Why Is This Tinnitus So Painful?

I’ve had really bad tinnitus for almost 5 years now, recently I was exposed to extreme noise and the tinnitus worsened, this time around the tinnitus is excruciating pain. The old tinnitus hurt as well, but mostly when I would put my head on the pillow. This is totally different, I honestly did not think it could get to this, I can’t put it into words.

I didn’t ever think I would be back here at Tinnitus Talk again, but now it’s like everything is completely new, and a lot worse than the first time.

I feel as though the noise is now piercing through my ear drums with pins and needles through my brain, behind my eyes, when I move my eyes etc. This is completely different this time around, I thought I had it really bad before, and I did, but this is absolutely unbearable, a totally different condition. I’m being forced out here, there is no way in hell I live like this permanently.

I don’t care about the annoyance, it’s the pain that is crippling me. Even when I don’t hear it, i can feel it. Maybe this will pass? Has anyone had this, and did it pass???

I don’t want to hear that I will get used to this, I absolutely will not, it needs to change. I don’t care if things get way louder, but this pain has to go away, or maybe the the pitch comes down. I feel like I’m listening to 7 kHz to 20 kHz all randomly firing at 150 dB or something ridiculous. My ears are burning hot, and red as well, they feel infected or something but aren’t. My head is pounding, my vision is blurry.

I’ve done sweep tests starting at 20 kHz, I’m pretty much now deaf beyond 8hkz after this incident. I honestly never thought it could be like this. This isn’t livable. I’ve become a master at dealing with aweful tinnitus over the years, there is just no way now.

I lost a ton of additional hearing with the noise trauma, I can hear this tin sound in every voice I hear, I’ve had hyperacusis for 5 years, and now I don’t know if this is hyperacusis or not? Its not like what I had before where everything was just too loud and painful, I can’t take listening to a fan, or hear my own voice. I’ve tried things like nature sounds on high quality speakers, too much pain, even at low volume, I hear this painful tinnitus in everything I listen to.

It’s been about six weeks now, the first month, I couldn't sleep more than 10 min without the noise and pain waking me. I can get about 1 hour now at times until I start hearing it in my sleep and it wakes me, and then it’s back to 10 min at a time. I’m in bed for 14 hours a day just trying to get a couple hours sleep.

I really thought when it first happened 6 weeks ago that things would calm after a week or so. Nothing has happened here.

I hate drugs, never take anything, but I’m almost to the point that I will just gobble down anything, antidepressants, pain pills, basically just start experimenting with my brain. I’m at the end of my rope.

I would like to think of myself as a fairly calm person, I’ve never really had anxiety before, now I can hardly breath, can’t slow my heart, just not myself anymore at all. I feel like this is mentally insane version of myself.

 

@Telis ,
We hear you.
Ear pain and pressure and tinnitus are things I experience with Menieres.
You don't have it I don't think as the two main symptoms are not present.
You could ask your doctor about putting you on a trial of Cinnarazine 15mg if he agrees.
It reduces tinnitus and head and ear pressure and sickness and dizziness.

love glynis x

 

I am sorry to hear that your tinnitus has got worse @Telis Since things haven't improved in 6 weeks, I think the best option is for you to be seen at ENT for tests, then get a referral to a Hearing Therapist or Audiologist that specialises in tinnitus and hyperacusis management.

In 2008 my tinnitus increased for reasons I'm not quite sure but think it was caused by noise exposure. I was listening to my HI-FI late one evening and turned up the volume and everything seemed fine. Went to bed and the next morning I noticed my tinnitus was louder and it continued to get worse over the following days. After 3 weeks there was no improvement and I had to return to ENT for tests and get referred to a Hearing Therapist for treatment.

Michael

 

Have you seen an audiologist? There are hearing aid options that work for loss between 8k-12k. Addressing your hearing loss may help.

Regarding pain, hyperacusis with pain can occur. @Lex is one member who deals with it. Maybe she will have some advice.

When my hyperacusis was at its worst I recall feeling like my brain was exposed and I was simultaneously trapped inside. Really that’s the only way to describe it; it was such a raw and bizarre feeling. Due to my hearing loss, I was struggling to hear outside of my own head. The more I strained to hear, the louder my tinnitus rang. One specialist told me that my hyper-focus on hearing was essentially turning up the auditory gain — which was only making things worse.

Mindfulness was what helped me calm down when my heart was racing and anxiety was at its worst. Senses are very important and having one reduced (or two reduced in my case) can be very taxing on our minds. So I would try to instead focus on other things. I’d take a long bath, curl up under a soft blanket, or fill my home with scents that I liked. Shifting the focuses to my other senses gave me a small respite.

One other thought, for trouble sleeping, have you considered melatonin? Some members have success with it.

