Hyperacusis Spike for About a Week After 4 Years of Stableness

[hanks]

Hey guys!

I have had bilateral, mild tinnitus (high pitched ringing), slight hyperacusis (high and low frequencies), slight hearing loss, and an incredibly annoying ear fullness sensation (worst on the right ear) for about 4 years.

It all happened in a very short span (one to two days), without any apparent cause. Plus, I've always been very cautious about my hear (I don't listen to loud music and stuff).

These symptoms remained very still all these years, with an exception regarding the right ear hearing loss and hyperacusis, which I'll explain:

About once a year, no more (the previous one was one year and a half ago!), these symptoms worsen for a limited duration.

• 1st time: when I woke up, I had increased hearing loss and hyperacusis in my right ear; only affecting certain frequencies. I also perceived a persistent sound kind of like a low vibration that I thought was distant machinery on some distant road work, but I heard it in any place I was. I panicked a bit and went to the ER, but they didn't see anything and sent me home.
  The issue disappeared after 24h. It was gone spontaneously the tomorrow morning.
  
  
• 2nd time: it happened again but during the day. When rubbing my fingers between each other next to my right ear, I could hear nothing but a weird "metallic" sound. I panicked a bit again and went to the ER.
  The issue disappeared spontaneously while in the waiting room. It lasted about one hour only.
  
  
• 3rd time: it happened again during the day. I also had some weird, short vibration in my right ear that I attributed to some muscle spasm or something like that. Just in case, I took a muscle relaxant medication, and the hyperacusis increase was gone in one to two hours.
  
  
• 4th time: it happened 5 days ago (11/02) when I woke up, and the hearing loss and hyperacusis increase were worse than the previous times. Even the sound of my own voice triggers the hyperacusis.
  It improved a lot in the evening.
  The next day (11/03), was way better, maybe totally gone at first, but it worsened a bit at the end of the day.
  On 11/04, it improved in the evening.
  On 11/05, it worsened again in the afternoon and improved in the evening.
  On 11/06, it worsened in the morning and improved at the end of the morning. In the evening, it worsened considerably and progressively, like the two first days.
  On 11/07 (today), when I woke up, it was still as worse as the first two days (back to 5 days ago), and I absolutely don't know what to think about that.

I saw an ENT physician the third day who couldn't say anything. One of the first sentences was "hyperacusis, we can't do anything about that".
As for the constant ear fullness for 4 years and counting, he thinks that's just a random, chronic organ malfunction (he compared that to endometriosis) that we can't do anything about.

I'm very puzzled by what is happening to me. I don't know why these symptoms came up at first, and I don't know why they suddenly worsen on my right ear only once a year (no apparent cause!), and I don't know why it's worst this time.
I don't know why it has been keeping improving and worsening randomly for 5 days (for now!), and I don't know the final outcome.
I don't know if it's linked to some undiagnosed disease. I don't know if it will improve someday or if it will be worse.

I've seen multiple ENT doctors over the years, but they all do and say the same thing. Quick external examination of my ears ("everything's fine here"), and "we can't do anything about tinnitus and hyperacusis. there is some sort of therapies though". One told me: "tinnitus will go away" -"you mean, it will actually go away or I'll become used to it? -"it will go away", which angered me a bit inside since no diagnosis had been established.

Of course, I'm a bit angry and sad because I feel like they don't do much, though it's very possible they simply can't do more.

Ultimately, the core subject of my topic is this weird worsening and improvement of this sudden hyperacusis and hearing loss increase since 5 days which keep fading out and come again on a daily basis, sometimes over the course of several hours. And then again, without any apparent cause.

I'd be interested to hear similar stories here.

And thank you for reading. I don't know anyone in my family and friends that experienced it, and I'm by myself in my suffering.

