Dysacusis (Hearing Distortion) etc.

SilverSpiral

SilverSpiral

Member
Author
Jul 15, 2016
685
Tinnitus Since
2016
Cause of Tinnitus
ACOUSTIC TRAUMA
#1
This appears to be among one of the least discussed, and in my experience most difficult to cope/habituate to.

Wondering if other people are familiar with it or have it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysacusis
It's not the same as "reactive tinnitus" which some people refer to where your constant tinnitus tones spike after sound exposure, but where your hearing is distorted and often has a ringing or atonal quality to it. Muffling and distortion is another common symptom. It seems not many people have it? but it's documented in people with meniers.

Wanting to understand more about this difficult condition.

http://www.whirledfoundation.org/wp...stortion-Associated-with-Menieres-disease.pdf

finally more than just "tinnitus and hyperacusis" being researched.
 
#2
There's a paper from Klochoff who believes that all these auditory phenomena (dysacusis, distortion) are due to Tensor Tympani Syndrome.

http://www.tinnitus.org/Tensor tympani syndrome_Klochoff.pdf

For over 6 months I've been experiencing the following: ear fullness upon exposure to certain sounds, random ear pains (trigeminal nerve sensitization?), clicking, twitching, a sensation like having a bug inside the ear accompanied by some bizarre tinnitus changes, eardrum movement when people speak to me, distortion over specific frequencies (whistling sound), a sound like metal hitting metal associated with some weird ear sensation with water running/blowdryer, tension headaches. Luckily the distortion which drove me crazy is gone and the fullness has improved. And all these on top of "reactive tinnitus".

Do I believe that my tensor tympani is doing all these crazy thing? Quite possibly and maybe stapedius as well.
Every case is different but it seems that in my case, when I'm under a lot of stress many of these symptoms are exacerbated at the same time which might indicate that there's close connection between TTTS and mental stress.

Hopefully over time most of these symptoms will resolve.
 
#3
I think dysacusis is a part of hyperacusis and/or tonic tensor tympani syndrome. I have it but never thought about it as a separate condition, just one of many symptoms I experience due to either cochlea/nerve damage or middle ear damage/dysfunction.
 
#5
Since my acoustic trauma 3 months ago beside tinnitus i hear also hearing distortion which is some days more, some days less noticeable, and while in crowded places with background noise when i talk with someone i fell like my hearing is muffled.
Weird thing is that when i listen to music even at high volumes(more than 70dB, but not often ofc, im scared of getting things worse) it feels bit different than before, like bit muffled(ofc audiograms are good, without any drops in dB), but distortion is non/almost non existent- sometimes like today, while driving when i played some music i heard "s" sounds little louder than rest.
Main case when i hear those distortions is when i talk with someone at low/moderate background noise. It is hard to explain how it sounds but sometimes it is like others and i have hoarseness(not sure about this word, sorry, English is not my native).
I don't think i have normal H like i had years ago when i have experienced tinnitus for the first time from ETD and ear infection, but when sudden, loud relatively to background noise occur like someone close to me talking loudly, or colliding dishes it makes me fell maybe not pain, but intense discomfort and i fell my ears getting tense. I thought that i got something like TTTS but i don't have any random thumping and clicking like ones that have it. Only clicking i hear is probably from ETs when i swallow, yawn etc.
 
#6
Aegaeon said:
There's a paper from Klochoff who believes that all these auditory phenomena (dysacusis, distortion) are due to Tensor Tympani Syndrome.

http://www.tinnitus.org/Tensor tympani syndrome_Klochoff.pdf

For over 6 months I've been experiencing the following: ear fullness upon exposure to certain sounds, random ear pains (trigeminal nerve sensitization?), clicking, twitching, a sensation like having a bug inside the ear accompanied by some bizarre tinnitus changes, eardrum movement when people speak to me, distortion over specific frequencies (whistling sound), a sound like metal hitting metal associated with some weird ear sensation with water running/blowdryer, tension headaches. Luckily the distortion which drove me crazy is gone and the fullness has improved. And all these on top of "reactive tinnitus".

Do I believe that my tensor tympani is doing all these crazy thing? Quite possibly and maybe stapedius as well.
Every case is different but it seems that in my case, when I'm under a lot of stress many of these symptoms are exacerbated at the same time which might indicate that there's close connection between TTTS and mental stress.

