My Hyperacusis Recovery Story

Did you feel ear-stabbing pain when your hyperacusis was at its worst? Like, did you hear a sound and feel the pain instantly? You say you had loudness hyperacusis only. No noxacusis? Thanks for the help.

 

@Jupiterman, I am able to live my life almost as I did before hyperacusis. I am still conscious of my environment but am even able to go to occasionally attend be in loud environments (85-90 dB) provided I wear ear protection. I typically refrain from doing so often and would most certainly leave at the first signs of discomfort. I would consider this about 90% healed although this is hard quantify exactly. I attend these places at my own risk, but have not even noticed an increase in tinnitus (although I'm quite sure I would eventually incur a setback if I did so more than occasionally).

 

@volterra, very sorry to hear you are new to hyperacusis. Overall, the condition is complicated. The main thing above all is to simply avoid making it worse. However, I included a series of other ways in which I felt progress was accelerated and minor setbacks were alleviated.

 

Hey @Jerad, I’m not sure if I would describe it as stabbing pain but I definitely felt a discomforting sensation instantly. The source of my irritation and discomfort came from the tympanic membrane. My eardrums would produce this spasm like sensation immediately when exposed to these sounds. These sounds would startle me and I would wince every single time. It felt grating to my ears and I was unable to tolerate it. But there was no lingering pains whatsoever. No stabbing or burning. The discomfort happened only in the moment of exposure.

@CRGC, @Jerad, there’s also another aspect of my loudness hyperacusis that I rarely talk about, but it deeply troubled me. It was basically sounds appearing more louder and harsher than usual (regardless of any discomfort). It felt like the world’s volume had been cranked up to 11 even for minuscule stuff. For example, I could be very far away from my refrigerator and the humming sound of the fridge would still feel like it was really up close to my ears. If I was standing next to an idle truck whose engine was still running, it felt like I was in a freeway airport. This level of sensory overload was insane and disturbing to say the least.

The most strangest part for me with this loudness hyperacusis was that I also could hear things that my ears would never have been able to pick up pre-hyperacusis. The light fixture in my bathroom for instance, I could hear the freaking electricity buzzing like crazy if the fixture was turned on. If I was walking outside at night, I could hear the streetlights buzzing more cruelly. It’s like I turned into Daredevil and was granted super hearing abilities. It was so surreal, but thankfully most of it went away.

 

I have had loudness hyperacusis for a little over two years. I do not experience pain. I do experience a physiological reaction to certain sounds in the form of a popping/crackling sensation. I also experience a worsening of tinnitus after a long day of hearing a lot of uncomfortable noise. I am working on trying to calm my central nervous system with meditation, tai chi, etc. I wonder how much of my auditory issues are from anxiety/depression and how much is physiological damage. My hearing loss has been measured as mild with it dipping into moderate at one frequency.

 

Hello @ZFire, this has been the case for me also. Almost like every, and I mean every small sound that you could pick up, is amped up. Usually I don't react much to louder (rather normal sounds for people) sounds when my ears are more sensitive. It has instead been the low volume sounds that have irritated me the most.

I have read about recruitment, and it does resemble that to a point but not fully. Because if I understand recruitment right, that would be that you can not hear the sounds up until a specific point where they then suddenly seem way too loud. But in my experience it is more like the sounds are amped from the very beginning (low dB). So I guess that would not be recruitment.

Sorry for the derail in this thread. Happy to see you have improved @windwalker!

 

Congratulations on your improvement, this is wonderful to hear and I'm happy you get to live a normal life again. I hope that you can enjoy things without too much fear.

Take the providers you saw and keep them under glass, you lucked out. Seriously. It seems like finding providers that say "don't make it worse and you'll be good" is a rarity. I was unfortunate to meet an audiologist that told me to just continue to live life as normal, never use protection, and listen to music with headphones, and I walked into major setbacks right away. Now I fear my ceiling for improvement is permanently altered. Granted, I just have loudness hyperacusis, so maybe your providers recognized this. But it seems not many have a balanced approach, because I know there are plenty with pain hyperacusis who received the exact same advice as I did.

Can confirm my loudness case is very similar to the previous posters as well. With what I describe as a "cutting" or "jolting" feeling in my nerves and head during set backs, along with sounds being abnormally loud, and causing me to lose balance.

I'm curious to try the CBT methods on my own, though using a phone speaker seems quite scary.

