New Sound and I Really Get Despaired

[Ed209]

Aaaaaaaaaaaw thank you @Ed209 for your nice words and for also pushing me to try. Anxiety and sadness came back in full force the previous days, I'm craving for spending the whole day outside. I'm so traumatized by all what happened and especially, the physical pain it brought, that even at night I have vivid dreams of my memories and waking up to realize the current situation.

I agree with you on cortisol, and I know it can play a role. I just came from a long sustained walk outside, with muffs on after reading your post. It gave me some POWER, some STRENGTH. I used to exercise a lot before my onset (like a lot of people here), but H is a real burden. But I'll try I promise (even with my plugs, and my muffs on, i have to be careful though, sudden noise can happen anytime).

Themoon, I've had set back after set back along with all my fellow sufferers on here. It's all part of the journey my friend, don't let it beat you. We all possess an inner strength which is far greater than you can ever imagine. We just need to learn how to harness it. Watch this video for a bit of inspiration (it includes someone with hearing issues as well, watch all of it). It truly highlights the incredible strength of the human spirit.

 

[Tyler Montgomery]

Moon, you are ALLOWING this to break you. Your stress and depression levels are almost certainly causing your T and H to feel considerably worse. Every time you let your problems push you backwards in your life, your stress and depression levels are going to rise. If you want this stuff to get better, you have to get back to living your life and pretending the T and H don't exist. Once you get your life back on track, you will notice that your ear problems are less noticeable.

 

[SilverSpiral]

Only people who have never had severe H would say that hearing protection makes it worse. And that is why audiologists will say it, because they have never had extreme H.

IF your arm is broken it needs a cast to prevent further damage, and pain. If you never take the cast off even after it is healed, then you start to have a problem. But emcouraging someone with a broken arm to use it for daily activities is dangerous since it is not healed.

H is usually symptom that some form of hearing damage has happened, and silence, or hearing protection gives it the best chance to heal.

Telling people with wounded ears that they should expose themselves to sounds that cause them pain//discomfort is just pointlessly cruel and dangerous. But since theres no way to diagnose what is causing the hyperacusis, or how much worse it gets after certain noise exposures, audiologists have no reason not to tell people to go out there and risk hurting themselves, because even when they do, the audiologist will simply not believe them and just say they arent habituating enough.
Hyperacusis is your body telling your something, that something isn't right something hard to ignore, so we better listen to it.

 

[bill 112]

Only people who have never had severe H would say that hearing protection makes it worse. And that is why audiologists will say it, because they have never had extreme H.

IF your arm is broken it needs a cast to prevent further damage, and pain. If you never take the cast off even after it is healed, then you start to have a problem. But emcouraging someone with a broken arm to use it for daily activities is dangerous since it is not healed.

H is usually symptom that some form of hearing damage has happened, and silence, or hearing protection gives it the best chance to heal.

Telling people with wounded ears that they should expose themselves to sounds that cause them pain//discomfort is just pointlessly cruel and dangerous. But since theres no way to diagnose what is causing the hyperacusis, or how much worse it gets after certain noise exposures, audiologists have no reason not to tell people to go out there and risk hurting themselves, because even when they do, the audiologist will simply not believe them and just say they arent habituating enough.
Hyperacusis is your body telling your something, that something isn't right something hard to ignore, so we better listen to it.

I just couldn't agree anymore,I have gotton worse and worse from all the"professional"advice I was given.

It's this simple,everyone is different and those who have never experienced what you have will simply never understand why you think the way you do,it's not that I want to think this way it's because my body leaves me no other choice but to be this way.Its a cruel twisted fate to get,to be the positive get out more guy who protected when necessary and preached this onto others only for things out of his control to happen and change everything.

3 years ago I would have had a totally different viewpoint compared to the one I have today,bitter personal experience has brought me to what I am today,I just don't want to see anyone else end up like me,I think that's why I feel so strongly about it.

 

[Owen]

Only people who have never had severe H would say that hearing protection makes it worse. And that is why audiologists will say it, because they have never had extreme H.

IF your arm is broken it needs a cast to prevent further damage, and pain. If you never take the cast off even after it is healed, then you start to have a problem. But emcouraging someone with a broken arm to use it for daily activities is dangerous since it is not healed.

H is usually symptom that some form of hearing damage has happened, and silence, or hearing protection gives it the best chance to heal.

Telling people with wounded ears that they should expose themselves to sounds that cause them pain//discomfort is just pointlessly cruel and dangerous. But since theres no way to diagnose what is causing the hyperacusis, or how much worse it gets after certain noise exposures, audiologists have no reason not to tell people to go out there and risk hurting themselves, because even when they do, the audiologist will simply not believe them and just say they arent habituating enough.
Hyperacusis is your body telling your something, that something isn't right something hard to ignore, so we better listen to it.