Hopefully over time most of these symptoms will resolve.
Click to expand...
That's a very interesting post @Aegaeon. Today i feel quite low. I have developed this new humming sound along with my other tones and it feels like i am constantly inside a ship (which ironically - regarding your nickname - reminds me the sound of the ships' engines across the Aegean). On top of that those distortions have intensified. Sometimes it feels like everybody improves except me. Don't get me wrong of course. It's good to read that you have improved. It's just that i wish i could figure out what is wrong with me. It's been a bit more then a year and i have never experienced one good thing. Oh lady luck, why?
 
#7
lapidus said:
I think dysacusis is a part of hyperacusis and/or tonic tensor tympani syndrome. I have it but never thought about it as a separate condition, just one of many symptoms I experience due to either cochlea/nerve damage or middle ear damage/dysfunction.
Click to expand...
I would categorize it as a symptom, along with tinnitus, and hyperacusis, but I don't really know what differentiates a symptom from a condition, but if it is suffering, than dysacusis is one hell of a "condition" even compared to nightmare T and H (and anybody who has dysacusis likely has experience with all 3). Oh yeah aural fullness, thats another one... all make up part of this horrible condition, but I really want the dysacusis to go away most, you just can't habituate to it the way you can even multi tonal constant T in my experience at least.

Some people only have it temporarily, which to me indicates it is synapse damage/partially damaged haircells. Mine is bad all the time, even a little fluctuation would give me hope it will improve. I can only improve emotionally to it, and that is way easier said than done.
 
#9
vermillion said:
Same here @SilverSpiral. It never goes away. On the contrary it is worse then in the beginning.
Click to expand...
It has gone away for some, @Tom Cnyc had the resonances that I experience during his acute phase, and it apparently (if I recall) completely subsided. His regular tinnitus improved during the acute phase as well.

It is hard to hold on to hope as the days stack on well past the acute phase, and in the face of severe worsening, but on the other hand this condition is so horrible that hope can not be completely left out.

There are several others who have had this or similar symptom. I can think of 2 that had it from noise induced that had it get better, tom is one and @3ri0w said his fluctuated or went away?

I don't understand why this dysacusis is so rarely discussed (yes so rare in fact that I misspelled it in the title of the thread). I think it is worse to manage, and more difficult to habituate to, deal with, or not utterly be destroyed by it than hyperacusis, or constant tinnitus tones. I wonder why it seems less common. If it is related to synaptopathy one could speculate that it could develop more often or preceding constant tinnitus tones. I wonder what causes this or what causes it along with constant tinnitus tones.

For anybody who hears whistling, resonance, ringing, or if their hearing is otherwise distorted (muffled etc).
Especially if you can not enjoy music because the hearing distortion is so bad, let me know if you have similar symptoms and if anything improved it. Here is more detailed description of what I hear. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hearing-distortion-recruitment-reactive-tinnitus.19449/

It is unfortunately, as you say vermillion as bad if not worse than ever. And I am left posting on this forum hoping for some improvement. After all the supplements, all the diagnostics, all the specialists, i am still hoping.
 
#10
SilverSpiral said:
It has gone away for some, @Tom Cnyc had the resonances that I experience during his acute phase, and it apparently (if I recall) completely subsided. His regular tinnitus improved during the acute phase as well.

It is hard to hold on to hope as the days stack on well past the acute phase, and in the face of severe worsening, but on the other hand this condition is so horrible that hope can not be completely left out.

There are several others who have had this or similar symptom. I can think of 2 that had it from noise induced that had it get better, tom is one and @3ri0w said his fluctuated or went away?

I don't understand why this dysacusis is so rarely discussed (yes so rare in fact that I misspelled it in the title of the thread). I think it is worse to manage, and more difficult to habituate to, deal with, or not utterly be destroyed by it than hyperacusis, or constant tinnitus tones. I wonder why it seems less common. If it is related to synaptopathy one could speculate that it could develop more often or preceding constant tinnitus tones. I wonder what causes this or what causes it along with constant tinnitus tones.

For anybody who hears whistling, resonance, ringing, or if their hearing is otherwise distorted (muffled etc).
Especially if you can not enjoy music because the hearing distortion is so bad, let me know if you have similar symptoms and if anything improved it. Here is more detailed description of what I hear. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hearing-distortion-recruitment-reactive-tinnitus.19449/

It is unfortunately, as you say vermillion as bad if not worse than ever. And I am left posting on this forum hoping for some improvement. After all the supplements, all the diagnostics, all the specialists, i am still hoping.
Click to expand...

yeah that went away and stayed away. My tinnitus often doesn't bother me at all. Meaning its so low its a non issue. There are also times it kicks my ass. I've had 3 of those days in Febraury, and probably 2 in the 2 months prior. Other times its noticable but manageable. There is no rhyme or reason as to why they happen. I like to believe that its slowly getting better

My heart goes out to you if you have the feedback issues. It was hard to deal with, so much that I almost forgot it ever happened. Perhaps a way of my brain protecting itself from PTSD?
 