 

@ZFire, I've definitely experienced what you describe about the light fixtures and the fridge. Very unsettling stuff. I've also experienced the spasming and still do sometimes. When that happens the sound will also sometimes distort in my ear. My pain these days isn't really stabbing or burning, but more of a dull ache inside the ear going to the jaw. I get a fullness sensation in the ear, and my jaw feels like it's about to crack when I open it but doesn't. Like a painful blocked ear feeling but spreading to the jaw and cheek. When it gets bad, it goes further into my neck and temples/head. I feel this pain could be more of a fatigue / muscular thing, possibly a result of "loudness", rather than full-on noxacusis. That's why I was wondering what your experience had been like.

 

Thanks for sharing your story @windwalker, and congratulations on your recovery!

I was wondering, did you ever experience any sound distortions during your recovery process (i.e phantom noises that occur in the presence of certain audio frequencies)?

 

THIS.

Boiler in the loft. Fridge freezer 3 metres away buzzing. Kids playing outside 100 meters away through an open window.

I could feel the tinnitus loudness ramp up and realise the sound was as low as 25 decibels. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

9 months in and it still persists.

 

Yes, I had that distorting effect too. It happened every time I would close doors shut or if water was splashing on surfaces. I still experience it sometimes, but it’s not as prevalent. This should all stabilize for you too. I thought I was never going to recover, but it happened. It should be the same case for many others too.

Yup. My ears were picking up sounds from kilometers away it seemed (ambulance sirens for example). Weird stuff.

 

Wtf is that, have you had an explanation?

 

No and I still have no real answers to this. I learned all I could here.

I’ve seen recruitment like @Daystar mentioned above as a possible reason, but I’m not too convinced by that.

I personally just chalk it up to one of the many symptoms (however unusual) that comes with hyperacusis. It is said in one of the leading theories on hyperacusis that the brain turns up the volume via central gain in a attempt to overcompensate for some degree of hearing loss. I believe I have hidden hearing loss and so that could explain the over-amplification of sound and loudness perception I experienced. It must have stabilized overtime for me.

 

Congratulations, @windwalker!

I'm new to this board, and it cheers me up to see someone like you reporting on big improvements to your condition, as well as the detailed description of the steps you took to get there. I know that there is no one-size-fits-all formula that will work for everyone, but I still like to know what people have found helpful for them.

Your bandwidth metaphor reminds me of something I read on someone's blog. That person suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome or Lyme disease or something like that, and he or she said that energy is a fixed quantity that can be measured out in spoons. After using up the daily allowance of energy spoonfuls, it's unrealistic to expect more energy until the following day when energy has been restored by a good night's sleep.

I've been beating myself for having low energy and not getting important things done on the timeframe I would like, so these metaphors of bandwidth and spoons have helped me come to terms with the idea that I have to prioritize my healing before I can get back to all the activities of daily living. It sucks that I have to slow down, but I'm starting to understand that it's a necessary part of the healing process.

 

@Shizune, you have quite an interesting case. I have not heard of anyone losing balance due to hyperacusis flare ups. I am very sorry that a medical professional gave you wrong advice. Are you sensitive especially to artificial noise as well?

 

@NBH, thank you for reading! Luckily, I did not have sound distortions through the process of recovery. However, I did notice after a minor or major setback, my hearing would sound muffled and noticeably different than usual. Perhaps most notably, I have lost the ability to sense the location of sound as easily—even after having mostly recovered.

 

@ECP, it is very interesting you make that comparison. I agree entirely. Tinnitus and hyperacusis can be incredibly tiring. They both demotivate and act as weights on the psyche, although for different reasons. Strangely, I had chronic fatigue for a considerable part of my life. I was simply unable to sleep for longer than 6 hours which caused constant drowsiness past about 1PM.

I finally fixed the issue by setting a specific time when I sleep and wake up and not using electronics before I sleep. This has helped immensely with my productivity. How loud is your tinnitus and do you have hyperacusis?

 

@Jerad, I'm not sure if your question regarding ear stabbing pain was for me. However, I do not want to miss it in case it is! Yes, I did have stabbing pain during major setbacks. This was almost always a sign of a major setback. I would get sharp and electric jolts of pain when I tried to sleep. I would they typically wake up with a lower tolerance to sound the following day. However, they are not common and thankfully, only happen when I push my ears severely over my noise tolerance.

Hope this helps!

