Improvements for People with Burning Pain (in Silence) Hyperacusis?

Hi,

I know there is a similar topic, but my question is: Are there true success stories from people with hyperacusis who had burning pain in silence for weeks/months?

Most of the sufferers have loudness hyperacusis, some of us have pain from sounds, but I am talking about sufferers who have burning pain for weeks/months in silence, which does not go away when the sound is stopped.

There is a nice list here. I talked to some of them and I am really happy that they improved, but the people that I spoke with did not have pain which lasted more than 1 hour, or pain in silence.

I am talking about real burning acid pain all day, all week, maybe all month. Did someone recover from this, at least to a degree?

Thanks.

 

I have had those symptoms and no, my hyperacusis has not improved. It has morphed into less hyperacusis, more tinnitus, and more hearing loss, so it's been a trade off.

Basically, my hearing has deteriorated due to hyperacusis as a result from noise exposure that others can tolerate.

 

I might not be filling all of your criteria and I might be a milder case than you would like to hear this from but I'll provide my "recovery" anyways.

So my first hyperacusis symptoms started 2018, worsened in 2019. Before the worsening the symptoms were barely noticeable, and I lived my life 100% as I did before the first sign.

My first experience with pain would be in June of 2021. The pain was felt as a burning pain, as if someone would have poured some caustic (?) liquid into my ear. This pain was constant, both in silence and in normal sound environment. I do not know what triggered the pain or what made it better but it stayed pretty much constant for about 2-3 weeks and then faded away over about 1 week.

The second time was in November 2021 and the pain was similar. This time the pain lasted for about 2 weeks but then changed to a cold feeling/numbness on and around the ear, some days the numbness stretched as far as to the eye. Both the pain and the numbness faded and was gone in mid December.

These two times are the only longer than 1 day periods I have experienced ear pain. As I said, I have no clue what caused my pain or what made it better.

At the moment I am pain free but still suffer very much from distortions/tinnitus and I can't really do anything louder than watching movies on normal/low volume, go for walks and be with small groups of people.

During my worse periods I cannot even do the things stated above (without earplugs).

 

I have had pretty severe burning noxacusis that has lasted for weeks and even months at a time. Currently I’d say I’m 80% recovered. The main reasons for my recovery are time, avoiding harsh speakers at all costs, and consuming lots of ginger.

I still get noxacusis burning occasionally for a day here and there but resting and consuming ginger typically makes it go away. Right now I have zero burning whatsoever.

I’m able to watch TV and play video games at low volume, as well as listen to a few songs of music every day. If the music isn’t harsh I can listen to it for an hour or so.

Yesterday I went to a neighborhood bar for the first time in years and met up with my friends. I wore hearing protection and had no issues. I feel even better today; I think the din of a bar helps for some reason.

 

Oh that was you who made the Ginger thread, right? I wrote it down but haven’t tried it yet. What kind of Ginger do you use?

 

Anything really. Ginger tea and Ginger ale, then raw Ginger blended into smoothies. It all helps a lot.

 

Do you have any tinnitus?

 

I have pretty bad tinnitus, probably 30 different tones.

 

It sounds like your noxacusis has gotten better. Do you still have any loudness hyperacusis? Also, are you going through any treatment for your tinnitus?

 

My noxacusis has improved a lot but is a setback away from being bad again. I don’t think it’s something that will ever fully go away but I’m grateful for whatever improvement I can get. I still have loudness hyperacusis but that has also recovered a good bit. I’d say I have something between mild and moderate loudness hyperacusis, but definitely not severe like it was.

I’m just adapting to my tinnitus, nothing else to do but hope it fades over time. I’ll try some of the newer treatments once they are released but until I just have to wait and try to ignore it.

 

How long did you have loudness hyperacusis before you experienced an improvement of those issues?

 

I had burning pain for about two months after onset. Then it went away in the right ear, and couple days later went away in the left.

Then maybe 6 months later it came back in the left ear for about a week, and went away again. Hasn't been back since.

 

Mine was miracle cured after only a month of rest and protection. I suspect it was actually just a migraine rather than noxacusis.

 

Have you tried Ambroxol?

 

I have tinnitus and noxacusis, pain from normal sound levels. The tinnitus is always there but it does not bother me anymore, I don't care about it. The pain has been a much bigger challenge. At its worst I would get severe burning up and down the side of my head, into my shoulder, jaw, ear and brain like acid. It would last anywhere from hours to weeks and keep me home bound at times. The length of the reaction is getting shorter and most of them are less intense. Now when this happens I get protected and then get to work on something to distract me and that helps it pass quicker. My self talk in the sort term is whatever this one will go away like all the others and long term is that my brain is going to rewire to make this keep getting better and I will keep living my life and ignore this thing as much as I can. I also have researched this mechanism extensively and have determined that at least part of this is forward head posture, TMJ, ear pain and I have been working on that for about 6 months now which may account for some of the improvement.

Short answer, I had acid burning in my ear and brain that could last for weeks and it's better.

