The Sound of My Heartbeat Irritates My Ears and Spikes My Tinnitus When Wearing Hearing Protection

I also can’t have my hearing protection off because I live with my parents and the ambient echo of the highway near our house makes my ears react. I have severe hyperacusis and severe reactive tinnitus.

Please help.

 

Hey man,

Really sorry to hear about this. I have pretty bad hyperacusis and reactive tinnitus which spikes to most noise, although not my own heartbeat.

May I ask; how did you get to this point? Has it progressively worsened over time, and if so, why? Do you know why you developed hyperacusis and tinnitus? Does the spiking from your heartbeat cause permanent increases? Are you constantly spiked?

I sincerely hope both of us recovers in time.

All the best to you,
Stacken

 

Hi @Stacken77,

I've actually been reading a lot of your posts lately, which has given me some hope.

I got hyperacusis in early 2020. I've experienced a couple of improvements, a couple of setbacks, and found that I could tolerate music at low volume for a couple of minutes a day. I did that for a couple of months and then got tinnitus. It wasn’t reactive at first, but during the last month it started reacting to stuff and has steadily increased in its reactivity over these last couple of days.

I can have plugs and muffs and the sound of wrapping paper will literally pierce through somehow and make my tinnitus react. It’s crazy, and scary. My baseline is alright, but my tinnitus is more spiked than it is in base, so to speak.

I made this post while tossing and turning in bed last night, scared witless out of my mind. I can actually wear my muffs now without issues though. I can live with this for now.

I think I’m gonna take a full month monk-mode and keep quiet as much as I can and see where it gets me. There seems to be a lot of success in doing that.

Thanks, and you too.
Daniel

 

I'm happy that people find hope in my posts, but believe me, my ears are far from good at this moment. But I try to keep my head high and walk through life, albeit more limited than my peers. Hopefully we both make a good recovery, or at least a stabilization of this volatile state.

Remember, there is hope, and things may settle over time. Check out some posts from my friend, @Damocles for that.

Here's where I personally see a legendary catch 22. I've gone "full month monk-mode", and that made me sensitive to sound, and seems to have induced the reactivity that I have now. But not continuing it risks worsening the tinnitus. It seems like a lose-lose situation. I also suffered a setback a month later, from a loud noise, which made my state even worse, so I'm really at a loss on what's the problem now, and which approach to take from here.

I'd advise to; yes, protect diligently from most everyday noise now and see what happens, but make sure to not sit with double protection 24/7 because chances are it may not solve the problem. You'll have to try the waters and see what works.

I wish you the speediest of recoveries,
Stacken

 

Hmmm...

Sorry for you.

What do you mean by echo from highway...? Roar from motorcycles and ambulances or actual echo that bothers you? Windows closed? How far is your house from the highway? Can you stay in the opposite part of the house?

I’d say it’s weird you got tinnitus from low music (talking level?).
Sounds more like from an incident or from too little sounds around you?

Or perhaps hyperthyroidism/medication induced?

 

I think my tinnitus is directly related to the muscle. Here’s a quote from someone:

“I believe it’s all about the muscle. Everything points to that. The muscle is meant to protect our ear from sounds, so it tenses up to dampen sounds. In my case, I feel that its so tense its not doing its job right. so any sounds coming in aggravate it more so it tenses up and starts touching nerves, Eustachian tube, everything that can make tinnitus worse.”​

This just makes perfect sense to me, so if we can somehow heal the muscle, most of the problems will solve. Going out and taking in sounds doesn’t make sense as a strategy for this, but I’m aware of how the brain works and realize that this may lead to TTTS. I think having awareness is enough to not fall into it. I’ve also been looking into muscle relaxers. This is something an ENT can prescribe. If my monk-mode won’t do it, I’ll look into that. I’ll keep you updated along the way. I hope we find relief soon.

 

It’s like a constant white noise sort of sound.

Yes. Even with earplugs and earmuffs on, haha.

About 2 km I would say.

I tried that, but it’s the same.

I have severe hyperacusis, and the sound from my phone was enough to make my ears react. Overtime it has probably just tensed up the muscle quite severely, which then has led to tinnitus and malfunction in the tubes.

I got tested for that last year. Nothing. I’m on Mirtazapine, but been on that for more than a year, so I don’t think it’s related.

 

Hey again. It’s hard to give advice because of your strange development and because I have a headache from only sleeping 5 hours last night due to a fantastic combo of neighbours, fear of being ear raped while sleeping and the loud noises in my head...

Stacken gave good advice, I agree with you trying full monk and the possibilities that you’ll only get worse from that too.

Especially hyperacusis, so if you get better from tinnitus, then perhaps like me a loud bang after monk period will bring you to an even worse place.

I got better at month 5 after being very careful and had no nasty incidents in almost 2 months... But I still drove a car with just over the ear headphones, went for walks outside in the woods. Protecting from dogs and people. And earmuffs when flushing toilet too because my toilet is insanely loud.