 

I should clarify a bit. When I say balance loss I mean more like sound "knocks me off my feet" because the sensation is so loud and causes such an extreme body reaction. Actual balance loss isn't a huge issue for me but I have heard of it with others. True vestibular hyperacusis exists but it's quite rare.

Yes. My PC audio is alright on good days within my limits, but on setback days it's especially harsh. Not a TV watcher but was beginning to put up with others having it on a bit better, but of course it cuts deep on setback days. Cellphones? Absolute worst. Unsure about laptops at this stage.

 

Hello @ZFire.

I was exactly the same, you described it beautifully, especially how loud things seemed, truly overwhelming. Xx

 

@Shizune, I see! Thank you for clarifying, I am very glad the hyperacusis does not cause balance issues for you. I wish you the best of luck with recovery.

 

Good advice, thank you. I have had tinnitus and hyperacusis with pain for about 11 weeks. It is very loud, and I get stabbing sensations throughout the day from ordinary sounds. It feels like there's an elephant using my eardrum as a trampoline. My memory and attention span are so compromised by these symptoms, but ever since you mentioned the bandwidth thing, I've felt a little better. It was unhealthy of me to beat myself up for not getting things done.

I look forward to more updates from you as you journey even further into wholeness.

 

@ECP, so sorry to hear you recently developed tinnitus and hyperacusis. I'm also so glad this post was helpful for you! Thank you again for reading.

 

Out of interest, how old are you and did you have any hearing loss?

 

Hey, thanks a lot for the story. I have recently re-started my hyperacusis journey after about 13 years without problem and it has slowly got worse. I was wondering exactly what you mean regarding minor hearing loss. Do you remember which frequencies are down and by how many dB compared to the rest of your audiogram?

Thanks!

 

I turned 31 recently. I have no measurable hearing loss on my end.

 

Sorry to hear about your second bout with hyperacusis and your recent worsening. Is there any event you can link these developments to, or did they come out of nowhere?

 

I mean there wasn’t an obvious event. I go out a few times a month and play gigs on average once a month. But nothing out of the ordinary.

I have been protecting more the last year after a tinnitus scare.

I used to only get certain effects without earplugs but then suddenly last month I had a week of pain in my left ear just like I usually have from loud sounds, then a week in my right ear basically keeps switching.

Worst of all I now have this weird seashell effect where there’s a resonant peak on all sounds in quiet rooms but it’s not audible in medium volume places.

Maybe reactive tinnitus? I don’t have sudden tinnitus or anything after but it’s within the sound.

Hopefully this all goes away when treated. Anyone else experience this? I feel like my ears are just breaking down at this point. I had it in the other ear a few weeks back too, yet never in my life before.

 

You've been dealing with ear problems for way longer than me so I don't feel there's much I can advise you on, but if it helps, I've had something similar to this for a few weeks after my acoustic trauma. I'd get a high-pitched resonance in my right ear over certain specific sounds, namely relatively low volume, sustained ones. Fans, refrigerators, noisy lightbulbs, the wind. It has mostly subsided now. Sometimes I feel like I still hear the "resonant" frequencies a bit louder in my right ear than my left, but I'm usually able to not think about it too much.

Sad to hear you're struggling man. Your posts have helped me a lot since I've started posting here. Wishing you a quick recovery!

 

Thanks man!

Yeah, honestly most of the last 13 years has been fine. And after a scare in 2020 I learnt a lot about perspective that I’ve continued to apply.

However, the one I feared most recently was reactive tinnitus or a resonance at low volumes as that would affect making music in the studio for me. I didn’t think it’d actually happen. Sounds exactly like yours. Good to hear about someone else experiencing it.

Like yours, it almost seems like I had a sudden trauma and bent some key hair cells but, as far as I’m aware, I didn’t. I’m glad that yours mostly cleared up. I’ve read many stories of that calming down in people so am operating on faith that I will too. Mind you this is a few weeks after I had the same thing at 380 Hz in the other ear. I have never experienced this before so to get both of those in one month is scary. So it’s a lot to process and is admittedly testing.

It’s funny keeping such a positive mindset with these things and finding a workaround at every angle only to have a new symptom that conflicts with another added to the pile. It’s a real test of patience.

For example, I’d put on a heater when the low hum affects me but then I get the resonance in the left ear from the heater fan!

Feeling a bit better today! Just want to finish this album.

What was your trauma?

How long was your resonance prominent?

Mine isn’t there all day and is better if I don’t “trigger” it with medium sound.