My Eardrum Reacts (I Hear/Feel a Contraction/Twitch) to Sudden Noises

Mine too. I thought it had stopped doing that.

I blame my new obsession with Nightwish.

 

I also had this, but it either cleared up on its own over time or because I slowly, steadily increased the listening volume on my tv and stereo over a period of 6 or so months.

It seems to immediately come back with any new acoustic trauma.

 

Yeah one must not protect too much but at the same time worsening tinnitus suuuuuckz.

 

For those who are interested: mine became a non-issue.

 

This came back, and I notice it particularly when I am at my girlfriend's house, which is extremely quiet. I am particularly stressed in this period - PhD defense coming soon, and possibly a new job; I blame that, because else my life is literally < 50 dB 99% of the time (the other 1% is when I go buy food or to the office).

 

This is definitely related to stress. I believe that fight or flight has a lot to do with it.

 

I have the same thing, and it might have been triggered by anxiety, acoustic trauma (shockingly loud fire truck siren), and being in relative quiet most of the time during the quarantine, especially working from home compared to a pretty lively office.

A comfortable music listening volume for me is in the high 50 dBs/low 60 dBs. Does that seem really low? I wonder if I should gradually get that up so I can at least comfortably listen at 70+ dB for short periods (not all day obviously). To me, it makes sense to increase sound tolerance, because my Tensor Tympani also gets triggered sometimes by pouring coffee beans into my grinder like another poster here, which must mean that I am subconsciously triggered by such an innocuous sound.

The thing that got mostly better for me were the distortions that accompanied this though. They went away completely, then I had a relapse when I was really stressed, and now they are mostly gone again.