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

After 9 months with a combination of not going out/ protecting my ears in certain situations and exposing them to moderate level of noise i had a 50% improvment... i also gave up music.....it would be very easy to protect them 24/7 but i dont think thats the way forward.... i just was stupid and had a very bad setback...

 

Sounds like a reasonable policy. Hopefully if you can follow this policy for another 9 months, you will continue achieving similar results.

Are you talking about wearing earplugs even at home where it is quiet, or are you talking about staying at home where it is quiet and wearing earplugs when you are at places like a supermarket where some of the noise is loud enough to cause spikes?

Did you go to a movie theater or a concert?

 

What comes to mind is wearing protection during conversations.... voices still hurting my ears... and papers... packaging.... at home... I don’t want to overprotect

yeah an alarm went off at work... went off because of me... opened a door I shouldn’t have....wish I could go back in time... very loud... tiny space

 

I remember the sounds of clanking glass feeling horrible, and having to wear muffs when I washed dishes.

If even human voices hurt your ears - that's a tough one... I guess the only way to figure out the right strategy is to try to not protect for three months and then to try to protect for three months, and attempt to figure out which policy has resulted in the most healing (something which might be difficult to assess)...

That's the kind of an inadvertent event that is impossible to prevent. I am sorry that in your case it was so serious.

Have you experienced Any improvement compared to how you felt two weeks after the setback?

 

I protect my ears during cooking for breakfast....and will also when I’m out and about in case of a car horn but if I’m talking with someone in a shop.. no protection

yeah even my own voice was painfully initially....though it was similar when I first got H a year ago....My main problem now is that my T is getting ing worse.... I’m really hoping for some good news in regards to fx 322....

very slow improvement ... initially it felt like my brain was vibrating/on fire... dizzy/visual problems.... oddly enough I experienced close to silence this morning... first time this year maybe (just that hissing noise) but now tonight T is is crazy...

Also re injured my neck.... But that’s another story !!!

 

Seems like a perfectly reasonable policy.

In my case, my own voice would used to trigger TTTS. I would hear a "whoosh" every time I would pause when talking.

Did it begin after the alarm got set off?

This seems to be a very encouraging sign! Hopefully 6-12 months from now you will feel a lot better.

 

yeah I used to have the TTTS when in conversation all the time... and it was going crazy after the alarm
Yeah I have been waking up in the middle of the night with crazy tinnitus sounds and then relatively quiet in the morning....I injured my neck and haven’t slept well I n weeks... untill the last few days I got a special pillow and it has helped a lot with sleep. But yeah been dreaming about tinnitus and not being able to make music....initially I thought this was just a set back but I think it’s much worse then that.... usually exercise or alcohol help but they seem to be having a negative effect. To say my mood is dark would be an understatement.
Maybe I should have spent the last 3 months in silence, think I tried to rush my recovery back to more set back levels e.g music listening

 

Hi @NewLionel

(Sorry, not sure how to do the quote thing so I cut and pasted the line from your post)

Re: "initially it felt like my brain was vibrating/on fire..."

Did you also feel like there was an electrical storm going on in your head?
Experience ear fullness, pain and burning in your ears ?

Sorry, for all the questions.
I too am experiencing this vibrating/on fire in the head feeling.
My husband looked at me like I had three heads when I was trying to describe what it felt like.

I think I tried to rush things too, and since Sunday, I am in hell.

I'm glad you have had improvement. Sorry to hear about your neck injury. Does it also affect your tinnitus and hyperacusis?

 

Well with the neck injury I wasn’t sleeping.... had to get a new pillow, learn to sleep on my back... so I’m sure the lack of sleep and tight muscle in the neck/jaw isn’t helping

yeah well from my experience recovery isn’t linear ... it’s not a steady straight line of improvement... last week I was feeling good... So I drank alcohol/watched a movie/played piano with not enough protection/exercised.. and my ears are not good this week... or maybe it’s just random I’m not sure....slept 12 hours today... and my ears are super sensitive today... probably because of the lack of noise they were exposed to during sleep

yeah I think rushing things is natural... like who doesn’t want to try to live a normal life

and yes electoral storm is a good way to describe it... like the synapses are on fire.... at the moment it is very difficult to stay positive.... but it’s important to try

yeah lots of ear fullness, when I yawn my ears clear and feels like my hearing is better but it feels like too much yawning causes the inside of my ears to vibrate to noise (like they pop when I flick a switch) and they feel more volatile. This might sound crazy but I basically gave up yawning and changed the way I burped and it was improving my ears... I haven’t read if anyone else doing this or if it’s ETD related but it seemed to work for me

 

I also did exercises for the neck called chin tucks... which I suspect messed up my Eustachian tubes... I’m not sure if anyone else has experienced this

 

@NewLionel

I've never done a chin tuck so I cannot comment.

