Loud Thunderclap → Worse Hyperacusis and Tinnitus + Worried About Fleeting Tinnitus Episodes

Hi all,

After 15 years of moderate tinnitus, I developed severe hyperacusis alongside extremely loud tinnitus & musical hallucinations (complex Musical Ear Syndrome) approx 15 months ago (you can see my history on my previous posts). I went to see Audiology for the third time since the start in February this year & even after explaining that my hyperacusis is painful & the tinnitus immediately spikes & can stay high for days/weeks, the Audiologist insisted I try sound exposure. As if I hadn't tried slowly doing that in the previous year! I could not get it through to her that my tinnitus immediately reacts to sound & it especially hates human voices & digitally produced sound, i.e. TV, smartphones, etc.

I continued to protect using ear defenders & earplugs when necessary, & I had made a small improvement where I could tolerate gently running water from a tap & the noise from my PC keyboard without needing the ear defenders. This changed just over a week ago when there was suddenly a flash of lightning & an immediate thunderclap & rain which hadn't been forecast. As I was in my bedroom I hadn't got my ear defenders on & didn't even have time to put my fingers in my ears. The thunderclap was loud - not sure if my hyperacusis was a factor but it felt like a car backfired right next to my ear. Immediately following the thunderclap, my ears felt blocked & unbalanced, & my tinnitus is not only louder but my hyperacusis is now back to where I was 12 months ago.

I know it could settle down again in time, but I have had a worrying development recently. Over the last few nights, I have been having multiple episodes of fleeting tinnitus in my 'bad' ear with the blocked feeling & high-pitched eeee sound which lasts for several seconds. For the last two nights, the blocked feeling has gone within seconds but the high-pitched eeee noise has lasted for ages, sometimes until the next morning. I am concerned that this is indicating another looming worsening in my tinnitus with the amount of episodes I'm experiencing & the fact the noise is not going straight away. Has anyone else had this? Did your tinnitus get worse?

Thanks.

 

Yeah, nearby thunder is definitely loud enough to cause a setback - but a temporary one, considering the duration of sound (where something like a lightning strike is concerned), and the fact that you were indoors when it happened.

Very sorry to read my favourite book ̶w̶o̶r̶m̶ rabbit is experiencing this, but the ears are going to be expressing their discontent (with things like episodes of fleeting tinnitus) for a while, I'm sure.

Just going to have to do the things until you're back where you were, as you correctly assessed in your post.

 

That makes sense @Damocles & thanks for the link of helpful advice. Things are bad enough without the ruddy weather sticking its oar in too!

 

For the record, last year I got caught out by a thunder strike outside my apartment building, while I was sitting in my living room with all the windows open.

If you consider that at around 100 feet, thunder can register at 120 dB; what I heard couldn't have been far off that.

I don't know how, but by some miracle, I didn't suffer any spike or ill effect.

Emphasis on the word miracle there. Because I wouldn't take my chances walking away from that unscathed a second time.

Probably reached the greatest height I've ever reached jumping before though.



So the whole ordeal wasn't a complete waste of time.

If only lightning strikes were a regular feature in the NBA; it'd be me getting paid $30 million a year to design basketball trainers that look like every other basketball trainer on the planet.