I don't think you can say that "Only people who have never had severe H would say that hearing protection makes it worse." I can't speak for everybody on here that has a similar viewpoint to me, but I don't think anyone is saying "don't worry about your hearing, just push on and do what you like.", it is about where you draw the line on when to start protecting your ears.

I appreciate that my own experience is different from most, as anecdotal evidence suggests it to be significantly under 5% of those on here that have tinnitus from an allergic reaction, but that in itself comes with its own challenges as the pool of information to help understand it is so much poorer. The first sign that something was wrong with my hearing was only severe hyperacusis. Effectively, if I cocooned myself away in a quiet house, I had no hearing issues at all, but general outside noises, office noise, or the drone of driving a car would leave me with around 45 minutes to one hour of screaming tinnitus afterwards (as if I had just come out of a club at 2 AM having had my hearing abused with 100dBspl+ music for 5 hours) - this lasted for months before the screaming never stopped.

I could so easily have fallen into the cycle of saying that I should permanently wear hearing protection and in a way, I did. I avoided all noisy situations I could, so weekends would be spent at home, never going out anywhere, or doing anything in the evenings after work, not even going to a shopping centre as the noise was too much, but I still had to go to work from Monday to Friday, so I had the drone of the car and the noise of the office, every single weekday and that would give me screaming tinnitus every time. I have been there and I know what it is like.

In an earlier post, I made the comment to be careful about overprotecting your hearing and instantly it was taken as meaning a hard and fast "don't protect your ears". Everybody's own experience will be different, but the basic biology of your hearing increasing its gain to look for sounds in quiet environments is true. If you don't enrich your environment with sound, then your hearing becomes more sensitive to both internal and external noises - it is why so many people on here with tinnitus use white noise or similar to aid sleep. My own experience suggests that this increased sensitivity is not permanent, but any unnecessary suffering, whether short or long term is surely best avoided?!?

I would never condone just pushing on and abusing your ears - I would never suggest this to someone without tinnitus or hyperacusis either. I don't unnecessarily hang around in the kitchen when all the appliances are on, as the noise aggravates my hearing, but nor do I race out immediately to avoid it, I wear ear defenders when vacuuming and I still don't go out to clubs, but I do deliberately "feed" my auditory system with enriching and varied sounds and for me at least, the hyperacusis has slowly reduced.

 

[SilverSpiral]

I don't think you can say that "Only people who have never had severe H would say that hearing protection makes it worse." I can't speak for everybody on here that has a similar viewpoint to me, but I don't think anyone is saying "don't worry about your hearing, just push on and do what you like.", it is about where you draw the line on when to start protecting your ears.

I appreciate that my own experience is different from most, as anecdotal evidence suggests it to be significantly under 5% of those on here that have tinnitus from an allergic reaction, but that in itself comes with its own challenges as the pool of information to help understand it is so much poorer. The first sign that something was wrong with my hearing was only severe hyperacusis. Effectively, if I cocooned myself away in a quiet house, I had no hearing issues at all, but general outside noises, office noise, or the drone of driving a car would leave me with around 45 minutes to one hour of screaming tinnitus afterwards (as if I had just come out of a club at 2 AM having had my hearing abused with 100dBspl+ music for 5 hours) - this lasted for months before the screaming never stopped.

I could so easily have fallen into the cycle of saying that I should permanently wear hearing protection and in a way, I did. I avoided all noisy situations I could, so weekends would be spent at home, never going out anywhere, or doing anything in the evenings after work, not even going to a shopping centre as the noise was too much, but I still had to go to work from Monday to Friday, so I had the drone of the car and the noise of the office, every single weekday and that would give me screaming tinnitus every time. I have been there and I know what it is like.

In an earlier post, I made the comment to be careful about overprotecting your hearing and instantly it was taken as meaning a hard and fast "don't protect your ears". Everybody's own experience will be different, but the basic biology of your hearing increasing its gain to look for sounds in quiet environments is true. If you don't enrich your environment with sound, then your hearing becomes more sensitive to both internal and external noises - it is why so many people on here with tinnitus use white noise or similar to aid sleep. My own experience suggests that this increased sensitivity is not permanent, but any unnecessary suffering, whether short or long term is surely best avoided?!?

I would never condone just pushing on and abusing your ears - I would never suggest this to someone without tinnitus or hyperacusis either. I don't unnecessarily hang around in the kitchen when all the appliances are on, as the noise aggravates my hearing, but nor do I race out immediately to avoid it, I wear ear defenders when vacuuming and I still don't go out to clubs, but I do deliberately "feed" my auditory system with enriching and varied sounds and for me at least, the hyperacusis has slowly reduced.