I'm really sad that since Sunday my sound tolerance has decreased even further. I am no longer able to have a shower.
(family, friends, neighbours, store clerks, door to door salesmen, and the UPS man, are also sad I can no longer shower)
A shower was the only place that would cover this damn noise.

You mentioned you play the piano. What kind of music do you like to play?

 

If you were to not experience any improvement, and your tinnitus were always relentlessly at the same level, then the above would likely be true. In your case you are seeing improvement. It turns out that ears take months and years to heal. It's actually the same for joints like knees - when I hurt my knee, it took 2 years to heal. It seems to me that what you have been experiencing is in fact a setback, and that 6-12 months from now it ought to get back to your baseline.

 

Thanks for the encouraging words.... yeah been basically sleeping and not going out the last few days... and I have noticed some tinnitus improvement... though I have to make sure to give my ears some conversation and the like otherwise they get too sensitive... the one thing that keeps freaking me out big time, is when watching tv and any high frequency music is on, my ears really don’t like it.... I hope that goes away soon...

Ages ago when I was working on string arrangements, when my ears were ok... I really didn’t like writing music that was too high pitched.... it wasn’t pleasant sounding... I didn’t realise that was a warning sign.... if some day I could go back to making music again I would be so happy

yeah I have been dealing with a few injuries shoulder, neck and they really do take a long time...

 

Yeah I made all types of music, more electronic recently.

yeah my mood directly fluctuates according to my ears. I’m hoping your situation improves quickly

 

You might want to either lower the volume to the point that when that music comes on your ears are ok, or to hold the remote control in your hand, ready to hit the mute button. In my experience, the less exposure to the sounds that felt bad, the sooner the sounds stopped feeling bad (it still took about 3 years for it to be completely back to normal).

Ears take at least that much time to heal and probably longer...

 

@BillBauer

Sorry Bill, I don't know your story. Did you have both tinnitus & hyperacusis?
Did you have TRT?

After what happened to me Sunday, how do I know what sounds are okay right now?
How do I know how much sound I should expose myself to?

Everything is still under lockdown so I can't get in anywhere and I suspect after things open, it may be a wait.

I trust your advice. Any direction would be greatly appreciated.

 

Here's my take: -- Protecting? Overprotecting? Not Protecting?

@LindaS -- My own take is that if something feels painful, or irritating, or in any way makes a person cringe (inwardly or outwardly), then that's too loud, and you shouldn't be exposing yourself to it. It really comes down to listening and trusting what your ears and neurological system are telling you. In my book, not too much more complicated than that.

It took me a while to figure that out. By the time I was into my second year, I at one point just started to "forget" to put earplugs in my ears when going into a store. I was almost fanatical about that for the first year+, but when I started "forgetting" about the earplugs, I interpreted that as my ears telling me they had healed considerably from initial onset.

 

So sorry Linda, I never saw that post of yours, it got lost in my other notifications!

Well I'm sure you've already figured it out for yourself, but I've found that with recovering from my family getting home took 2 days, an MRI machine took 4, and a 10 minute plane ride took 2 weeks. Just depends on how intense the noise is you know? But mine is caused by migraines (we think, but we don't know) so it's just an affect of my brain being overly stimulated; I just have to wait for it to calm back down. I'm not sure about normal hyperacusis
Sorry about that honey.

 

Interesting. For me recovering from MRI took about 3 months, plane ride maybe 2 days - one week, depending on how noisy the plane is (I use earmuffs, earplugs etc)...

 

Need some advice. Hoping Bill and Michael will weigh in on this with their opinion.

I had a second setback about five weeks ago (accidentally dropped a bowl on the granite countertop in the kitchen). Since then I have burning pain in ears and top of head that does not seem to want to go away.
I had the pain before with my first set back but it only lasted about a week.
I try to expose myself to everyday sounds around the house but then find myself with burning pain in my ears and head for the whole next day (or days). (The pain is not instant).

If I am in silence for day or two, the pain seems to be less but then as soon as I do a few things that create sound, I'm back in the pain.

I do protect from sounds that are way too loud for me right now: tea kettle, microwave, washer/dryer, running water in bathtub (can't shower... too loud) and I wear custom musician ear plugs while in the kitchen (to prevent further setbacks).

I can no longer wear my hearing aids because I can't tolerate amplification. I can't watch tv, listen to sound machine, etc as they cause me pain.

I can't go anywhere, do anything, tolerate much...

Help! It's getting harder and harder to endure. What should I be doing to get to a better place?

