When is a soundwave a friend and when is it an enemy?

I keep reading from posts here that loud sound exposure spikes up the T considerably, I can relate to that but since I have hyperacusis as well I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. Every H treatment report I read emphasis how important it is not to avoid sounds that feels too loud and instead expose myself to them. When I do this it feels like my head is going to split open, like an electric shock! Today it happened again, a screaming kid on the bus penetrated my skull and my ears felt like they were stabbed with a screw driver. I chose not to wear plugs today because my H is supposed to go worse if I do. When I left the bus my T was on full volume again and it really felt like I had done some major damage to my ears - it sure as hell didn't help my T to leave the plugs back home.

I'm constantly thinking what condition to consider when I'm outside, the H or the T? I'm afraid of making more damage in regards to my T and at the same time I'm trying ferociously to force myself trough the day with no plugs in my ears to habituate the H and to tell my brain "these sounds are not a threat."

Any advice in this matter? If you have both T and H - have you managed to avoid sounds that spiked your T and habituated the H at the same time? I'm frustrated. Some sounds feel like a weapon, it s truly a physical sensation. I find it almost unbelievable that the sounds can't make any damage to my inner ear when it feels that bad. When the brain perceives the sounds as danger and very loud, doesn't that in turn hurt the ear? I thought the audio cortex in the brain was messaging the ear about these things, thus making any soundwave perceived as super loud damaging to the inner ear.

 

Hi Per
I think perhaps that it's a good idea to use the plugs where you feel you need them, no need to add anxiety into the mix.

As long as you can find time to let ambient noise do its habituation thing, you should be able to find a good balance.
DD

 

http://www.hyperacusis.net/hyperacusis/success+stories/default.asp

 

Alxtant, strong stories. Gives me hope. I can't wait to get started with some sound treatment and get my db level threshold measured.

 

@erik

Thank you for sharing your story. I appreciate that. Your story motivates me to believe in a "happy end" to the H.

I too got T and H at the same time, the H have increased every week and as mentioned I'm trying to habituate by not wearing plugs. It's so tuff cause as u would know all too well the sounds that hurt really hurt in a physical way.

I went to the GP today because I needed some sleep med. I asked if he would prescribe Xanax but he couldn't because he said he wasn't allowed to give patient that medication anymore. He showed me the name on his screen and the name was all faded out on the list. He didn't even want to prescribe any benzodiazepines but he gave me Zopidem 5mg for sleep. As of last week I also started taking Magnesium. It's 250mg and I take one a day according to the dosage directions.

I'm in the U.K at the moment and it seems like they have removed Xanax totally from the market here, either that or the GP was throwing a white lie to reduce that type of medication. I have tried Xanax in my home country and it has helped me cope with general anxiety in the past. I was kinda annoyed that he refused me any anti anxiety medication cause right now I could really need them to get my central nervous system to settle down. I notice that I cry more easy these days and I'm feeling really jumpy, in fear of any sudden sounds and unexpected events in the daily life. Another strange effect is that I feel stronger in my sympathy for others. I've become more humble and my life doesn't "go that fast" any more. I'm more reflective.

In context of sound therapy, did you do a DB level tolerance test with an audiologist? I thought any pink or white noise would have to be tailored in a specific manner to you're frequency loss and that the sound format needed to be in a lossless format to avoid any loss of detail and frequency? How was your hearing test by the way? Mine turned out ok but it was a conventional test done by an ENT surgon, not a high frequency test like they perform at an audiologist.

 

@erik,

Wish I could embed the pink and white noise files I have downloaded in this post. I don't even recall where I downloaded them from, I got a lot of T sound files from youtube the first week I got T/H and then I converted them to mp3. Did you just listen to pink and white noise on a standard mp3 player with headset? Or did you use earplugs instead of headphones? Did you stick to a decibel level right under your T for the whole time you listened? How long did you listen each time?

 

@Markku. Thanks, that's great. I looked for that feature inside the text pane via the Media icon.

@erik. These files are the ones I have, but they are very compressed because I didn't want to upload 30mb here, my connection is unstable now. Is this the type of noises you were treating your H with?