 

[chinup]

Try to remember everything you did leading up to the setback. I had a recent hyperacusis setback and it was because I was repeatedly exposing myself to louder/harsher noises that were technically "safe" dB levels but they still set me back because my ears could never rest properly. Some of that was listening to electric guitar music at mid-low levels on my phone, and watching a video on my laptop where a car engine rev'd loudly several times. And then I went for a run and they were doing lawn work so I was exposed to the leaf blowers. Even though I had earplugs and was a safe distance away, all of this stuff in conjunction set me back.

The best advice I can offer is try to wear earplugs and protect from harsher noises for a week or so, then very gradually increase your exposure. Don't wear earplugs 24/7, just when you go out to do stuff or when you are at risk of loud noise exposure. Let your ears rest a week or so and see how you feel. I've been protecting this way the past few days after my setback and I'm seeing some gradual improvement, way less burning and fullness throughout the day.

Also just to add: the hyperacusis isn't immediate, it happens a few days after a loud noise exposure. You might not have even realized the moment where you actually exposed yourself, so think hard about the last week and whether there have been any unusually loud noises or a constant string of fairly loud noise...

 

[GoatSheep]

Do you have TMJ or bruxism? Any issues with reflux of any kind? I've had many instances where if I grind my teeth heavily at night I wake up with more hyperacusis sensitivity that reduces over the course of the day.

Mine is related to reflux. Which leads to the other possibility that you're hearing worsens and hyperacusis increases if you had acid get into your ear periodically maybe. That's just a guess though. Never experienced anything similar myself.

 

[hanks]

Thank you for your reply!

I'm hardly exposed to harsh or loud noises. At a personal level, I always needed calm and quiet environments and always took care of my hearing since ever (so, way before I had very unexpected and lasting hearing issues), and I didn't come across any potentially harmful noise recently (months, weeks, or days ago). My everyday environment is very calm.

The hyperacusis/hearing loss was high this morning and afternoon, and gradually lowered to a normal (or almost normal) level tonight. It has been like this for 5 days, apparently very randomly. I'm very confused. ‍

 

[hanks]

Do you have TMJ or bruxism? Any issues with reflux of any kind? I've had many instances where if I grind my teeth heavily at night I wake up with more hyperacusis sensitivity that reduces over the course of the day.

Mine is related to reflux. Which leads to the other possibility that you're hearing worsens and hyperacusis increases if you had acid get into your ear periodically maybe. That's just a guess though. Never experienced anything similar myself.

Thanks for your reply @GoatSheep.

I don't have bruxism as far as I know.

I, however, think I have a very slight TMJ issue since it makes crack sounds every time I open my mouth at a wide angle. Also, moving my mandible front to back or left to right makes another tinnitus (a constant "shhhh" sound) quiter or louder. ENT physicians, a stomatologist, and a physical therapist specialized in mandible stuff acknowledged the "crack" sound (you know, by inserting a finger in my ear and asking to close and open my mouth), but didn't think that could trigger any kind of major issue and couldn't do anything about it. No diagnosis was issued.

But as far as I know and after a lot of personal experiments, sort of speak, I think this has nothing to do with my "regular" hearing issues. This particular "shhhh" tinnitus is very discrete by its nature (way more than my bilateral high-pitched "eeeeeee" sound) and I won't be surprised at all if I had it for most of my life without even noticing it.

Of course, that's just a personal analysis, but I don't know how I could research for more... I've seen a LOT of specialists and I'm very tired of being in an "errance diagnostique" - a French term, I don't know the English one. It means that you wander around from specialist to specialist, looking for a diagnosis that never comes.

@chinup, after re-reading your message, I think I need to overcome my intuition and experience confidence and I be more careful about all my surrounding sounds. Maybe I'll pinpoint something, who knows!

 

[hanks]

And here it comes back since this morning after a 16 day hiatus. Not as bad as the previous time, but who knows how it will be tomorrow.

I still don't see what could trigger this, and I'm as puzzled as before.

Does anyone has experienced random hyperacusis that comes and goes (at all) in a span of hours/days?

I tend to be careful when searching for similar symptoms on the internet, but didn't find a similar experience so far.