My gut feeling is for you to start not wearing hearing protection indoors for most of the time. Sorry to say that...

If you listen to quiet songs from a speaker, at barely audible volume it will take the edge off some of the white road noise.

If your ears, like mine, reacts with louder tinnitus from almost any sound, even a foot on the floor, can it really hurt you more if it reacts...? Can it get worse from that?

Mine reacts to everything but goes to baseline during nights.

Well my good ear feels louder this week but that was probably from the dentist 2 weeks ago.

My point is we are on the road to not being able to do anything other than sit in a room barely eating or going to toilet.

My tinnitus improved from the reactive sounds going constant, then gradually they turned into a hissing sound. Very weird.

Yet my hyperacusis got worse from silent monk months. Then I met a kid outside when I just felt like being able to live with my remaining tinnitus.

If you can drive, perhaps you should try to find a cabin in the woods to rent for a couple of months? At least until the hunting season...? Just a thought but I know it’s complicated.

If your hyperacusis recovers, it would be interesting to know if you have hearing loss. But for now avoid audiometry tests like the plague.

Wishing you improvements.

 

I’m at the point now where the sound of my steps is causing my ear muscles to ache, and the tinnitus reacts along with it. I wouldn’t mind if I knew with absolute certainty that isn’t making my state worse. But I don’t.

I’ve ditched my earplugs for now. That’s a start. I can’t ditch the earmuffs because my parents are home all day, clinging the dishes, working on stuff in and around the house. As soon as their vacation is over and they go back to work I’m gonna take the muffs off and try to see if I can deal with the white noise sound of the highway. It gives me some hope.

This I definitely am too afraid to do. It was what caused my tinnitus in the first place, and the muscle has become so tense from doing it.

Right now I’m not so bothered by my tinnitus. In fact it seems to have lowered in volume today. I’m afraid of the muscle, and I definitely don’t want my muscle to be too sore for the sound of my heartbeat like yesterday’s night suggested.

True. I don’t want that. I took a ride down the highway the day after I made this post, my tinnitus screamed at me for hours when I came home. The day after that I went for a ride again, but the tinnitus didn’t seem nearly as aggressive then and backed off shortly thereafter.

My friend actually has a cabin by the countryside. I’m thinking of going there if it gets to the point where I can’t wear protection anymore because of the muscle.

Thanks man, and you too. And thanks for chiming in. Feeling a little less alone and a bit more sane.

 

Hey, @Exit, you've raised some good thoughts. Out of curiosity, I have a few questions;

By this, you mean that a lot of sounds (any sound?) causes a spike, or louder tinnitus, and it doesn't recede until a good nights sleep? This have been my experience too, but sometimes I get permanent increases in the baseline, even though I wear double protection. Does yours always recede by night, or have you experienced more prolonged spikes lasting days?

Why do you advise against audiometry tests? I'm not questioning your assertion, as the lowest and most "harmless" sounds can impact us who suffers from hyperacusis, but do you have personal experience with audiometry having impacted your tinnitus or hyperacusis in a negative way? I've done audiometry, and tympanometry while having bad hyperacusis, and while I wouldn't like to do it again, it went pretty well.

All the best to you,
Stacken

 

Hi Stacken, how much time will need to have passed before you conclude that a spike has become permanent?

What sounds have made it permanent, have you noticed?

Did your ears react with spikes in hyperacusus as well?

 

Some very good questions, @danielthor.

Having lived with this for a couple of months, if a spike lasts longer than two days, I know it's a prolonged one and I'll have to stick with it for a while. Now, it may recede down the line, but usually not completely; the baseline is a tiny bit permanently elevated, even though the spike for the most part recedes. If I compare what I hear now, to 4 months ago, it has increased noticeably, permanently.

That is a tougher question. If it's a day where I talk a lot, and especially drive my car (despite wearing double protection), I can count on having to suffer though a prolonged spike, and a potential permanent increase.

My tinnitus is much more volatile than my hyperacusis, but it is my understanding that it is volatile because of the hyperacusis, i.e. hyperacusis is the main culprit behind sound sensitive/reactive tinnitus. From my experience, the correlation between the severity of the hyperacusis and the reactivity of the tinnitus is not linear though. When I first acquired tinnitus and mild hyperacusis in October 2020, the only things which would spike me was car rides. My hyperacusis resolved almost completely in a month, but I continued to spike to the road noise in the same way.

In February, when I 1. took an anticholinergic drug, Hydroxyzine and 2. began to severely over-protect, my hyperacusis flared up, and my tinnitus became hyper reactive(but always receded to baseline). And when I encountered a loud noise in March, my hyperacusis worsened significantly and my spikes became more prolonged, i.e. they stopped to always recede to baseline.

So there seems to be some correlation between the severity of the hyperacusis and reactivity of tinnitus, but as I said, it may not be 1:1.

Hope this answers your questions.

All the best,
Stacken