Last edited:
#11
Tom Cnyc said:
yeah that went away and stayed away. My tinnitus often doesn't bother me at all. Meaning its so low its a non issue. There are also times it kicks my ass. I've had 3 of those days in Febraury, and probably 2 in the 2 months prior. Other times its noticable but manageable. There is no rhyme or reason as to why they happen. I like to believe that its slowly getting better

My heart goes out to you if you have the feedback issues. It was hard to deal with, so much that I almost forgot it ever happened. Perhaps a way of my brain protecting itself from PTSD?
Click to expand...
Yes the "feedback issues" are exactly what I struggle with most and now have learned is called dysacusis. Despite the relatively short time you had this symptom (compared to some) you described it very accurately to what I experienced. That alone was helpful at the time because it is quite difficult experiencing such an invasive symptom yet at the same time having difficulty even communicating it or describing what was happening or finding others who experienced it.

As far as recovery rates or what causes it, I'm sure there are several factors. The severity of the sound exposure (or if it was caused by virus etc whatever caused the initial biological damage), some level of natural biological repair, some level of brain plasticity capacity, along with other neurological/vestibular factors which could either improve, or worsen depending on the person or condition.

Intrestingly I have heard optometrists talk about how we "see with our brains" and how the brain plays a significant role in sight conditions, yet for some of those conditions, there are surgeries that when corrected, the symptoms go away. My mom is getting some surgery to release some pressure in her eye, and it should make the symptom go away.

For this reason I think even in chronic sufferers that if some repair to the cochlea can be made, the symptoms would likely improve significantly. Although of course I am aware of people who have had their auditory nerve completely severed and still have regular T. However severing the auditory nerve isn't exactly the same as restoring the sensory input organ, it's more of an extreme measure in the opposite direction (though I completely understand why someone with this consider having their auditory nerve completely severed).
 
#12
SilverSpiral said:
Yes the "feedback issues" are exactly what I struggle with most and now have learned is called dysacusis. Despite the relatively short time you had this symptom (compared to some) you described it very accurately to what I experienced. That alone was helpful at the time because it is quite difficult experiencing such an invasive symptom yet at the same time having difficulty even communicating it or describing what was happening or finding others who experienced it.

As far as recovery rates or what causes it, I'm sure there are several factors. The severity of the sound exposure (or if it was caused by virus etc whatever caused the initial biological damage), some level of natural biological repair, some level of brain plasticity capacity, along with other neurological/vestibular factors which could either improve, or worsen depending on the person or condition.

Intrestingly I have heard optometrists talk about how we "see with our brains" and how the brain plays a significant role in sight conditions, yet for some of those conditions, there are surgeries that when corrected, the symptoms go away. My mom is getting some surgery to release some pressure in her eye, and it should make the symptom go away.

For this reason I think even in chronic sufferers that if some repair to the cochlea can be made, the symptoms would likely improve significantly. Although of course I am aware of people who have had their auditory nerve completely severed and still have regular T. However severing the auditory nerve isn't exactly the same as restoring the sensory input organ, it's more of an extreme measure in the opposite direction (though I completely understand why someone with this consider having their auditory nerve completely severed).
Click to expand...


Has yours gone away?
 
#16
I use a cochlear implant and had, up until a few weeks ago, been experiencing sound distortion for a month: words were sort of breaking up, so instead, of say, hearing "hello" I'd get "he-l-l-l-l-l-l-o". Now, the most obvious thought is that my implant was malfunctioning, except tests revealed it wasn't. I have also had a sudden onset of low frequency tinnitus (metal banging sounds, thumping, roaring, whooshing, buzzing, beeping, singing, voices, drones, cymbals clashing ...). Over the last few weeks, some of the sounds seem to have stopped. I can only assume I've had some further cochlear/nerve damage which has now righted itself. On top of the 24/7 tinnitus, it was especially distressing and made me terrified I'd be left without my implant working trapped inside a prison of non-stop noise.
 