 

[Daystar]

Does anyone has experienced random hyperacusis that comes and goes (at all) in a span of hours/days?

My hyperacusis is almost always better in the morning, but gets worse during the day. I guess my ears gets "tired". But I would not say I have random attacks.

 

[hanks]

My current, unilateral hyperacusis doesn't seem to have anything related to night/day, sleep/wake up. It seems as random as it could be and can come and go multiple times during a day.

So, as I said, it came back on November 22th after a 16 days hiatus and increased/decreased (and disappeared) randomly. On December 5th late, it was decreasing, and gone on December 6th in the morning.

It remained 100% gone for 3 days and went back this night between 2 and 2:45 AM.

I even wonder if this randomness is making me crazier than the hyperacusis itself.

 

[LilCC]

@hanks, I also get random pain hyperacusis. I can be ok, free of pain for some days, and it comes back out of nowhere, and really I can't trace it to anything particularly loud. For the most part I've been isolating from loud noises. But I also heard this is usually how hyperacusis starts to heal, I guess the healing process isn't linear, which honestly has been my personal experience.

 

[hanks]

Thank you very much for your reply!

I must add that if I suffered my "regular", slight hyperacusis 5 years ago, nowadays it almost never bothers me. I got used to it and tolerates it very well.

I'd like to know more about your experience @LilCC. I tend to be very cautious when reading testimonies, advice, success stories, and so on on the Internet.

Persons who suffer are often biased (myself included). They tend to believe what they want to believe, have sometimes the false impression that their suffering decrease when it's not really (I'm not talking about you for I know nothing about you; just people in general).

It's kind of the same on the computer support forums.

A person says "I have problem X", a person says "I had problem X as well and resolved it by task Y", but it actually didn't change anything. The problem just didn't happen for a few minutes/hours after doing the Y task and came again. That was just a biased impression that the problem was gone. And sometimes the person will edit their message to add "oh well, Y didn't work, after all, I was wrong", but also sometimes, the person won't comment further and let their comment as if it was a working solution.

That would be very kind if you could add details of your comment, especially because you tell that it was your personal experience. How high is your random hyperacusis? How long before and during "attacks" Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Does the hyperacusis vary? Is it linked with hearing loss, occasionally or permanently?
Do you have chronic hyperacusis and how high it is? You're talking about hyperacusis healing. Have you noticed a real improvement of hyperacusis since random attacks occur? From how long have these random attacks occurred? Are they weaker than before, with more delay between each, etc? Without these information, I can't relate much to my case.

Most importantly, can you tell me where did you read that hyperacusis can heal in some cases and that the process can be as random as I describe? Do you have testimonies for other persons, scientific papers, or any reliable source about that? Because unfortunately, without this kind of information, telling me that hyperacusis can start to heal by random attacks (which I find weird by nature, though nature is weird), is nothing more than false hope, which I'd prefer not to experience.

Again, thank you for your message. My current situation needs me not only to share but discuss with people with similar issues, for the sake of my mental health and try to stay strong despite the complete incomprehension of my current random, unilateral hyperacusis and the lack of foresight of what the future offers me.

__________________________
​

I'm re-reading all the replies I had and I have a question.
@GoatSheep,

Mine is related to reflux. Which leads to the other possibility that you're hearing worsens and hyperacusis increases if you had acid get into your ear periodically maybe.

Can you tell me more about this? What kind of acid? Acid going in the inner ear…? But in my case, the hyperacusis attacks seem still as random as they could be.

__________________________
​

Since the day it started, I note every day every symptom with the hour, their intensity, how quick it improves/worsens/disappears, etc. Absolutely no pattern so far.

The day before yesterday, December 11, had hyperacusis at 7 AM. Didn't have it anymore at noon.

Didn't have any hyperacusis until 7 PM, where it started to increase. Late, at 1:30 AM (December, 21), hyperacusis was very present and very annoying until 3:30 AM.
Between 11 AM and 2 PM, it was even worse than usual. I was also deaf on low frequencies (< 300 Hz) on my right ear.

