Is Hyperacusis Permanent?

Taylorslay:

I am so glad to hear that your H. is tolerable. To keep it that way do not take any unnecessary chances. Unfortunately , someone with H. cannot properly evaluate every sound situation they will encounter and mistakes...and setbacks will occur. But if your condition is not too bad, you bounce back faster from a setback than those who are worse than you.

I was like you at the beginning, quite tolerable, and I started to get used to my new life with its limitations after about 9 months to a year. And the limitations were not that bad.

Good luck.

Marco

 

I'm not having any treatment on my Hyperacusis and it's been about 4 years since I've had it. Mine gets better and then worse from time to time depending on my mental condition. I don't mention it often but I had a OCD and anxiety with it which has completely gone but somehow seems to come back as a form of misophonia. When I'm shocked, as such incidents temporarily drives away obsessive thoughts and anxiety, my hyperacusis goes to its minimum level but never gone. I really don't know how this mechanism works but anxiety surely affects my hyperacusis for sure. Only thing I can be sure is that as long as you don't consciously set the volume to minimum level out of fear and always try to expose yourself to music and such it'll be enough to get by.

 

To Victotria9273:

If you care to look into alternatives to what the psychiatric establishment offers for the treatment of OCD and anxiety, contact the Janov Primal Centre, or the College of Orgonomy, or the Alexander Lowen Foundation. Ask them about the theory behind their treatments, and perhaps referrrals to parts of books and case studies that have dealt successfully (in full or in part) with OCD naturally without drugs. Basically, if I understand their theories (all about the same) , OCD is what is called an "acting out" of repressed emotions. Part of the energy of some repressed psychological traumas come to life consciously as compulsions and obsessions. Dig out the trauma and express them, and the OCD diminishes. Easier said than done of course.

Personally over 22 years with H., I have rarely heard anyone connect H. with ongoing conscious or repressed trauma. That does not mean it cannot happen, like in your case. Perhaps great stress around the ears can traumatise them as much as very loud sounds. Just speculation. Of course, there is the great stress of coping with H. which is a seperate matter, and that may worsen us in a negative fed back loop; but in my case, I have never seen much of a connection.

Good luck!

Marco

 

Dang, this thread is depressing.

 

life is depressing.

 

I just don't get it - only 10~20 percent chance of failure? Is 80 percent of success a failure? Am I misunderstood something?

 

Yeah because hyperacusis is depressing.

You can habituate to T (as long as it isn't severe) but even mild H is hard to live with. You don't really habituate to H. You can manage your life around it but not ignore it like you can ignore T.

 

Still, I would much rather (like a thousand times) have mild H then mild T. Tinnitus I have to deal with 100% of the time, H I only have to deal with when their is noise around me which is uncomfortable. For instance if I am sitting and reading or watching tv I dont have to deal with H, because it is not there.....but T is there always

For the most part my mild/moderate H is only a very mild annoyance, and I can definitely live with it as it is. I mean I can just plug my ears if noise around me is getting a little too uncomfortable.
My mild/moderate T on the other hand is getting me down always, and I cant escape it

 

My T is mild/moderate and I don't give a fuck about it anymore, in spite of hearing it often because I wear earplugs often. I am so used to it, I freeze in fear whenever my T stops for a split second, which it often does lately.

H, on the other hand, I'm at the mercy of everyone around me. I can also accidentally cause sound to hurt me.

But anyway, having both T and H sucks, even if mild/moderate. Ear conditions suck in general. I should have appreciated my ears more and took care of them more. Biggest regret of my life, and I already have a lot of big regrets.

 

I don't think I can ever get to that point, being the person I am. I just don't have it in me, I am pretty sure I will always be bothered by T to some extend.

And yes I agree that not taking care of my ears is my absolute biggest regret. I was so foolish and stupid I cant believe it. I even knew about tinnitus before I got it, but I thought it was a rare condition, and I always thought "it will never hit me"......Well......here I am

 

I have moderate to severe T and it hardly bothers me anymore. If I could get rid of all of my major symptoms except for one, T is the one I would keep. I'd even rather have T than the repetitive strain injury in my arms.

H is indisputably worse.

 

It's silly arguing which is worse for such subjective conditions with wide ranges in severity. I have severe T and moderate H. The loud unmaskable T is torturous enough, but the thing is loud noises make my T worse and add on new sounds to my T. I have developed 2 new tones in the past month from moderately loud noise exposure and I had a worse loud noise exposure last night that I'll just have to wait to see how it will affect me. That is the worst part of it for me. If it was one or the other, I could manage it better.

