so I'll tell you just how I've learned not to rock it too hard.
Yes you need to be exposing yourself to everyday noise! My family went out of town for a week and I had complete and utter silence that whole time and when they got back I was dying! Oh it hurt so bad, but thankfully is coming back down. The brain works by comparisons, giving it such a quiet environment just amps up the sensitivity.

And with exposing yourself to noise, I've found that setting boundaries is critical. With willingly putting yourself in pain there's going to be a lot of times where you say what the hell and just want to reclude into the silence of hearing protection. For me there's things that I absolutely have to protect against and wear my giant Peltor -31 dB ear muffs.
Right now, Walmart is one of them just because of the intercoms and freaking screaming children that I know don't deserve to be slapped but I really want to. Driving, when my dad is home in the mornings and evenings (bless his heart he's so loud), and cooking are also examples. But, there's things like running water out of the faucet and the creek behind my house that just absolutely kill me, but they are something I have chosen to expose myself to.
Keep in mind though that later in the evenings you may feel the worst just from the abuse of the day adding up, so with me running water is categorized under a protected sound after about 5PM.

I made these boundaries because I have a very cyclical personality and sometimes I get a tad manic and insist that it's just all in my head. "Maybe if I was just stronger I could handle the pain. Maybe I could live normally." Every time without fail that I'm exposed to one of the protected noises without wearing protection I end up in so much pain I can't function for the rest of the day and just have to go lay in bed and wallow. I find this just protects me from myself and my crazy mood swings, as well as just sets boundaries for other people as to what you are and are not willing to do. I absolutely refuse to do the dishes, it is just not worth the hours of residual pain that I will have to go through no matter how much protection I wear. This isn't selfish, it's self respect.

Also know that there is nothing wrong with your noise exposure being under ear protection for the time being. If you have to wear ear muffs to Walmart, that is much better than never leaving the house and staying in the quiet. It's better to get some noise through the muffs than nothing, so it's better to show up protected than not at all. My hyperacusis specialist said the absolute worst thing we can do is adopt avoidant behaviors. It's not good in regards to our psychological health or our hyperacusis.

Hope some of that helps, I know it kills having to chose between pain and whatever. For me everyday it's a decision of either spending time with my family and putting myself through horrible pain, or just surrendering to it and avoiding everyone. I'm pretty proud to be able to say I chose my family.

 

@Tavia R

Thank you for responding and sharing your story. You have made the right choice by choosing family.

Tavia, you mentioned:

"when they got back I was dying! Oh it hurt so bad, but thankfully is coming back down. The brain works by comparisons, giving it such a quiet environment just amps up the sensitivity".

How long did it take to come back down for you?

I have been in extreme physical pain for the last 30 hours and it does not appear that it is getting any better.
My tinnitus is at fire alarm volume and the pain and burning sensation in my ears is almost unbearable.

I am in intense pain for the past 30 hours and it appears it is not abating.

 

So you think struggling through painful conversations is doing more good then harm ? My tinnitus is increasing and I don’t to make it worse

 

When I began protecting my ears from all of the noises that felt wrong, I began to experience real progress. Don't worry about hyperacusis, if you protect your ears, it will naturally go away after about a year. Listen to the signals given to you by your body.

If you were to break your leg, I am sure you wouldn't listen to the advice to do "normal activities" (e.g., running) that cause pain.

No.

 

This might explain why your hyperacusis is still a problem after one year. You might consider experimenting with protecting your ears.