Not Sure if Hyperacusis or TTTS

Hello. This is my first thread and would love some feedback and advice. Ive had tinnitus since 06 and never used to bother me. Now i have bilateral sensitivity to noises. But its not painful. I did a hearing test and they check the loudness for which i tolerated well (up to 90db). So they think its not HYP. They did find however, very minor loss of hearing in high freq range.

So i am not exactly sure why i have noise sensitivity? It just seems as though my ears are constantly on "High Volume". Things that irritate are plates in the sink, knifes falling on the plate..that kind of stuff. Could it be TTTS, Hyp, or is it a symptom of recruitment?

 

Wondering about the answers.. I have the same problems as you have. I do think many Tinnitus sufferers has some form of it.

 

Hyperacusis is the amplification of sounds which seem too loud and sounds sound painful. If that doesn't sound like what you've got then you don't have it. Hope that helps. If it does, head over to this thread. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/levetiracetam-keppra-worked-for-my-hyperacusis.8946/

 

It sounds like mild hyperacusis.

 

What do you mean you tolerated well the loudness up to 90dB? Did you do a loudness level discomfort test and did they tell you to tell them when a sound really really hurt you, to put your hand up? Do you mean something TTTS-like springs up at the sound startle, but if you drown it out with evened out sound it's not an issue? That's what I have, and I'm being told it's not technically hyperacusis. Only mine certainly is painful because I have it all the time. Mine is a muscle movement of some sort, and I guess it could be classified as a dull pain instead of as a sharp pain. But because I have it with practically all sounds at the startle point (but not at the loudness point), it is overall a very painful thing to live with. Do you think if every sound acted like the plates in the sink and the knives on the plate for you that you would classify it as painful?

Oh, and btw, knives and plates do have a strong startle quality to their sound, so maybe you do have my kind of startle-motivated TTTS, only that yours doesn't react to all sounds like mine does. Would you classify it as a thump that comes with a slight latency behind the external sound? Do you have both a constant high pitched tinnitus and a low rumble like I do?

 

This is exactly my situation, and I've been told it is and isn't hyperacusis, or its misophonia, except when its phonophobia and maybe its intracerebral sex-change leprosy.

I see over at Chat Hyperacusis they are arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin again.

 

Hi I just posted identical symptoms and background as the OP on another thread. Long term T and now sudden sensitivity to loud sounds like plates and knives clanking, but otherwise sound not a problem.

I apologise as I am unable to follow the abbreviations and medical terms in the above thread. Which condition are we most likely to have?

Also are we safe to keep hearing these sounds or should we be avoiding them to prevent this getting worse? Thanks for any clarification as this thread really struck a chord for me.

 

We're not exactly sure what these symptoms are. We have kind of agreed that when our muscle spasms come up at startle/sharp/sudden sounds, they are TTTS-like plus pain. There are those that have TTTS or stapedius spasms without pain, too, so we're treading very carefully.

TTTS is tonic tensor tympani syndrome.
http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/ has some pretty good hyperlinks in tinnitus and hyperacusis sections.

http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/disorders/hearing/tinnitus/tensor tympani and stapedius myoclonus tinnitus.html

http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/disorders/hearing/hyperacusis.htm

As to whether you should expose yourself to loud sounds, in my experience, I can only measure immediate worsening of the condition. I slipped from T to T+H/T+TTTS, and on both occasions it was a concert/night club. Things like crowds with people talking and no loudspeakers have never been enough to wreck me like those places did, but they might have induced a slight worsening over time. My progression may be interesting because I seem to be a step further than the members of this thread. My pain springs up with a mere mouse click, but seeing people complain about knives and dishes is useful because the pattern of a mouse click follows a similar startle pattern to the spikes you see in hitting a knife on a plate. They're both more of a muscle spasm triggered by sound change than they are symptoms of traditional hyperacusis, where usually pure decibel intensity, over a prolonged period, is what bothers the patient.