 

I occasionally get woken up by my tinnitus too. It sometimes gets into my dreams even.

I find it easier to fall asleep the more I detach myself emotionally from the sounds/being woken up. Sometimes I’m even woken up by what feels like violent brain vibrations (which didn’t happen till after my reactive tinnitus).

In terms of sleep, i talked to a friend my age (23) who constantly had sleep paralysis/sleep issues.
Completely different problem but it helped hearing about his issues with sleeping. I guess the key is to be relaxed as possible before you go to sleep.

I also don’t take any drugs/medication at all.

 

Also, I know this is hard. I hear you. I’m sorry you’re going through this. I wish we all didn’t have to go through this. I believe you when you describe the severity of your symptoms.

I’m keeping you in my thoughts!

 

Yes, what you are going through is severe hyperacusis. Browse through the hyperacusis forum, hyperacusis.net, and hyperacusis support groups on facebook. These places understand and know your predicament.

 

Thanks Micheal, just not sure what can be done about acoustic trauma, especially after 6 weeks. Plus it takes 6 moths to get into ent in Canada

 

What was the noise trauma?
I'd recommend start out reading the hyperacusis success stories on hyperacusis.net

 

Spine injury, had to have a Mri, was in there for about 40 min, had foam ear plugs, but I don’t think I had them in very well, I could hardly hear after I got out. Plus, I already had hyperacusis, just not like this. Plates touching the counter were painful, people laughing that kind of thing.

 

yeah it's like an unending nightmare. I get like 3 hour chunks everyday where it goes away and I feel so lucky. but then it always comes back.

 

MRIs are loud but they aren't explosions or gunshots. That is very stange you lost hearing from that. Did you talk to anyone at the clinic afterwards?

Edit: Yes, but it is still hyperacusis, just much worse. It's harder to bounce back from it but possible.

 

It all depends on new or old model of MRI machines.
Some of the MRI are VERY noisy.

 

Well they can reach 120 dB and you are closed in. It’s probably the loudest thing I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve been to a lot of clubs and concerts. Believe me, I could barely hear after. I don’t even remember going home

 

But they are not a constant 120dB. It’s not 30 minutes at a sustained volume above 100dB.

The type of scan matters, too. Brain scans tend to be louder, and particular sequences are louder even within the overall brain MRI.

That said, the MRI machine matters as some are louder than others. Hyperacusis will impact it, too.

 

It’s not strange or too rare unfortunately @Red

Multiple people have been permanently harmed by MRI’s
https://www.google.com/amp/s/people.com/health/texas-woman-mri-ear-damage/amp/

Kathy is in our Facebook group. She’s had it for a couple of years after an MRI but she said she’s doing better now.

A different gal (my age) also got injured after an MRI. Like me she has reactive tinnitus, hyperacusis, and visual snow.
She said she struggled a lot but she goes outside again. She’s even back at college. Though she admits she doesn’t typically go anywhere louder than 70 decibels.

 

Do you mind elaborating on the eyeball part?
What do you mean by the tinnitus noise hurts your eyes?
@Telis
I know you feel pain there (doesn’t surprise me since my own eyes were affected as well even if it wasn’t in terms of pain) but you described it as the tinnitus sound specifically hurting your eyes.
Or do you just mean you have pain in your eyes as a result of the noise incident?

I would consider asking for steroids or some sort of natural anti inflammatory ASAP. Even if it has been 6 weeks. Your nerves might be inflamed. And inflammation can last months. People think in terms of days but inflammation doesn’t work like that. It usually lasts much longer.

 

I've heard other people say this, but I can't find any research confirming this? Where did you source this from? Also Telis have you heard of auditory neuropathy? I came across it the other day looking at unrelated ototoxicity info and it seems to cause hearing to just randomly start disappearing.

 

Reducing inflammation isn’t a cure. But it can most certainly help.
There’s too many neurological studies that talk about this. Just not in terms of hyperacusis. But the mechanisms are similar.

Look up the words “sterile brain inflammation”.

@Liam_Cairns

 

Yeah I have no idea, about 4 min at a time of crazy banging with about 30 seconds in between. I could feel my left ear spamming in response to every knock. I know for a fact that I’ve lost a lot of hearing, I’m not just imagining it, I wish I was.

I feel like I’ve got ear plugs in, or that my head is under water. I’m hearing tinnitus sounds when I hear people talk, like a bunch of static. I have a high frequency hearing test to reference (done about a year ago) so I guess I can see how much.

I already had (prior to mri) a lot of loss in the upper range beyond 7khz, I feel like what little I had left just got blown away, I can’t stand the sound of music anymore, all I hear is lower range and a bunch of static, my hearing was bad, but not like this at all, not even close. I’m not one of these paranoid people, I don’t worry about noise events at all. My tinnitus was not even caused by noise, although I did have hyperacusis.