#17
Hello people, I think this is the first time I have had a name given to my affliction... I suffered an ear infection along with flu like symptoms 2 years ago. What I was left with was hearing loss ( high and low frequencies) much worse tinnitus than I had before and (what I now know as) dysacusis in my right ear... Any sound over a certain volume threshold creates a squealing high pitched tinnitus like tone. The sound of my own voice triggers this condition.
I feel your pain Silverspiral, and I know its not going to be helpful,but sense that habituation is the only answer.. I'm considering anti depressants to help me along...
 
#18
I get it depending on the pitch and intensity of the tinnitus. It recurs regularly every few days for a few days then goes away for a day or two.
 
#19
I've had this going on a year now. It's fairly bad. Basically everything distorts. This is in addition to "normal" tinnitus (constant tone). Its very pronounced with static (unchanging) broadband noise like A/C, fans, heaters, traffic noise, etc. It is also present with music and TV, unfortunately. It can sound like beeping (but more of a constant beep -- like a very, very fast morse code)/scraping/screeching/whistling in addition to or part of the originating sound (but it distinctly sounds as if it's coming from the source sound).

It could be one of four things (at least as I see it). It could be tonic tensor tympani or something similar altering the ventilation of the middle ear and causing soundwaves to actually be passed through to the inner ear in an abnormal fashion. It could be straight damage to the hair cells, thereby causing those cells to not be able to pass on a proper signal via the auditory nerve. It could be damage to the auditory nerve itself, thereby causing the signal sent by otherwise well-functioning hair cells to lose clarity. Or it could be the brain itself, essentially making up sounds (the scraping/whistling) in response to certain inputs from the auditory nerve. It is only if this last possibility is true that I would consider it reactive tinnitus, i.e., the brain making up phantom sounds in response to inputs. For the first possibility, it would seem to follow that if one got rid of the middle ear muscle problem, the distortions would go away. Presumably in that case muscle relaxants like diazepam or maybe even clonazepam (not a muscle relaxant but I have read its being used to treat tonic tensor tympani syndrome) would have positive effects on the distortions. For the second and third possibilities, it stands to reason that nothing except repair of either the hair cells or of the auditory nerve would cure it. I wonder, in the case of the third possibility, if carbamazepine (reported to be effective in treating morse code tinnitus derived from problems with the auditory nerve) would not cause the distortions to subside? Just some speculation on the problem. It is indeed very real, and it does seem to differ from both hyperacusis and (possibly) reactive tinnitus.

My problem with the idea that it is just damage to the hair cells is that basically everyone with noise induced tinnitus probably has damage to one degree or another to the hair cells, yet so few people with noise induced tinnitus report this phenomenon (dysacusis) along with it. Really the same could be said for the auditory nerve possibility -- if ordinary noise induced damage is enough to affect the integrity of the auditory nerve, I'd expect far more people to have damage to the auditory nerve and therefore this particular phenomenon (dysacusis). At least in theory, if it isn't the brain making up reactive sounds in response to inputs, then it very likely could be problems with the middle ear.
 
#20
I had dysacusis in every sound at the onset of my T. It's in my left ear, and it sounded like morse code but not rhythmic, meaning the duration of the beeps and the time between the beeps varied without logic. It had subsided for the most part about 2 months later, only barely audible within white noise. Now, the past week it appears to be returning as it's louder within white noise and seems to again follow other specific sounds.

I've been trying to do my research, but there's a lot of it, and I guess what I want to ask is, if this stays, is there anything that points to dysacusis being treatable with the new treatments being researched (Michigan, Frequency or others)?
 
#21
I've been experiencing this phenomenon since the onset of T as well. It fluctuates heavily with me and seems related to stress levels.

I've read about one person, @Coffeebean, who has been able to (largely) get improvement of this distortion (and reactivity of T) by desensitizing the auditory system (maybe pointing to it being a corollary of TTTS or H). I'm personally not ready to go for the same approach as he has, since white noise does indeed aggravate it (or makes it much more audible), which kind of raises my stress levels.

Check out his thread at https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...ctive-sound-sensitive-tinnitus-80-gone.28193/
 
Last edited:
#22
My ''H'' is by definition also ''T'' as it's easy to ascertain that if both my high and low pitched Ts increase during sound, it's also easy to assume that it's also this T, especially my low frequency T, that's the one that's vibrating strongly/thumping at the start of each new external sound. My ''dysacusis'' then is not the same as many of yours because while my ''T/H/TTTS/dysacusis accompanies the slightest of sounds to create discomfort, it never becomes the sole sound to rule them all from above like in other more precise etiologies, where they stop hearing external sounds and only hear a microphone. ''Dysacusis'' has to be classified in detail but we're in the middle ages, where some of the main ''clinicians'' on TTTS are clueless shrinks like Myriam Westcott, others are gaslighting little turds like Jastreboff, and basic keywords like chat-hyperacusis forums hyperacusis dot net use shitty classifications and nazi admins to actively set out to not further research in this area.