 

I'll vote for tinnitus and hyperacusis being equally bad if they are severe.

Wow, Lex, a quote from that fascist Nietsche. It's the first time in 22 years that I have ever seen a philospher quoted on an H or T forum for the masses. Usually, it's only that theologian , Jesus. Congratulations: you actually READ!

Marco

 

I like Friedrich Nietzsche for his nihilism. Not sure he was a fascist? Oh well, whatever he was, he did say a lot of true stuff.

 

Hi Lex:

Maybe I should not have made those comments about Nietsche without having looked at the question of N.`s possible fascism and mysoginy more thoroughly. Especially since I too have come across some very thruthful and constructive comments by him over the years.Maybe if he had hooked up romatically with Lou-Andreas Salome that would have helped him with women!

In any case, anyone wanting to pursue the matter further just has to punch in ''Nietsche and fascism''. There are loads of articles.

Marco

 

Here are some other questionnable passages by N. on women (from Wikipedia: N. and women):

Remarks on women in Nietsche's writings[edit]
Nietzsche wrote specifically about his views on women in Section VII of Human, All Too Human, which seems to hold women in high regard; but given some of his other comments, his overall attitude towards women is ambivalent. For instance, while in Human, All Too Human, he states that "the perfect woman is a higher type of human than the perfect man, and also something much more rare," there are a number of contradictions and subtleties in Nietzsche's thought elsewhere which are not easily reconcilable. He could be both in praise and contempt of women at one time or another. For instance, in the following passage: "What inspires respect for woman, and often enough even fear, is her nature, which is more “natural” than man’s, the genuine, cunning suppleness of a beast of prey, the tiger’s claw under the glove, the naiveté of her egoism, her uneducability and inner wildness, the incomprehensibility, scope, and movement of her desires and virtues." (Beyond Good and Evil, section 239.)

His attitude can sometimes be entirely disparaging: "From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and hostile to woman than truth—her great art is the lie, her highest concern is mere appearance and beauty." In section 6 in "Why I Write Such Excellent Books" of Ecce Homo, he claims that "goodness" in women is a sign of "physiological degeneration", and that women are on the whole cleverer and more wicked than men- which in Nietzsche's view, constitutes a compliment. Yet he goes on to claim that the emancipation of women, and feminists, was merely the resentment of some women against other women, who were physically better constituted and able to bear children.

Despite Nietzsche's writings being viewed as being misogynistic by many, others, such as Anthony Ludovici, insist that he is only an anti-feminist, not a misogynist.[2] Other writings include:

"Woman's love involves injustice and blindness against everything that she does not love... Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or at best cows... (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Friend)

"Woman! One-half of mankind is weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant... she needs a religion of weakness that glorifies being weak, loving, and being humble as divine: or better, she makes the strong weak--she rules when she succeeds in overcoming the strong... Woman has always conspired with the types of decadence, the priests, against the 'powerful', the 'strong', the men-" (The Will to Power - 864, Second German edition of 1906) (It must be noted, however, that The Will to Power is a gathering of notes and fragments assembled through his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and others which were never approved by Nietzsche himself to be published)

 

LEX:

Somewhere you wrote: ''I miss music the most. It was my refuge'. I totally get you.

I've loved music all my life, but it became more important for some reason over the last 5 years. Listening to the music I loved could make the difference between the usual grey existence and some LIFE and FEELING flowing through me. I even began to study music theory. Unfortunately, the only way I could listen to some music was on cheap speakers from computers or on my TV . Those speakers would wreck my ears after 5 minutes, but I would always recover after a few hours. I thought the temporary setbacks worth it. So I kept on doing it. But last january, I listened from my TV , and after 3 minutes ,was plunged into a serious setback from which, 11 months later, I have not fully recovered to my previous level. But, recovered enough, so that, if careful, I feel OK. But my life is now more resticted,...and. alas, no music. Maybe, if I eventually get a good sound system, I will be able to listen to music again. In the past, good soud systems never bothered me.Now I avoid all cheap speakers including phones like the plague (I must phone sometimes however to my detriment) In the meantime, I listen to music in my head. Woke up this morning with a melody for a dance number going on in the head, as well as Paul McCartrney's "Yesterday" and Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now". Those put a smile on my face.

I hope you too will be able to listen to music again.

Take care.

Marco

 

Here they call non-recurrence after five years a "cure". I think there is a legal/financial reason for this, as a recurrence of the same cancer after five years and one month would still be treated as a new disease, even though blind Freddie could see....

@Tinker Bell spells it out nicely up there somewhere.