 

Thanks, but no chance. I’ve monitored my hearing for the last 5 years since tinnitus, I haven’t budged until now.

 

Okay I will. I will attempt a fast next week, no better way to reduce inflammation than that. I’ve had huge success with it in the past, maybe it will help again. I’m not sure about taking steriods, I literally don’t sleep after this so not sure pulling back further on sleep would be helpful

 

That’s a good point.

And to be transparent, I’ve never taken steroids (I wanted to but my doctor refused at the time of onset).

I just take curcumin. It’s just a spice. It’s not a medicine. But it’s known to reduce inflammation. It’s even used on cancer patients because it can cross the blood brain barrier.

@Telis

 

Sorry this happened, I have the same experience and MRI nearly double my tinniness and made it reactive, it gets loud when I try to listen to music and mixes with it.

I did get follow up audio-grams up to 16k and there was not any clinical difference from my previous ones, do you have before and after audiograms done by audiologists?

 

Oh okay, I will actually look into that.

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times but I’m not sure if people buy it:

The reason I found some relief from tinnitus was due to fasting, I think. I actually started intermittently fasting, I saw it on the joe Rogan experience, looked into it and decided it sounded reasonable, it had nothing to do with tinnitus when I tried it, I wanted to burn fat at a higher rate. To my surprise my tinnitus was greatly helped. I hurt my back (reason for mri) did a 8 day water fast for it, my tinnitus reduced further, and honestly it helped my back as well. I regret getting the mri as I was actually on the mend after 4 months of hardly being able to walk. They found nothing. Haha. What a sick joke, plus I paid because it’s a year wait here here in Canada, so I did it privately. I wish I wouldn’t have been able to that.

The problem is, I quit smoking, and also quit benzos at the same time as the fasting, so I’m not sure if the results are as true as they seem.its hard to talk about results when there are other factors involved. I easily saw a 50 percent reduction through intermittent fasting plus the 8 day water fast, and quiting with the toxins. What amount was due to the fasting, I can’t say for sure, but I can say, I hadn’t felt that good in years after the fast. So I think there is something to it, and the science to back is there

 

Man I'm sorry to hear that. I recall you and snow86 were some of the more severe T cases I've seen here on TT, and to think that it's gotten worse.

I'm really starting to think that there is a very small minority of T/H sufferers whose ears are so damaged that the normal safety guidelines regarding noise exposure do not apply. There is so little research done in the area that recommended safe noise levels have little relevance to someone with already damaged auditory systems. Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone that has tinnitus, but the only large studies that have been conducted on safe decibel levels were done on people with previously normal hearing.

 

Yeah, I had a tough time believing that, but I think maybe there is some susceptibility there. A audiologist told me ages ago, that the hair cells are like a forest, if you have trees down, patches missing, when a storm comes the forest is easily knocked down as the entire structure isn’t there. Is that true? I chose not to believe that because it was convenient not to.. also, i have never ever had tinnitus increases from noise events, only pain in the form of hyperacusis and maybe a small temp spike. my tinnitus and hearing never changed, even when I took hits from things like a car alarm in a closed space, smoke detectors I couldn’t turn off etc. Nothing led me to believe that this could or was true, maybe I was wrong. I have had however had my hyperacusis worsen from what seemed to be a noise event, but I could not verify this. Hearing loss and tinnitus worsening after, never, ever until now, but I feel this was pretty extreme. As I said, I don’t believe I have ever been blasted with sounds like this, at one point, there was a sound like a extremely loud fax machine that was absolutely painful. I kept telling myself that I was just overwhelmed, and that I would be okay

 

That sounds reasonable. I don't know. There is a real lack of evidence or good studies on the matter and all that is left is circumstantial evidence. I developed a new tone after a loud event while I was wearing hearing plugs. It would have been in the "safe" decibel range, but apparently it wasn't for me. I have asked a handful of ENT's and neurotologists this very question (if already damaged ears are more susceptible to additional damage), while a couple said there shouldn't be any difference, the majority said possibly but they did not know the answer to that question.

 

My hyperacusis sounds very much like yours. It does not change when I take hits from car honk, plates etc, I just get this weird stabbing / burning sensation.

Has fasting helped you till now?

 

I got the notification that @Tinker Bell tagged me. So sorry you’re going through this, @Telis. But I don’t think we have the same kind of H. My T is not painful, stays fairly constant, and doesn’t bother me most of the time. I have sound distortion with music (seems tinny and no bass) especially from cheap speakers, and I tend to hear everything louder than I know they should be. My H is more of a delayed kind of burning/stabbing pain. It has improved immensely after more than a year since my horrible setback but it’s still there. Time helps, as well as leading a quiet life. Hope you find relief.