Music-Induced Trauma

[JeffJJ]

Hi,
First post here. Thought I could get some support. I'm 31 years old and live in Chicago.
About two months ago my band was on tour. We are a very loud punk/metal band. I usually wear earplugs but the last gig was a weird situation. We played in a small record store and my ear was close to the PA speakers. Several times throughout our set I got shooting loud noise directly into my ear, causing pain.

Since then I have developed many symptoms that sound exactly like hyperacusis. I have no tinnitus, mild sensitivity to sound. The worst part is the intermittent earaches i get in my right ear.

About a week after getting home the pain was so bad i was to the ER. The doctor saw fluid behind my ear and gave me sudafed. That seemed to relive the pressure. There is still the dried-out, burning feeling in my ear. It is truly affecting every part of my life negatively. I saw an ENT and an Audiologist. The ENT gave me a run of Prednisone which did not really help. The audiologist saw a slight dip in the 4000 Hz level, but nothing that would be considered severe. I also got fitted for custom earplugs with 25 dB filters. Both ENT and Audiologist said pain should go away with time.

I currently take klonopin and wellbutrin for anxiety and depression. I am worried that I have screwed myself over for life. What should I do at this point? Is a little over two months too early to tell? Should I start looking into TRT? It seems to me that the hyperacusis itself isn't extremely awful (I can listen to music at moderate levels, do dishes, play with my dog, even seeing the new Star Wars didn't cause me any discomfort). It's really just the moderate to intense ear pain I seem to be getting every day.

 

[Tommi_boi]

I would say it's very early to tell.

I used to play in bands without any protection whatsoever, it was dumb but I never knew about the risks till I woke up with a muffled ear and tinnitus.

I quit the band after that.. toughest thing ever to do as I loved playing in a band. A year later an ambulance siren blasted righ next to me and I caught sound sensitivity.

Like u, no tinnitus now but slight sound sensitivity. It's been a tough 2 years, but I say I'm in a better place.

For you, I would recommend not panicking about it as time will help.

But you must be sensible about it, I never got pain but car brakes would literally make me jump.

I would do the following for a while :

.Take a break from noisy environments
. Take a break from concerts and gigs
. Take a break from headphones and earphones
. Use pink noise when sleeping at night from a speaker near your bed (u need to enrich your auditory system again)
. Hardest part and what took me the longest to to was to try not get sad about what's happened. Most people improve which is encouraging .
. Also when an offending sound hits u, just don't react negatively. Brush it off, keep calm and carry on.

You would be amazed what a positive impact this will have on u!