This is very sensible, but it is worth noting that your condition is quite unique. It seems sensible that people who have hyperacusis after noise exposure should take extra care to avoid loud, and perhaps even moderate noise, as there is an unknown yet existent period of time where the ear can seem to heal to a degree, and further aggravation can hinder this process.

I mainly have problems with the idea that "overprotection makes hyperacusis worse" I don't think this is the case generally, and I would view it as scaremongering or even dangerous to tell someone that if they have recently developed hyperacusis from a sound incident.

The reality of it is, is that nobody on this board can say for sure the state of anybody's hearing system, so they can never tell them, say, "No your blender can't damage your ears, use it without protection, if you keep wearing protection you'll just worsen your hyperacusis".

Also if sounds are causing people physical discomfort to their ears, I'm not sure exposure will ever get past that discomfort, and "heal" the person. Maybe at some point, done carefully that is the case, but I will always err on the side of caution.

I know that my hearing was messed up in an instance, by people with no mind about safe volume levels, and I know the suffering it caused me. So I am rightly biased when it comes to things like this.

EDIT: in regard to your original statement that overprotection makes hyperacusis worse, I still feel that this is not the case, it may on a psychological level, but I believe in cases of noise induced hyperacusis, there is a biological basis for it, and overprotection will not worsen this kind of hyperacusis, it will only increase the chance of recovery in my opinion.

I have read studies where they damaged rats hearings, and healed some in moderate noise and some in silence, and the ones in moderate noise healed better. Then I read another study that showed opposite results to that. However both studies were small enough and the differences in improvements were small enough, that I would not use it as evidence either way. (i dont have links to these studies, i'm actually recalling on studies other members have posted here, and assuming they were valid).

 

[Ed209]

I don't think you can say that "Only people who have never had severe H would say that hearing protection makes it worse." I can't speak for everybody on here that has a similar viewpoint to me, but I don't think anyone is saying "don't worry about your hearing, just push on and do what you like.", it is about where you draw the line on when to start protecting your ears.

I appreciate that my own experience is different from most, as anecdotal evidence suggests it to be significantly under 5% of those on here that have tinnitus from an allergic reaction, but that in itself comes with its own challenges as the pool of information to help understand it is so much poorer. The first sign that something was wrong with my hearing was only severe hyperacusis. Effectively, if I cocooned myself away in a quiet house, I had no hearing issues at all, but general outside noises, office noise, or the drone of driving a car would leave me with around 45 minutes to one hour of screaming tinnitus afterwards (as if I had just come out of a club at 2 AM having had my hearing abused with 100dBspl+ music for 5 hours) - this lasted for months before the screaming never stopped.

I could so easily have fallen into the cycle of saying that I should permanently wear hearing protection and in a way, I did. I avoided all noisy situations I could, so weekends would be spent at home, never going out anywhere, or doing anything in the evenings after work, not even going to a shopping centre as the noise was too much, but I still had to go to work from Monday to Friday, so I had the drone of the car and the noise of the office, every single weekday and that would give me screaming tinnitus every time. I have been there and I know what it is like.

In an earlier post, I made the comment to be careful about overprotecting your hearing and instantly it was taken as meaning a hard and fast "don't protect your ears". Everybody's own experience will be different, but the basic biology of your hearing increasing its gain to look for sounds in quiet environments is true. If you don't enrich your environment with sound, then your hearing becomes more sensitive to both internal and external noises - it is why so many people on here with tinnitus use white noise or similar to aid sleep. My own experience suggests that this increased sensitivity is not permanent, but any unnecessary suffering, whether short or long term is surely best avoided?!?

I would never condone just pushing on and abusing your ears - I would never suggest this to someone without tinnitus or hyperacusis either. I don't unnecessarily hang around in the kitchen when all the appliances are on, as the noise aggravates my hearing, but nor do I race out immediately to avoid it, I wear ear defenders when vacuuming and I still don't go out to clubs, but I do deliberately "feed" my auditory system with enriching and varied sounds and for me at least, the hyperacusis has slowly reduced.

Brilliant post. This is exactly the point some of us are trying to make. No one is suggesting that you shouldn't protect your ears.

 

[Martin69]

@Themoon

My anxiety was for a long time that I could jump out of my skin nearly every second. Any many people report the same.

I am suffering with severe T for 3+ years now. 2-3 high-pitched tones above 15 kHz. One could say, a dog whistle and a dentist drill play a duet in my head. Some months ago, I decided to give Lexapro a try. I am now on the recommended maximum dosage of 20 mg. And it takes much of the anxiety.

