Ultra Shrill High Pitched Hissing That Brings About a Sensation of Physical Pain

I developed a new tone in my left ear about a week ago - an ultra shrill, high pitched hiss. It almost pulsates and is moving. It’s not one solid tone. It’s loud and isn’t masked easily. I can hear it outside at 50 dB and it’d probably take at least 65 dB to mask it.

That’s not so much what makes it intrusive, though, as the texture of the sound isn’t bombastic. What’s bombastic about it is how it feels. It brings about a sensation of physical pain. It gets so piercing that it causes me to wince and feel a sensation of pain, or a nails on chalkboard effect.

As for what caused the new tone, I had been treating a leg ulcer with topical colloidal silver (not oral). I had researched it extensively and couldn’t find any bad things to indicate it was risky to use, and I was avoiding taking prescription antibiotics because I’m very sensitive to meds, and was worried they’d bring something bad on. So I’m regretful now because I got burned even with this — what I thought was a safe alternative. I applied it topically on the ulcer for 10 days and I guess that was enough to cause an issue.

Colloidal silver has some antibiotic properties, but I couldn’t find any data that said it would exacerbate or cause tinnitus. Actually, I found stuff that said it might help tinnitus.

Anyhow, for this high pitched hiss, the painful sensation can sometimes be ignored if I’m busy. But if I focus on the sound and listen closely, it’s there and the pain hits me probably once a minute or so. It peaks during its pulsing at the painful sensation strikes.

Has anyone dealt with something like this?

I also have extreme hyperacusis right now (which was there before this new hiss). The hyperacusis is so bad that the house furnace makes my symptoms and tinnitus worse if I don’t wear muffs when it’s on.

Is the hyperacusis causing the hiss to feel more piercing and “painful?” When I go around sound that is uncomfortable (not loud, just uncomfortable for my hyperacusis), the hissing seems to get more intense and I get a little fullness in the ear, it seems.

Will this pain sensation go away?

Or will I habituate?

Looking for support and feedback. Thanks.

 

Hi,

In answer to your question above, I would say basically, yes.

I've been experiencing very similar symptoms for around 6 months since the onset of mild hyperacusis and can relate to much of what you've outlined.

Hyperacusis was not something I'd ever had in 25 years of very stable tinnitus, however, just prior to the hyperacusis setting in I began to notice my tinnitus misbehaving and becoming much more dynamic. Certain (mild) sounds can for example force the tinnitus to modulate itself over the top of them, almost pushing the gain up.

You've probably heard mention of reactive tinnitus that describes this kind of thing. Though I don't personally believe reactive tinnitus is a condition in and of itself I do tend to think of it as a symptomatic intersect that some people with both tinnitus and hyperacusis can experience. From what I've understood from my own research, any treatment should initially focus on the hyperacusis.

There's a guy called Neil Bauman who's written a book called Hypersensitive to Sound. It's available as a cheap download from his website. All his writing is cited, and I found it quite helpful in the early phases of this. You may want to take a look as it might give you some additional info. I've also got a telephone appointment with my audiologist at the end of this month where I intend to dig a lot deeper on this very issue, particularly with regard to treatment. Will drop the results of that conversation on the forum once I've had it.

 

That’s my tinnitus to a t.

 

@AfroSnowman, were you able to habituate? And did the piercing “pain” subside or get better?

 

I can function at only a modest deficit and don’t emotionally collapse anymore. There are periods of the day that my mind ignores it sometimes. I have gotten better at riding out the piercing pain when it really dominates my consciousness. That’s about as habituated as I’ve gotten.

 

@AfroSnowman, thanks for the reply. Do you have hyperacusis, too? And can you mask the tinnitus at a certain volume?

 

Not really on the hyperacusis, a little but nothing that impacts my life. In terms of masking, not in any practical sense. I’m sure if I cranked up headphones to a loud enough level I could, but Ive basically stopped using masking because it doesn’t offer any relief. What recovery/habituation I have had is really just getting better at existing with an unfortunate condition. I haven’t found anything that really alleviates my experience of the condition except for whatever I do inside of my head to get through the moments.

Sorry, wish I had a success story to share.

 

@AfroSnowman, thanks for the reply. Yesterday was a better day. I woke up and the piercing frequency had softened up a bit - to more of a glassy static sound rather than the piercing needle-like sound. And it wasn’t quite as loud. I still can’t mask it at 40 dB.

Today’s been not as good but the shrill frequency still hasn’t returned as sharply as a couple days ago. However I’m still getting these painful zaps maybe once or so a minute or more depending on how the tinnitus is behaving. It feels like you’re being electrocuted. It lasts like a second each time and is sometimes light and sometimes aggressive shocks. I dunno if it’s part of a tinnitus tone that’s so high frequency that it jolts or if it’s my ear reacting in pain due to the general shrillness.

Do you get those zaps or jolts?

 

As promised:

Just had a chat with the audiologist. Please bear in mind my experience is from a UK/NHS perspective.

So...

The audiologist was excellent. Very understanding. I have up days and I have down days. At this point we're going to try some additional sound therapy. I mentioned in-ear maskers but they don't want to go down that route just yet.

I've been asked to keep a diary, which I'm fine with (was actually going to do this anyway just to see if I could pinpoint any stress/food factors etc).

They've booked me in for a face-to-face in a couple of months. We can make any necessary adjustments then.

My tinnitus is still ultra high pitched and very intrusive at times. Ear sensitivity is still up, but manageable at the moment. I get the sense that it's something I'm just going to have to get used to.

As I say, good days bad days.

Onwards and upwards.

 

YES @Jerad, what hell are those zaps? Easily the most disturbing factor for me along with the reactivity.

 

@IntotheBlue03, do the zaps cause you physical pain? How frequent are they? And what brought them on for you? Sorry to hear you’re experiencing these, too.

 

I purchased a pair of hearing aids about a year ago and it has substantially reduced the ringing in my ears. Every hearing aid clinic will let you try them on a two-week free trial basis. But you will know within 10 minutes if it helps.

 

My high-pitched tinnitus gives me a physical sensation of pain/burning and a strange pressure feeling. Makes my eyes squint like hearing an unpleasant sound. When it’s really bad I also get these shock like feelings that shoot between my nose/forehead and brain.

I know this is not all in my head as they say because occasionally for a brief moment it will subside and the pain/pressure feeling along with the tinnitus goes away and I get this calm euphoric sensation like a weight has been lifted from my head for a brief moment or two before it starts back up again.

Some days it’s really manageable and not so bad and some days it’s unbearable and nothing seems to help.

People describe tinnitus as a sensation of sound. All I can say is I wish mine was just a sound because that’s much easier to deal with than a physical sensation.

 

Sorry you gotta deal with that. What caused it?

 

Some inner ear virus would be my guess. Temporarily lost some hearing for a couple of weeks, then when it got better, I developed tinnitus. I think my hearing is down 5-10% in that ear as well so whatever it was, it did some damage. The tinnitus was exclusively in that ear for about a year, then migrated to both ears and eventually in my head.

 

Super late reply but yes, I get those zaps and jolts.