Itchy Ears with Pain Hyperacusis (Noxacusis)

Can you get symptoms of inner ear noxacusis without feeling pain? I've had a recent flare up of my TTTS, and my trigeminal nerve pain is getting a little worse. I've noticed I now have random bouts of itchy ears, usually in my outer ear canal and very rarely in my inner ear. This happened at the start of my hyperacusis but hasn't happened in a while since I'm homebound in constant hearing protection.

So can I be damaging my inner ear without feeling any pain there? Just itchiness if I get hit with a sound without my hearing protection on?

 

Nobody is 100 percent sure exactly what's going on with hyperacusis, sadly. Mostly cuz it's so rare and there are no studies on it.

I'm a big believer in the Arnaud Norena paper though. Basically this entire debacle stems from the middle ear muscles overcontracting, then just being in a state of constant inflammation. Add in the fact that we get super paranoid to sound, and bam... you're fucked. They call it "auditory attention" in the Norena paper. I relate 100 percent to that. I pay way too much attention to sound, even when it's not hurting me. Not to mention the laser beam tinnitus going off 24/7... making me think that there's an interminable problem.

I think if the inner ear was getting damaged from noxious noise, you'd know it. Maybe hearing loss would happen. The auditory nerve being inflamed. Some people presumably do have this bad of noxacusis though, those who report that deep stabbing pain. It's surprising that they don't get hearing loss. You'd think that much pain radiating throughout the ear would cause it.

The itchiness is funny though LMAO, no offense. Itchiness indicates inflammation. Like when you constantly itch something, redness comes about.

Doesn't sound like a big deal IMO.

 

I'm guessing you have no symptoms of inner ear noxacusis? I'm not getting any pain in my inner ear yet.

Yeah, I think the inner ear noxacusis has nothing to do with hearing loss whatsoever. It's just for some reason people start to get really sensitized Type II and it never shuts off for some people. I wonder if it has to do with the potassium channels closing and some people just respond to that with pain.

Going on an antihistamine diet really helped the itching ear, sometimes when I cheat or get exposed to sound, my outer ear starts to itch like crazy again. Weirdly enough, it also helped my asthma and eczema that would flare up during bad noise exposures.

 

Interesting! I currently have severe hyperacusis/noxacusis with reactive tinnitus with no discernible hearing loss. I hadn't really thought anything of it but I have noticed that my ears are very itchy at times in the outer ear canal. To the point I could scratch my ears off at times lol.

Not sure it's signalling damage to the inner ear but I'm going to monitor the itching for a couple of weeks & see if happens more when I am exposed to noise without ear protection on. I'll get back to you on my findings.

 

I did have itchiness for a long time without too much pain and it eventually just went away. I don't know why it went away, I think it just healed with time. I stopped using earplugs too.

 

My pain is mainly extreme pressure that irradiates, plus muffled hearing, distorted hearing and/or amplified hearing in some frequencies. And this works in cycles, with a cycle of pressure and muffled hearing followed by weeks when ears "open" and then everything's loud as hell.

 

It would be interesting to know whether the hyperacusis that causes the tensor tympani muscle to vibrate and hurt on sound input after a history of sound shock/trauma is equivalent to inner ear pain hyperacusis.

Norena also mentions inflammation/contraction of the nerves innervating the tensor tympani muscle, such as the mandibular nerve (trigeminal).

Perhaps some pain-induced hyperacusis (following sound shocks) is accentuated by excessive tension in the head and neck, causing tension links between the trigeminal nerve, the tensor muscle of the soft palate, the Eustachian tubes and the tensor muscle of the eardrum. This would then lead to an accentuation of the symptoms of hyperacusis and tinnitus.

 

OK, so I monitored my instances of itchy ears with volume of tinnitus & accidental noise exposure, & my admittedly not-very-scientific result is that there does seem to be a slight correlation of the three in my case. I find my ears are very itchy when the volume of tinnitus is loud or following accidental noise exposure. They do itch outside of these times but not as frequently. Not sure what to make of it‍ tbh.