Life is still tough, exhaustion is high and I need doing a lot of masking, but this debilitating anxiety is much, much less. I took Remeron before, but this is more against depression than anxiety. My current medication is:

20 mg Lexapro at noon
7,5 mg Remeron (so very low) two hours before sleep. This gives me enough to sleep 8-9 hours through.

From time to time, I take a Trobalt or a Benzo. Trobalt gives me relief for some hours by reducing the volume and making things calmer. I take it maybe once every 10 days (200 mg). I have not taken any Benzo for months since I think Trobalt has more or less the same effect, but makes the tones also lower.

To not give my body too much stress with the meds, I am now changing my diet. I seldom drank alcohol or did smoke. Now I also try to stay away from everything that stresses our body, like sugar, salt, white grain, junk food etc.

I really hope for everyone that we will have silence in our heads one day again. I do not really believe that I can habituate to all the sounds in my head. But who knows? I am still on my road.

Take care and we are here for you.

 

[Owen]

it is worth noting that your condition is quite unique.

I am all too aware of this, which is why I specifically pointed it out. There is someone else on this forum that I exchange PMs with that has a similar experience, but we do seem pretty rare. Sadly however, try telling the average ENT. The first one I saw just said that the only cause of tinnitus is inner ear wear and tear from listening to sounds that are too loud and that is it, with no other cause. I am aware of half a dozen and as a self proclaimed expert, he should have known many times more information than I do. He had no right to be a doctor of any kind, let alone for something which is so emotionally charged.

I have read studies where they damaged rats hearings, and healed some in moderate noise and some in silence, and the ones in moderate noise healed better. Then I read another study that showed opposite results to that. However both studies were small enough and the differences in improvements were small enough, that I would not use it as evidence either way. (i dont have links to these studies, i'm actually recalling on studies other members have posted here, and assuming they were valid).

Since developing hearing problems, I have been utterly shocked at just how poor the studies on tinnitus have been, and even more so on "atypical" causes for tinnitus. Tie to this though my own experiences with doctors and I'm not surprised. The doctor on the front line seems so disinterested, I'm not even convinced the number of people or severity of suffering gets logged in any meaningful way in order to understand the magnitude of the problem..

Something that is perhaps analogous to your experience is that just as yours is noise induced, so you wish to really protect your ears from sound, because mine was prescription drug induced, I cannot bring myself to take any prescription drugs to improve my mood or make me feel better, so when I read about others on this forum recommending cocktails of drugs to help, inside I'm just hoping they don't make things worse as I don't want anyone else to suffer as I have.

Our personal experiences really shape us.

 

[SilverSpiral]

I am all too aware of this, which is why I specifically pointed it out. There is someone else on this forum that I exchange PMs with that has a similar experience, but we do seem pretty rare. Sadly however, try telling the average ENT. The first one I saw just said that the only cause of tinnitus is inner ear wear and tear from listening to sounds that are too loud and that is it, with no other cause. I am aware of half a dozen and as a self proclaimed expert, he should have known many times more information than I do. He had no right to be a doctor of any kind, let alone for something which is so emotionally charged.



Since developing hearing problems, I have been utterly shocked at just how poor the studies on tinnitus have been, and even more so on "atypical" causes for tinnitus. Tie to this though my own experiences with doctors and I'm not surprised. The doctor on the front line seems so disinterested, I'm not even convinced the number of people or severity of suffering gets logged in any meaningful way in order to understand the magnitude of the problem..

Something that is perhaps analogous to your experience is that just as yours is noise induced, so you wish to really protect your ears from sound, because mine was prescription drug induced, I cannot bring myself to take any prescription drugs to improve my mood or make me feel better, so when I read about others on this forum recommending cocktails of drugs to help, inside I'm just hoping they don't make things worse as I don't want anyone else to suffer as I have.

Our personal experiences really shape us.

I have also gone through rejecting medications, especially of the psychiatric kind after my experiences with them. Like they give you an ssri, when you were not suicidal, and suddenly you become suicidal while on the ssri, you talk to your doctor and he says, that happens to young people sometimes, your brain and body just needs to adjust, you need to get enough of the drug built up in your fatty tissues. Months later they double the dose, and you become agitatedly suicidal and end up using the SSRIs in order to try to end your life, so what the heck good were they doing if that would happen? Then you're afraid you've damaged your liver doing such a stupid thing, and have yet another reason to avoid meds, beyond the fact that they had the opposite psychological affect on you than they were supposed to have. But even still they say that it happens sometimes, it just means they need to "try a different one". Strange strange system.