 

HI @LindaS

I have only seen your post by chance. Please write my name as @Michael Leigh in future if you want me to reply or see your post, as I will normally receive an Alert message.

I am sorry to know of the discomfort you have been enduring and think you are doing all the right things regarding self help. Self help can only do so much for there comes a time professional help if one can get it needs to be sought. The fact that you have hearing loss and unable to wear your hearing aid/s suggests to me this is the avenue that you need to pursue. I do understand your reasons for not wanting to go out as you don't want to make your symptoms more acute. However, doing this other problems that I have written about in my posts: Hyperacusis, As I see it & The complexities of Tinnitus and Hyperacusis, can manifest themselves if you are not careful. Please read these articles again. I don't want to alarm or frighten you but please think seriously about what you're doing.

If possible try and see an Audiologist that specialises in tinnitus and hyperacusis management and treatment. The very least I think you need to see the Audiologist that supplied you with your hearing aid/s and explain to them the difficulty you have wearing them.

Hope you are able to get some help soon.
All the best

Michael

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hyperacusis-as-i-see-it.19174/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/the-complexities-of-tinnitus-and-hyperacusis.25733/

 

If silence improves the pain then maybe give your ears more silence? I am also using muffs instead of plugs, find them more comfortable for the ears, but this is a non-expert opinion.

 

@xyz

Silence is exactly what I crave but everything I've read says that will make it worse.

I have no idea what I should be doing!

 

I think tinnitus and hyperacusis is in large part related to inflammation of the nerves. If you expose yourself to everyday noise you don't give your body the chance to calm this down (which I also tested in the beginning and made both tinnitus and hyperacusis worse). So now I try to take the silence approach and take Magnesium as supplement. I am also no success story, but this approach makes the most sense to me.

 

@xyz

I've wondered this too (Inflammation) and feel that I should be cutting back on everyday noise.

Your avatar mentions mild tinnitus in 2016. Then worsening of T and onset of worsening H in 2019.

Do you know what caused your tinnitus to worsen and hyperacusis to start then worsen?

Do you also get a pain (ear & head) when exposed to everyday sounds?

I see you are from Germany. My mother's side of the family is from Germany. (My father's side is from Austria).
My mother came to Canada at age 19 not speaking a word of English. I was born a year later so the first language I learned to speak was German. It wasn't until kindergarten that I learned to speak English, even though I was born in an English speaking country.

I'd like to keep in touch with you so we can compare how things progress with us.

 

I have had mild tinnitus since 2006 probably from too much disco/party in my early twenties. I managed to retain that tinnitus level more or less until 2019 where after swimming in a pool I had a significant increase. Still don't really know what might have caused it (may be water hitting the ear drum?). And a few months later ear pain, burning sensation in the ears came along. During the vacation this ear pain/ burning completely vanished, so I was foolish and proceeded with my job without caring much about my ears. So all this ear pain / burning came back and added to it the strangest tingling sensations on my head and pressure on my temples. This year I decided to do an MRI because these symptoms were so baffling to me I was pretty sure I might have some brain tumour or what not. At least now I know that inside my head everything looks perfectly fine, unfortunately it has not helped the hyperacusis.

Currently I am quite grateful for this lockdown and that I can work from home. My symptoms have improved a bit (ear pain still there burning from time to time but no more pressure on temples/ tingling sensations on the head). But I know that my ears need a lot of quiet time or else these symptoms will come back even stronger. So that's my tinnitus and hyperacusis story.

 

Please point me to these studies on overprotection, as I have not seen a single one.

 

I was overprotecting my ears up until recently and it definitely made my hyperacusis worse, I go to shops now and force myself to relax and absorb the sound. Obviously straight after an acoustic trauma you can’t do this but after some recovery you can.
If you over protect your startle reaction gets much worse.

This is just my experience and obviously don’t push it by going to a loud pub/bar...

 

The MRI can provide peace of mind, although it is a really dangerous test to go through if you have tinnitus or hyperacusis. So noisy.

 

In reading this thread, it would appear there is a trade between preventing your tinnitus from getting worse or trying to improve your hyperacusis?

You can't really do both?

1. If you push to improve your hyperacusis (not over protecting), your tinnitus can get worse?
2. If you push to improve your tinnitus (over protecting), then you have hyperacusis for longer?

Option 1) perhaps a better solution in shorter term but could make tinnitus worse.

Option 2) perhaps a better solution in longer term and could have reduced tinnitus compared to option 1.

If you are prepared to go for the long haul, allowing your hyperacusis to heal/resolve on its own, prepared to overprotect ears for as long as it takes, motivated by reduced tinnitus as the reward then option 2 would be more suitable?