It improved in the afternoon. The low-frequency deafness completely disappeared (!) and the hyperacusis decreased over the course of the day.

The day after (so, this morning), from 9:30 AM to 7 PM, I had absolutely no symptoms. No hyperacusis. No deafness. Just my regular hearing (!), as I experience it almost every day or so for at least a few hours, to a complete day (consecutive days have, apparently, doesn't scheduled anymore... I want my 16 consecutive days back!).

It has started to worsen slowly from 7 PM. It's currently 11:30 PM and it worse than a few hours before.

And I don't know how the next days will be. How confusing this can be.

 

[GoatSheep]

Thank you very much for your reply!

I must add that if I suffered my "regular", slight hyperacusis 5 years ago, nowadays it almost never bothers me. I got used to it and tolerates it very well.

I'd like to know more about your experience @LilCC. I tend to be very cautious when reading testimonies, advice, success stories, and so on on the Internet.

Persons who suffer are often biased (myself included). They tend to believe what they want to believe, have sometimes the false impression that their suffering decrease when it's not really (I'm not talking about you for I know nothing about you; just people in general).

It's kind of the same on the computer support forums.

A person says "I have problem X", a person says "I had problem X as well and resolved it by task Y", but it actually didn't change anything. The problem just didn't happen for a few minutes/hours after doing the Y task and came again. That was just a biased impression that the problem was gone. And sometimes the person will edit their message to add "oh well, Y didn't work, after all, I was wrong", but also sometimes, the person won't comment further and let their comment as if it was a working solution.

That would be very kind if you could add details of your comment, especially because you tell that it was your personal experience. How high is your random hyperacusis? How long before and during "attacks" Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Does the hyperacusis vary? Is it linked with hearing loss, occasionally or permanently?
Do you have chronic hyperacusis and how high it is? You're talking about hyperacusis healing. Have you noticed a real improvement of hyperacusis since random attacks occur? From how long have these random attacks occurred? Are they weaker than before, with more delay between each, etc? Without these information, I can't relate much to my case.

Most importantly, can you tell me where did you read that hyperacusis can heal in some cases and that the process can be as random as I describe? Do you have testimonies for other persons, scientific papers, or any reliable source about that? Because unfortunately, without this kind of information, telling me that hyperacusis can start to heal by random attacks (which I find weird by nature, though nature is weird), is nothing more than false hope, which I'd prefer not to experience.

Again, thank you for your message. My current situation needs me not only to share but discuss with people with similar issues, for the sake of my mental health and try to stay strong despite the complete incomprehension of my current random, unilateral hyperacusis and the lack of foresight of what the future offers me.

__________________________
​

I'm re-reading all the replies I had and I have a question.
@GoatSheep,

Can you tell me more about this? What kind of acid? Acid going in the inner ear…? But in my case, the hyperacusis attacks seem still as random as they could be.

__________________________
​

Since the day it started, I note every day every symptom with the hour, their intensity, how quick it improves/worsens/disappears, etc. Absolutely no pattern so far.

The day before yesterday, December 11, had hyperacusis at 7 AM. Didn't have it anymore at noon.

Didn't have any hyperacusis until 7 PM, where it started to increase. Late, at 1:30 AM (December, 21), hyperacusis was very present and very annoying until 3:30 AM.
Between 11 AM and 2 PM, it was even worse than usual. I was also deaf on low frequencies (< 300 Hz) on my right ear.

It improved in the afternoon. The low-frequency deafness completely disappeared (!) and the hyperacusis decreased over the course of the day.

The day after (so, this morning), from 9:30 AM to 7 PM, I had absolutely no symptoms. No hyperacusis. No deafness. Just my regular hearing (!), as I experience it almost every day or so for at least a few hours, to a complete day (consecutive days have, apparently, doesn't scheduled anymore... I want my 16 consecutive days back!).

It has started to worsen slowly from 7 PM. It's currently 11:30 PM and it worse than a few hours before.

