Is This Hyperacusis or Pure Anxiety?

I've always suffered on and off from anxiety and panic.

My tinnitus spiked a month and a half ago which sent me over the top!

After a great weekend I finally thought I was getting on top of things until yesterday I felt kind of anxious and found a lot of sounds annoying or loud. I'm terrified of developing hyperacusis! I tried to ignore this and went to sleep only to be woken every hour.

I obsessed over every sound then today and found when I went for lunch with my friends unbareable! The talking of people and knives and forks banging. I went home and had a panic attack about it but after crying and talking to my mother I felt better. I went to sleep and have just been woken up in a complete panic attack an hour after I fell asleep and I was so tired!!

I heard my normal tinnitus but I thought I could hear the sound of a car engine running outside my window too but it was coming from my head!!!

Please help me am I going crazy?

I've tried my breathing techniques for anxiety all day today plus I bought vitamin b complex with magnesium but they won't help!! Is this hyperacusis or pure anxiety/panic??

Please I really need some help I don't know what to do

 

I mean, it sounds like anxiety. You're saying it became an issue as soon as your anxiety got out of control. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to put that together. You are obsessing so much over sounds and your hearing that you've developed a negative emotional response to all sounds. Which I guess is a form of hyperacusis, but if you get your anxiety under control I don't see any reason to think it wouldn't go away.

 

You need some serious psychiatric help, they can give you medications for this...

 

Agree with gotyoubynuts.
As I have written on here because Newbie, your anxiety is a common reflection on this forum....
Nobody can 'will' good mental health. Tweaking your brain chemistry with appropriate meds will change your thinking and allow you be more objective about your health and over time, you can hopefully wean back off any meds. I know several people who by their heredity trend on the anxious side and take anti depressants every day. If they go off and many try to, they lose their ability to cope. People have different brain chemistry and if extrapolating from this forum, I would say as compared to general society without tinnitus, many with tinnitus are intrinsically anxious. This isn't a choice but rather the way we are...self included.

 

Is this hyperacusis?

I dislike the sounds of bags rustling like plastic, keys jingling and knives and forks??

 

Disliking those sounds is normal. If those sounds cause you pain and discomfort, then that can be hyperacusis.

Can I ask how you survive in life if you can't run a google search for simple things like this? Are you stupid??

http://www.entnet.org/content/hyperacusis-increased-sensitivity-everyday-sounds

 

Well, if you go to that other forum you'll find it defined quite differently at times, so I don't think its that stupid a question for a newcomer to ask. It took me a long time to find a relative consensus on a definition for what is understood to be hyperacusis.

 

I disagree with everyone here, and recognize the problems of newbie I think. I have heard the car idling outside myself, wasn't a car but inside my head.

This might be an objective tinnitus. In any case, although a terrible sound compared to high frequency tinnitus, I have experienced that it can be cured by long period in complete silence. New tinnitus sounds come it by noise exposure.

They go away by resting in silence. Hyperacusis follows with tinnitus. As tinnitus goes away, hyperacusis goes away as well. So what everybody says, that we shall treat hyperacusis by noise, seems a mystery to me.

My opinion is that we shall treat hyperacusis by rest, away from noise. That way the ear may get stronger, once it is stronger, it has no difficulties standing noise.

What you treat by noise is not hyperacusis in my opinion. Hyperacusis, if that is disliking plastic bag sound (as I do), this does never go away by exposing myself to noise.

It may go away by recovery of tinnitus completely. I strongly believe that silence does no harm to anybody, but I am very alone thinking this way.

 

Thanks for the advice guys.

nearly in the third month since my tinnitus increased. Everything was starting to get better until i started to have sensitivity to sound and now i cant stop thinking about it also i wrote that i woke up the other night and i could hear the 'car engine outside' sound but thought this was because i woke up with a panic attack. However, it's back today it's really scary as i'm so used to my high pitch sound (well as used to it as it gets). How can things just keep getting worse for me? I'm really starting to lose all hope! I can't get to the doctor as i work til late so for now all i'm taking is vitamin B complex and magnesium! I'm feeling so low i just can't believe how my tinnitus was ok for a year and all of a sudden all these new things in 3 months!!!

 

Can be anxiety. You worry to much, every sound you hear you think it's your T (if it comes from the radiator or something). You foucs on sounds to much and afraid of sounds. I have it like this and I would say its anxiety.

 

When you are stressed and have anxiety your body goes into a red alert state, where your senses start to "feel" everything and notice everything, things that it/you would normally ignore/not hear in a "normal" state.

 

Oh I'm going to be a little spammy now, but I can give you a examples.

I could be sitting at my CPU and hear this annoying sound. For two weeks I literally thought it was my T. Then I noticed once when I shut off the CPU that the sound would vanish. I restarted it again and after a while the sound would come back. So for 2 weeks this irritating sound I could hear was created by my computer. Sometimes I can hear a noise and I think it's my T...then I notice it's form something else.

 

I am currently going through a very similar situation. About 6 months ago, I began to hear sirens, like police sirens constantly, which were in my head. I started relaxation techniques like meditation, which helped for awhile. About 2 months ago, I developed a severe sensitivity to all noises and sounds. I have been hearing ringing in my ears almost constantly. I feel a constant sense of fear and panic. I have been having obsessive thoughts surrounding noises. I have been to see a therapist, who told me that my symptoms are a result of anxiety. My doctor has put me on klonopin, and wants me to start CBT, to help me manage my fear of sounds. Perhaps, taking an anti- anxiety and some form of therapy could benefit you also. Since taking the Klonopin, I feel much more relaxed, I am able to sleep through the night, and my anxiety has significantly diminished. I hope you are able to get in to see a doctor, there are definitely options available to help alleviate your symptoms.

 

I agree that there absolutely is a place for silence. Reducing further stimuli to an area of acute injury is how every other malady known to man is managed. Re-introduction of the sound stimuli in a controlled, careful way should follow after a decent interval (this is probably where White-noise generators have their best application as a kind of sound-splint). The poor quality of research however ensures that we can't yet know how long this silent interval should be (if at all), and assuming the worst case scenario being neurological injury, then that time could even be months. This all presumes no change in existing models of (non) treatment for acute-onset tinnitus/hyperacusis.

 

Yes. From my opinion, anxiety can develop the existing hyperacusis. It makes you feel afraid of the sound and it doesn't do you good at all, if you are going to live through the everyday life. I suggest you to find diversions to entertain you and forget your fears.