George

 

I've had severe pain hyperacusis for around 6 weeks. 2.5 weeks ago I watched a film too loud (35-40 dB) after a bottle of wine and that caused a nasty flare up. Ever since I have to wear earplugs 24/7 because my ears start burning after a few minutes without them. Oddly enough I run quick experiments when I don't have them in such as running a tap, taking a leak, walking on my creaky floor boards, all of which cause sounds in the 45-55 dB range and they don't cause any pain. I can't understand why these sounds don't affect me but sitting without earplugs in a 30 dB quiet room after 5 minutes causes burning.

I started a course of Nortriptyline yesterday so I will give that a week and see what happens. If that doesn't work then maybe I will bite the bullet and take the earplugs out. My body says to protect but perhaps it's not doing me any good having them in 24/7. Any thoughts?

I have had 2 acupuncture sessions which have helped. Last Friday I took the earplugs out for an hour but the burning came back. My other symptoms are facial tingling and jaw tension, the latter has improved but the tingling comes with all sounds.

 

I have tinnitus and pain hyperacusis, the pain was mostly from an MRI and I think it might only be slightly reactive now.

I've been taking Nortriptyline for about 2 months. It takes one month to work fully. It hasn't reduced my tinnitus at all and it didn't help the pain either although it's impossible to know if it reduced it or not.

I'm planning on getting off the drug ASAP, going to a doctor tomorrow. It gives me a lot of dry mouth all the time, not sure how it might be affecting my sleep too and the long term side effects can be bad so just focusing on exercise and the TRT I have done recently.

My therapist told me that it's possible to habituate to the pain. Seems like a very difficult task but I do believe it's possible. Just very hard to train your brain to stop reacting badly to it. Slow for sure but not impossible.

I have laser I bought too that I don't want to use yet. Maybe stem cells.

 

@SmallRonnie, can you tell me more about your therapist’s recommendations for habituating to the pain? This has been the more challenging part for me. I’m making progress but any additional help is welcome.

George

 

For nerve pain it should only take a week or so to work, for depression 4-6 weeks. If they don't work after 2 weeks, I will ditch them.

 

Not necessarily, it depends on the person.

Try Duloxetine, it has fewer side effects, although the dry mouth and eyes cannot be fixed, it kills me also, I already have had dry eyes for years, long before hyperacusis.

 

Same here, it improved for 2 months after taking Duloxetine for 6 weeks, then it started again to hurt slowly, day by day... I feel it returning slowly but surely

 

The pills did help my mood. I don't think they helped with pain hyperacusis but it's impossible to know because maybe they helped slightly.

I'm coming off them now since my mood is much better and I don't like the long term side effects they can have.

I had terrible dry mouth the whole time. Glad I'm coming off them now. Hoping things go smoothly as I get off. I was only on 25 mg a day though which is a low dose.

 

My therapist was mainly talking to me about tinnitus but she said it would work for pain too.

She was mostly saying if you get your conscious mind to not react so badly to the noise/pain then your subconscious would do so too.

Lots of conscious effort needed to think positively about it and then over time it should get better.

It will be very slow though, she did say.

I can feel it working well for my tinnitus already, but the pain indeed is much more difficult. Still, going to keep at it and maybe return for more sessions again.

 

Thank you. The mind is very powerful and deeply affects our bodies.

George

 

It really is. Honestly, I thought it sounded like a load of crap initially but after looking into it more, CBT is proven to be effective for chronic pain, tinnitus, depression and a whole host of other things.

It's basically habituation I guess really. Once I accepted I was going to just be like this and stopped freaking out all the time it did start to get better.

Still working on it of course though.

Exercising regularly helps me a lot with my general mood and that helps every other aspect of my life so that was a big thing for me too.

 

I have the same experience, staying active physically helps me a lot. I try to substitute every bad event with an accomplishment where I get something done. I end the day of a setback with an accomplishment that makes me happy. I also agree that this is a constant work in progress, we have to learn a new skill.

I have come to believe that this is a two part process. First are the sounds and then there is our reaction to the new invader. Ironically our brain makes up the whole thing, both parts. It’s only logical that if we can learn how to influence how our brain will then handle this that we can influence the total experience. I became convinced of this after so many experiences and so much research going back to debilitating back pain in the 80’s. One of the most dramatic is that for people that cannot take general anesthesia they have successfully used hypnotism to achieve equivalent pain blocking effectiveness during general surgery. Holly shit, no perceivable pain under the knife by words, thoughts and emotions. That’s powerful stuff and certainly gets one thinking about what is possible. I have no problem with all of the efforts documented here where a cure is being developed and I hope that there is complete success someday with a third party intervention, especially for those that are really suffering. As a supplement to those efforts, right now we have the power the improve our situation. It is after all, in our heads - the whole thing. Sometimes thinking about my brain makes my brain hurt, but then I get excited about the possibilities. Lol.

George

 

@SmallRonnie, I just noticed in your profile you reference PC noise. My desktop fan noises became intolerable so I came up with two solutions. On a new build for my music studio I used:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZYB8K77/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

On some old machines I started using:

https://nzxt.com/software/cam

Both life savers. My case fans were already quiet fluid bearing types.

George

 

What dose are you on of Cymbalta? I'm on 30mg.

 

Thanks for that. I actually got a new PC anyway. This one gives me reactive tinnitus sometimes now though which is a nuisance but it's not always there so hoping it just goes away.

 

30 mg myself. I stopped it in May, but if my hyperacusis gets worse again, i will start a new cycle.