And I don't know how the next days will be. How confusing this can be.

Ear Pain Caused by LPR

Chronic middle ear disease and gastroesophageal reflux disease: a causal relation?

Heartburn and ear pain: causes and treatment

Prospective Study of Gastroesophageal Reflux, Use of Proton Pump Inhibitors and H2-Receptor Antagonists, and Risk of Hearing Loss

Sorry don't have time to pull out quotes right now. Just search ear pain and hearing loss on these links to get the gist.

 

[hanks]

Quick update.

My intermittent, random hyperacusis/hearing loss spike has been totally gone (again) since December 16th morning. I cross my fingers for my ear to be kept that way as long as possible (but my regular hearing issue remains, of course)...

@GoatSheep, thank you very much for these interesting articles. I do have a slight LPR, but no pain at all, and treatment don't improve any of my regular hearing issues. So I don't think it's related in my case (but who knows! I'm no doctor...), but it's still an interesting thing to know!

Third link is 404 though.

Currently too focused on my tinnitus these days, probably because I'm a bit stressed by what happened during November and December.

My tinnitus isn't worse than usual, but as you all know, the tinnitus perception is highly affected by our mental state, and, several times, I've been through months and months without being annoyed by my tinnitus (when I was focused on it, my attention naturally and quickly moved away to more enjoyable things), so hopefully, it will make itself more discrete when I'm in a better mood and less anxious.

__________________________
​

About tinnitus, a friend heard things about neurofeedback. Didn't look for much information yet. Some medical articles found it promising despite that the fact that it's always difficult to measure subjective symptoms, suboptimal protocols, and a small number of subjects.

Also, not a lot of studies yet, it seems. I'll dig a bit (with a lot of caution - still trying to be far as possible from false hopes) since I'm sure it was vastly discussed here.

 

[GoatSheep]

Third link is 404 though.

Strange, I just clicked on all the links and they all work for me. I'll just paste the straight link. See if it works.

https://perks.optum.com/blog/heartburn-and-ear-pain-causes-and-treatment-2/

 

[hanks]

Hey,

Thanks for your reply.

The root domain (optum.com) works, but the subdomain (perks.optum.com) leads to a 403 error.

 

[GoatSheep]

Hey,

Thanks for your reply.

The root domain (optum.com) works, but the subdomain (perks.optum.com) leads to a 403 error.

Strange, no issue for me. Both links leading straight to the article at the subdomain when I click them.

 

[hanks]

No worries. Working links led to enough interesting info. Thank you again.

 

[hanks]

Update!

I had an appointment with an ENT and described as much as I could this very weird episode.

He didn't think twice before telling me that's a known condition named labyrinthine hydrops.

So, what I understood (I'm always a bit stressed when I see a doctor and I tend to misinterpret, forget to ask questions, and forget things they told me) and what will follow:

• There will be other attacks in the future. 100% sure.
• For each attack, the hearing will be permanently but slightly damaged.
• There is a treatment for this condition.
• He wants to ensure his diagnosis by making me have a hearing test when I'll have my next attack, to "see" partial or full deafness in low frequencies.
• Since the attacks are random, with fast increases and vanishes of symptoms, he admits that it's not very practical to have an appointment when the symptoms are present. But we have no choice but to try.
  Obviously, they'll try to have an appointment quickly when I call them, and we'll just hope that the symptoms are present when I met the ENT and pass his tests.

So, pretty good news!

I can say that I'm really happy to have a diagnosis, even if it's just the beginning. I almost canceled my appointment before because I was pessimistic and sure I'd have another "I don' know" from the doctor.

It's a relief that I didn't cancel this appointment (it's sort of advice for other lost souls like me...).

I'll update my topic when things will go forward. In two months? Six? One year? Two years? No one knows.

Note: I won't search online for further information about this condition. I don't want to risk any induced anxiety, and I'm sure you all understand that. I'll rely on my ENT for now on this particular subject.