Feel Like Noise Is Attacking Me...?

[Angela95]

Hi,

I just joined this site because I am so utterly confused and bewildered as to what is going on with me, and no doctor seems to understand or be able to help me..

A couple months ago I experienced an acoustic shock/trauma after forgetting to turn down the volume on my laptop before plugging in my headphones while watching a DVD with loud music..those few seconds of noise sounded extremely loud and distorted to me, even though the master volume on the computer wasn't at maximum..(although the media player was, the computer was more like at 50% volume), but the headphone output seemed far too powerful even at that level.. I immediately experienced a warm and painful sensation in my ear along with a lot of nausea and even balance problems for about 10 days..then it started to slowly clear up as I stayed inside in quiet to get better..I was also experiencing some pain in my ear from sounds including people's voices, and a really light buzzing/ringing, but that died down as well..I did see a doctor but he told me not to worry and I should be fine, and that many people have had this happen to them from explosions in a factory and they were fine..so I basically just moved past it..

About 6 weeks went by and my ears were feeling almost back to normal, but then very unfortunately the smoke detector went off at my parents' house for maybe 10 seconds, and I didn't cover my ears right away as it didn't even occur to me that this noise could now be dangerous/harmful to me since I was feeling so much better..but then, later that night I started to experience a lot of pain and even swelling and a very "blocked over"/full feeling in my ear and the ringing and hyperacusis came back..these sensations got worse over the next few days and it took about a week to feel mostly back to normal from this incident..so..I figured I would be well enough to try going into a store, where unfortunately they were playing fairly loud music..I was only in there about 5 minutes, but then..within an hour of getting home I felt a loud "thumping" in my left ear and all of the pain and swelling returned..

Then, only 3 days later, a transport truck blew its horn as I was walking in a parking lot maybe 50 meters away..and this time it instantly sent a shot of pain into my right ear (even though I was wearing swimmers' type earplugs) and I once again experienced pain and swelling for a few days and my ear blocked over once again.

Then, yesterday I got a massage around the head and neck area which really seemed to help the ringing and swelling to go down to a minimum, which I was very happy about..and then, somehow, today, my recent awful luck with loud noises returned and an ambulance drove right by me while in the passenger side of a car and literally stopped maybe a metre from where I was sitting for about 5 seconds with the siren blaring as it waited to turn. Again I was wearing my swimmers's earplugs and also tried to plug my ears..And once again,...my pain, swelling and ringing all returned tonight..

I did have a hearing test last week which was within the normal range..so I don't understand what is going on and why all of these incidents which shouldn't be harmful on their own (except for perhaps the first one with the laptop) are causing me so many symptoms and pain? I am very quickly feeling that I need to be housebound in order to try and recover as I can't imagine this getting any worse, especially with the pain in my ear and neck area..

Has any one else experienced such a rapid progression of symptoms and what should I do? I'm trying to take the appropriate vitamins and do acupuncture and massage, but how can these seemingly "safe" noises (since they were all quite short exposures) be doing this to me so quickly and severely? Should I be going to the hospital to get steroids or how can I break this cycle?

Thank you for any help or suggestions you might have..

 

[Bobby B]

You wrote swelling - what part exactly is swelling and how much ?

 

[Angela95]

It's basically around my neck and jaw..not hugely but somewhat..and like a really deep pain inside my ears and nausea that makes me lose my appetite after being exposed to a loud noise. Unfortunately, another two firetrucks went by me today..so the pain continues. Thanks for your response.

 

[Bobby B]

Well for Such a pain to noise - Forget about the swimming plugs and get a good pair of ear muffs like the peltor x5a until you get this sorted out this can be serious

 

[glynis]

I would see your doctor if getting pain and swelling as that is not a normal tinnitus problem and suggests something going on with your ears itself like a ear infection unless the pain is from your jaw joint and inflammation around that area.
Keep us posted how you get on...lots of love glynis

 

[Angela95]

Hi,

Thanks to you both for your responses, I really appreciate it. I'm going to look into getting some more powerful ear muffs as you suggested (I have some noise cancellation headphones but I don't think they are really that effective for high-pitched noises like sirens, plus I wasn't wearing them unfortunately on the day of the ambulance..).

I think something serious is going on too...I've had at least 6 incidents in three months of symptoms of temporarily reduced hearing, pain, thumping, nausea after noise exposure, swelling..so in all of these episodes, am I losing more of my hearing? I'm not sure but my hearing test showed a few "dips" in my hearing at certain frequencies in my left ear (closer to 30 db) and I'm in my 30s so that's not great for someone my age..and that was before the ambulance and fire truck this week. This is starting to feel like a scary movie I'm in...what are the chances that someone with serious ear problems would be the one car for the ambulance to pull right beside and sit there blaring for over 5 seconds? And then the next day for two firetrucks to go by me...

I could go into the hospital right now but maybe I should just stay in silence at home for a few more days, in case there is more noise there...I really don't know what to do.

 

[CDNThailand]

Use double protection until you can figure this out and stay away from ALL loud noise!

You are still intact..keep it that way until you can figure it out, kind of like on "standby".

Over protecting in your case might be OK for a while until you can figure it out, just my opinion, better safe than sorry, and get many opinions, most docs have no clue and might advise you wrong...