Should I Be Worried About Car Horns or Loud Motorbikes at This Stage?

Explain to me the process by which overprotecting is physically damaging. If tinnitus and hyperacusis arises from cochlear synaptopathy thus making the signal being transmitted from the ear to the brain 'noisy' does decreasing the input make the cochlear nerves degenerate even more? From my understanding tinnitus and hyperacusis are cause by manipulative neuroplasticity in response to hearing loss (often "hidden hearing loss").

Well that worked out for you. But your experience is individual. Others have put themselves in the same situation and the outcome has been disastrous. But it's all anecdotal. For me, I don't have the painful hyperacusis, but loud noises are just way too loud and distorted and they make my tinnitus worse afterwords.

Again you are talking about a psychological condition. Tinnitus and hyperacusis are both physical conditions resulting from hearing damage.

I do agree with you that some people here go overboard with hearing protection, but I know when my body is telling me something is too loud, my thresholds have changed and if I go beyond that my tinnitus gets worse. So far the increases in tinnitus have only been temporary, but my tinnitus is bad enough as it is.

 

@Alue
If you had been more polite in your request then I would have taken the time to answer your questions. You haven't had tinnitus long and in time you will learn.
I wish you well
Michael

 

Here is a great article on this, notice the red text.

"Increased sound exposure can lead to setbacks. A setback is a sudden drop in sound tolerance as opposed to the gradual reduction in sound tolerance that occurs during overprotection. Setbacks are expected during recovery however they are an under-researched aspect of hyperacusis. Setbacks lasting several days are common. Setbacks lasting weeks, months, or years occur less often but can be deeply discouraging. Anecdotally, it seems setback duration and setback severity reduce to a degree in time. Setback duration and severity also seem to be correlated with hyperacusis severity. While there are over 2200 posts on hyperacusis setbacks in the patient forum on chat-hyperacusis.net, no academic papers could be found using a pubmed search. Some clinicians will inform the patient that sound levels below 85 dB (equivalent to noise from heavy traffic) are safe as they are unlikely to cause long-term hearing loss. While this is comforting and good to know, the relevance to setbacks is unclear as long-term hearing loss (often outer hair cell loss) is not suspected to be related to hyperacusis setbacks. Sound levels that trigger setbacks may be dependent on baseline LDLs and the particular subtype of hyperacusis (pain or loudness). There is a glaring need for research into setbacks to assess the consequences of underprotection. Setback thresholds, duration, severity, and frequency should be studied in relation to long-term recovery. Only then should maximum “safe” sound levels be defined."

I'm a web developer and I work with Drupal, the CMS that powers NASA and governments, so I have a lot of power at my disposition to collect data.

At the moment I'm still a little too crippled by this condition to really get anything done, but I'm getting better, anyone interested in contributing to user input and feedback for research and surveys on this send me a PM.

 

Do you get offended any time someone disagrees with you or challenges something you say? I thought I was being nice, and I'm trying real hard to be nice now, but I'm sure I've long crossed that line by now.

Here's another example where you take offense when someone simply disagrees with you:

None of it was actually directed at you, but rather the position you were maintaining.
I actually agree with most of what you say, but I don't think this one size fits all approach is good for such a heterogeneous disorder.

 

Alue, you have brought up one of Michael's glaring inconsistencies and tried to engage with him in conversation regarding logic, and medical data. Doing so will put you on his naughty list, and he will say that he will not reply to your negativity, and that negativity is what is causing your hearing condition to not improve, and that you can not be helped. He will then continue to hand out his bizarre mutated version of TRT/Jastreboff theories to those with conditions differing from his, which could potentially lead them to worsening their condition. Hearing trauma, hidden hearing loss, synaptopathy, etc are not of interest to him. He lives in a world where 8k audiograms are accurate indicators of hearing damage, and ENTs are all well suited to care for tinnitus sufferers. Don't overprotect your ears, but don't use headphones. Use white noise in ear generators, but don't use headphones. Don't ask why. It is not polite. He wishes you well (in a totally not passive aggressive way).

 

Guys, do we have to fight each other?

We already have tinnitus, we don't need more enemies

 

I agree, we need truth and the willingness to challenge our own beliefs in order to further the knowledge of this condition. When someone like Alue, myself, and Bobby B present our own information and experience to Michael, and challenge his dogma, we are accused of being "inpolite" and treated with a very bizarre form of smugness. As an autistic person, I recognize that Michael probably also has severe autism, as he is unable to cope with his ideas being challenged, and perceives anybody who presents him with new information as being hostile.

He says he gave himself severe noise induced tinnitus with headphones, which was so severe he could not even bear conversation for 2 years, and felt his head was underwater, he took ginkgo biloba for the months leading up to his first standard audiogram, and since his audigram came back "normal", he believes he has above average hearing, and that ginkgo biloba healed his hearing. Yet he says he has severe to sometimes non existant T. Noise induced T+H like this is clearly symptomatic of hearing damage, yet when you mention something like synaptopathy (hidden hearing loss) he accuses you of being negative, and says "the audiologists are the professionals so he listens to them". His concept of these hearing issues are outdated (perhaps because he had T 20 years ago).

He seriously thinks people who's T worsens or does not get better is because they are "negative and can not be helped". What other condition would have such a cruel thing be said to them be acceptable. Very bizarre.

 

This some kind of acoustic trauma. You're H&T are noise induced. And so was mine.

 

Hi Michael, your post has been very helpful for me. I am struggling with T which was caused by ototoxic medications since 2001 (I have drunk tons of painkillers for my migraine) , but I developed H in the last 2 years after an acoustic trauma. I think I am heading towards phonophobia and I don't go anywhere without my protection muffs. I started a psychotherapy 2 months ago and I hope to reduce my H and get rid of the paranoia and my extremely big fear of sounds. I will post about the results of my therapy. I really hope to get better and be able to give others some advice.

 

My t and h are much better now, I may write a success story soon. It DOES get better

 

Remember when you were very scared and unsure that your tinnitus and hyperacusis wouldn't improve? I kept tell you it would and so did many others on this forum. Good to hear that you're in a better place and hope things continue to go well for you.

 

If this is true, why are there cases of tinnitus and hyperacusis in patients with no measurable hearing damage?

 

Hi Sen: Some have somatosensory tinnitus which isn't always about their ears. Somatosensory T is often from head or neck trauma, manipulation of the teeth, jaw or cervical spine. Often they pain in their head, neck, face or shoulders and may have bruxism.

This type of tinnitus sometimes can see improvement from a dentist and/or physiotherapist. Problems with bone or muscular disorders of the face, teeth and neck. The teeth from dental work such as the placement of an implant (damaged nerves) should be considered. X-ray and CT scans are often needed. Many with this type of tinnitus often see changes in loudness and pitch.

Many with this type of tinnitus have hyperacusis.

 

By "hearing damage", I think Alue was thinking about "hidden hearing loss" i.e nerve synapse damage which according to Liberman and others is the most probable cause of T and H as it looks now in the research world.

 

There are many reasons that can cause t and h.
Burnout, stress, head injury, certain medications

 

@Greg Sacramento and @MJv

i am specifically referring to noise induced tinnitus and hyperacusis.

 

@Sen i have no hearing loss and both t and h. Why? Nobody has the answer

 

Read up on the theory about "hidden hearing loss".

 

you think you don't but you do

Hidden Hearing Loss: M. Charles Liberman PhD