What Does Your Sound Distortion / Dysacusis Sound Like?

For those who have, or have had, sound distortion / dysacusis what does yours sound like?

For me I seem to get a sound like running your finger over the edge of a wine glass over things like running water, the air conditioner, and plastic bags. I also get a sound like that of a call bell, like those small bells you see people use to ring for help when they’re in bed, but like a really high pitch one that is rung really fast over most sounds.

Would love to hear others experiences and if it got any better for them and what they did to help.

 

I get something like morse code or Geiger counter over car engines, air conditioners, fans or running water too.

I have had it for 2 months now. I have heard iit usually subsides after some time.

Why couldn't I get just normal tinnitus, really...

 

Yeah, I had normal tinnitus before this happened and wish I could go back to that. I’ve had mine for almost 4 months. Hopefully it goes away for both of us.

 

Yeah I asked myself the same thing. Normal tinnitus is so easy to habituate too. I don’t know why people complain about having normal tinnitus when they can still go places and not hear it at all. With normal tinnitus you don’t hear yours most of the time and you can get long periods of relief with it and you can feel normal and it would feel like you don’t have tinnitus but this type of tinnitus is a monster.

 

You mean you had your distortions for 4 months?

 

To answer your question, I have Satan’s symphony in my head so to be specific I get bells, wine glass, tea kettle whistle, morse code and things like that when around fans and car noise. I do have a question... Can you hear your distortions clearly over noise? Like you don’t have to look for it to hear it over everything? There are people who say they have to look for it to hear it over others but I can hear mine clearly and I’m always aware of mine...

 

I’ve had my distortions for 4 months now. They haven’t gone away. Some days it’s easier to hear them and other days it’s harder. If the sound is loud enough I will always hear it. I also have regular constant tinnitus coupled with it. As well as ear fullness that varies in intensity.

 

I have distortations which come and go, but for me the distortion makes the sound seem a bit louder with a bit of echo effect.

 

I get a Tibetan singing bowl/whistle through tube sort of sound as you described from anything that produces a low pitched hum, so like AC units, hair dryers, pipes in the walls particularly in the shower, leaf blowers and so on.

Sometimes I hear a morse code beeping but I’ve mostly noticed it with things like a freeway in the distance like when I keep my window open at night. At times it almost sounds something similar to those Caribbean steel drums.

 

It manifests itself in all sorts of ways. Some worse than others.

For example, I had a distortion of water and fan noise.

 

Are your distortions noticeable enough to where you don’t have to look for it? Like it’s easily clearly there? Mine is.

 

Yes it’s very noticeable to the point where I usually go out of my way to avoid noises that produce this effect. It’s horrible.

 

I feel your pain. It’s awful... what a living nightmare.

 

I have this too at bad satanic levels. The worst is hearing it in music, rivers/waves, or when speaking.
Ironically it started with exposure to steroids... namely coming "off" of them during the taper.
It exploded during HBO therapy. My guess is oxidative stress and a form of reactive tinnitus you normally can't hear... either nerve death or nerve myelin damage (option 2 is the hopeful one).

White noise really brings it out. I had a period where it got better slightly but my GP recommended another course of steroids if it was "that bad" which made me conclude (after waking up to full blown ear fullness like a concert happened) on tapering that steroids caused it.

Theory is re-bound immune reaction from suppression and too fast taper off Prednisone, causing lesions like MS... so long as nerves aren't dying that myelin can be repaired. It would limit the nerves "insulation" likely resulting in induced firing from other nerves closeby (sound familiar to this distortion BS?)

Ironically I'd never have known because like benzos, it only happens "after".
It did... slowly... improve... once... weeks ago... but I think that was due to slow sound exposures and being gentle (as in it took greater volumes to provoke its appearance).
Benzos targeting A5 GABA subunits (Clonazepam, Zopiclone) 100% make it go away... Melatonin seems to help as well as alcohol (a bit but tonal tinnitus comes out a lot) and coffee both help... so maybe there's a mechanism that needs time to upregulate the receptors naturally. Prednisone helps initially but leaves parting gifts and makes it worse overall. DXM helped but caused other strange effects so I wouldn't suggest. Memantine has too long a half life for me to know if it helped.
CBD seems to make it worse... but nailbiting tonal tinnitus went down.

A potassium channel modulator would likely work if it existed... given it's akin to kindling and a seizure.

Anyone tried Gabapentin on this? It'd be a lot safer than benzos.

This is probably one of those things where time and promoting nerve health/growth through diet and activities whatever way you can might be the way to go, and therefore if it works it'd be slow anyways like any brain injury to get over, when I was getting better I limited noise a lot, used vitamins, Melatonin, tried light exercise (that makes it worse when I lift weights) and limited sound exposure to 50 dB, used a lot of fast music to mask it (might help retrain the nerves?). Those all likely "helped"... along with "normal" inflammation.

Before it got worse from steroids, it "was" getting better, I could tell listening to things that it kindled still but sounded "quieter". It even got to the point in mornings I could take out earplugs and I'd get a good 30 seconds to a minute before the orchestra ramped up.