Is Hyperacusis Really This Bad?

I've had Meniere's Disease and Tinnitus for close to 3 years now. I have completely habituated to the tinnitus although it was devastating the first 6 months. Everything else about Meniere's disease is absolutely brutal too.

But yesterday morning I woke up with a dramatic loss in hearing in my left ear, aural fullness, and intense hyperacusis. In fact, I am currently wearing outdoor ear protection while writing this and a couple cars just drove by up the hill and it feels like a rumbling so loud and fiece as if it is driving right through my ear canal. It is terrifying.

Earlier, somebody had the microwave fan on and it rumbled my whole body. I went out of the kitchen to the back yard (adjoining) and could still hear it. I walked about 40-50 feet away on the grass and could _still_ hear the low rumbling right in my ear.

Is this normal hyperacusis? Is it possible to habituate to this like Tinnitus? I don't see how because while Tinnitus is constant and drive you insane in the beginning, what I am experiencing with hyperacusis is on another level... it's like the vibrations go straight to my brain and are amplified by 100.

I am currently listening to pink noise to try to heal, but despite everyone seemingly to recommend it, I could not find many sources for it online. I am currently listening to:

pink softened noise severe hyperacusis sound...

but it has ads inbetween and am I'm not sure if this is a safe one to listen to. I also don't know how loud I'm supposed to listen to it.

Would love to hear your thoughts... so to speak

 

I had a period of so called mild HA in both ears so I do not have a lot of experience. But I was told not to protect my ears even though the sounds were hurting me. You need to expose yourself for sounds in order to habituate, but the good thing is, that most HA sufferers do habituate relatively quickly when following the right procedure.

If you are able to narrow down what sounds are most painful, you could go to sites like audiosparx.com and find a library of sounds meant for moviemaking. Then listen to the sounds regularly to habituate in a safe environment in your own phase.

I wish you the best of luck.

 

Thank you. It's definitely the low rumbling or vibrations that I'm sensitive to. It's like I have superman hearing and can hear things 5 KM away...

 

I fully understand where you´re coming from.
Obviously you should be working with low frequency sounds.... I had problems with high freq. but found many sounds I could use in my habituation process on both audiosparx and youtube.

 

I'm very sorry to hear you.... Hyperacusis can be that bad and when I suffered from stresses, the noised of water falling in the shower would go directly and punch my ears so badly. I remember the first time I realised what this hyperacusis truly is. It was during the college class and the sound of the professor from the speaker really came to me loud which frightened me very much. And it was painful too, so I had to partly cover my ears. Everyone seemed absolutely fine with the sound and even I was fine in former classes. After that, music sounded temporarily distorted and low-pitched. Thus began with my living with earplugs(I try to shun them off now). I still regret I haven't gave my proper apology to that good professor.

 

I have had tinnitus for over 30 years and it took maybe a year or two to get habituated. I have had hyperacusis for over 20 years and have never been able to habituate. It spikes up and down; sometimes I am less sensitive than others. I also have a startle response to some sounds even if they are not very loud and I expect them, which is a "spectrum" thing and not an auditory issue. This idea of subjecting yourself to agony in hopes it will result in less sensitivity seems ludicrous to me.

 

Hola Tyler, reading this bit it seems that you have severe hyperacusis. I can relate to the "rumbled my whole body" statement from the days of very severe H. Try to control the sound around you for the moment, listen to sound 24/7 at an adequate volume and, till you build tolerance try not be exposed to objectively loud sounds. I hope you improve soon.

 

Like the beeping of construction trucks when they are on reverse? That is severe H.

 

Thankfully, both my hearing loss and insane hyperacusis went away a couple days after getting them (but I still have all my symptoms of Meniere's and regular T so don't worry ).

But yeah, I cannot explain how bad the hyperacusis was. Wearing earplugs and strong earmuffs would do nothing to stop the noise and even a light quiet car going up the street here would sound like it's driving right through my ear and rumble my whole body. It was insane, and I have no idea what caused it, perhaps a ruptured eardrum out of nowhere or something?

 

Glad to hear this resolved