I hope that the brain calms down if we can lower the tinnitus sounds with the device. It almost feels like some form of hyperacusis is the brain trying to make us avoid loud sounds. Why would it ramp up the sounds and make them uncomfortable if not for making us avoid them?
I have always asserted this as the most plausible theory for hyperacusis!
Not on Tinnitus Talk, however (so don't go looking for quotes and then telling me "no you didn't..." when you come up empty handed), but with anyone willing to discuss the topics of tinnitus and hyperacusis with me in person.
It's what annoys me
so much about the "overprotection" myth some people state as
undisputed fact.
That somehow the withdrawal from sound after injury by sound, will cause even more injury...
Like, "sh*t you're burning your hand on that campfire boy!", "no! no! the last thing you want to do is remove it from the fire!"
Some people who develop severe hyperacusis, for whatever reason, assume that the alternative action
they didn't take, would have resulted in a better outcome.
"If I just hadn't 'overprotected' things would be so much better now". Well here's the thing:
they could also be much worse.
No, we have no idea what causes hyperacusis
yet. Nothing but theory and conjecture. So one guess is as good as another (and that includes the cause being alien abductions followed by alien implants that gave us all super-sonic hearing).
The same goes for tinnitus (although we seem to be making better progress with that). So we cannot yet say,
this (x action) is what the person should have done after their acoustic trauma to mitigate a worse outcome.
That said, of everything I've heard since 2009; my own internal dialogue telling me
"you have damaged hearing and tinnitus → further noise turns damaged hearing and tinnitus into even more damaged hearing tinnitus → hyperacusis makes one want to avoid that noise → most people with damaged hearing and tinnitus have hyperacusis → perhaps this is an adaptive function trying to prevent further complications" has made the most sense.
Why does a sprained ankle hurt to touch... why do the nerves continue to send pain signals to the brain after the damage has been done. This should be rhetorical, but to state the obvious: so that you protect the ankle to let it heal
and to prevent further injury.
Hence why I tell people who present with recent hearing damage and tinnitus, to
protect as much as they f*cking can, until things start to improve.
I would rather hear less to be honest. It's just terrible to feel uncomfortable most of the time.
Yeah, agreed. These super-sonic alien implants aren't all they're cracked up to be.