What Helps You Guys with Your Sound Sensitivity?

What helps you guys with your sound sensitivity. It’s keeping me from functioning in the world because it’s so many things are painfully loud.

Does a hearing aid help? I have mild hearing loss in one ear.

I’m also young in my late 20s so this is really messing with my life. I’m extremely antisocial now. I just have it in one ear along with tinnitus that I’m honestly gotten used to. As soon as I got used to the tinnitus, the hyperacusis started.

Anything anyone can tell me to do that would help so I can function would be really helpful

 

As far as I understand from reading on this forum, hyperacusis is something that you can cure. If it's really bad you should probably get professional help. Otherwise, I believe you are supposed to slowly get used to normal sounds again, by not overprotecting your ears to everyday sounds. Think I read somewhere that you can watch TV at louder and louder volumes (up to a certain point, ofcourse) as a way of doing this.

 

You got used to your tinnitus? You mean you exposed yourself to sound and got a second acoustic trauma? Sounds like my story. Careful with those who say exposure is good. What I do is I live in silence and probably because I don't take silence for granted, I'm very happy doing so. It's tough giving advice in these situations.

 

The best recipe is rest, silence, a bit of exercise and, if you can, going on vacation to a quiet place where you can relax and take your mind off hyperacusis and hearing problems. It is best if you can travel by car, as airports can be really loud. Moving around is complicated if you have really bad hyperacusis.

This is a slow condition, if it settles or improves a little progress is typically very slow, but getting worse can happen real fast if you are exposed to loud noise. Try not to think too much about your hearing and enjoy life as best you can.

 

Man my hyperacusis has gotten better honestly since I wrote this. I did something really stupid the other night and went to a friends muscic show. It was was loud but I would leave the room when it was too much for me. I did drink a lot...like a lot. Long story short my T had gotten so much better that I couldn’t hear it anymore. I have hearing loss but after it got better it was kind of just a blank sound. Well now it’s back after months of trying to cope with the sound and trying to get better. I feel so stupid. I felt like I was pressured to go and now my T is back. I’m so mad at myself. Im hoping it spiked from the drinking because I feel like I tried to leave when it was too loud.

 

I always let people talk me into things.

 

Don't feel bad man, you gotta live your life and not let T rule your world. If you only have Hyperacusis in one ear, I suggest you test it by going to a social situation like a pub or heavy traffic, something not terribly loud. Put in one earplug in your bad ear, and see how you function in that setting. Try 30 minutes at first, and when you get home, write down your results in terms of T level, hyperacusis results, stress levels, fatigue (T can cause exhaustion due to stress hormones depletion). If you have good results, try for an hour and repeat.

You may learn to work around this, because you know yourself better than any doctor can.

 

Honestly? Silence. A lot of silence, plugs all the time indoors; muffs outdoors, and then being very cautious when you get back to a comfortable baseline. For me at least, it can take one sound to make a dent in my progress. It's awful, but it's the way my bootleg ears work.

 

It’s unbelievable but the H is pretty much all but gone. The T was so mild that I could barely hear it anymore and even had to kind of focus to find it. That all ended this when I woke up in the morning. I knew this would happen I just didn’t want to look like an asshole wearing ear plugs. I’m hoping I don’t go back into a depression because I literally just started getting better 2 weeks ago. I’m going to try to ignore the T and hope it gets better in a couple days but I’m not all that hopeful. For awhile my T had gone away and I just had H. Thank you for the reply

 

It's no problem bud, I really hope you recover. I'd also recommend from now on just taking on a new mindset of not caring what other people think about you. This is your health and you need to look after it, and earplugs are so small I doubt almost anyone would notice, and even if they did, it doesn't matter. If anyone complains, fuck them anyway. You're only being responsible.

Best of luck you you!