This or these conditions are in a no-mans land in otology, whose gold standard is to only treat when there's hearing loss. I doubt it has anything to do with hearing loss too. I don't generally believe hair loss theory as it wouldn't make sense in people that improve in this and there are some. A cancer patient once said to me he had my type of H during radiotherapy, but not after. Also, Silverstein patients also were bothered with sudden sounds, but we don't know if they actually felt thuds and vibrations, or whether they're more like other H patients, that feel nothing in their ears and pains elsewhere. I myself have been diagnosed with possible meniere's, possible PET, possible everything, depending on which specialist I visited. But I haven't done further tests on meniere's anyways as I don't wanna be a guinea pig for anything and I heard menieres tests can make it worse. The TTTS facebook group has been pretty interesting in this regard, finding my symptom cured in a patient in Holland, and a couple of german PET doctors saying it could be linked to PET, but as I said I don't feel the need to be no guinea pig.
 
#23
japongus said:
The TTTS facebook group has been pretty interesting in this regard, finding my symptom cured in a patient in Holland, and a couple of german PET doctors saying it could be linked to PET, but as I said I don't feel the need to be no guinea pig.
Click to expand...

PET as in patulous eustachian tubes? Have you found a connection between Dysacusis, TTTS and PET? If so, could you possibly link it to me?
 
#24
https://www.chat-hyperacusis.net/post/fihd-broken-speaker-sound-in-ear-megathread-9511904

Another thread I found. This person actually had a tympandectomy and it didn't help. His theory is that it might be linked to the auditory bones somehow.

Another one:
https://www.audiologyonline.com/ask-the-experts/unilateral-hyperacusis-82. In the link, there's an an audiologist responding to a question posed by someone with a neurologist patient suffering from the distortion in one ear. Maybe it's a problem with the middle-ear bones? But reinforcing the stapes bone didn't resolve it with at least one patient.

Here's another one where Myriam Westscott says that distortion is a symptom of TTTS: https://drnagler.supporttopics.com/post/distortion-8369225
 
#25
Mellow7 said:
PET as in patulous eustachian tubes? Have you found a connection between Dysacusis, TTTS and PET? If so, could you possibly link it to me?
Click to expand...

The TTTS support group in facebook, a german woman in there found a famous german PET doctor called Holger Sudhoff who claims there is indeed a link between sudden sound H and PET. She also found another who claims there is a pressure issue inside the ear. In both cases we don't know if there's much substance to the claim, but she does know at least one that got her ears filled up with VOX and improved of the ''H''. I don't do that as I don't want to experiment and because I live in silence, until there's more claims and more substance to the claims I won't consider doing these things, but I am visiting the local PET expert here in Spain who knows Sudhoff and he confirmed this, but again don't know exactly what he was confirming and if he and Sudhoff just say eustachian is too closed and too open to everybody, or if Sudhoff really spotted. Besides, PET ops don't often have good results, so we'd be joining a difficult camp that of PETs, but at least we'd have improved the diagnosis.
 
#28
What if dysacusis is a combination of tinnitus reacting, loudness hyperacusis amplifying certain frequencies and hearing loss in background noise?
 

Log in or register to get the full forum benefits!

Register

Register on Tinnitus Talk for free!

Register Now

Similar threads

Stoic turmoil
Acoustic Trauma — Tinnitus, Hyperacusis, Dysacusis, Hearing Loss
Replies
4
Views
1K
Introduce Yourself
Stoic turmoil
Stoic turmoil
sv_505
Struggling BADLY with Dysacusis/Sound Distortion: Has Anyone Habituated and Does It Get Better?
Replies
6
Views
3K
Support
Michael Leigh
Michael Leigh
S
Tinnitus, Dysacusis and Low-Frequency Hyperacusis?
Replies
1
Views
777
Introduce Yourself
billie48
billie48
A
Tinnitus, Reactive Hissing, and Sound Distortion: Two Years of Challenges
Replies
8
Views
870
Introduce Yourself
SilenceBlissful
S
in_the_shadows
Tinnitus Ramps Up in Hearing Protection
Replies
4
Views
234
Support
LukeYoung
LukeYoung
Top Bottom
Back
Forums
Members
Donate
Menu