Was November when your own voice was hurting you? Or was this during your original trauma? Do you feel you've made good progress since November? Currently I don't feel like I've made any. It's been about 40 days in mostly 24/7 protection.
There is a reference here to November. Did you get the COVID-19 vaccine or booster at that time? I had my booster at the end of November. I have read some postings from folks who believe that there is some causal link between the vaccine and tinnitus and/or hyperacusis.
I do not really know what you mean by original trauma, but yes, around that time my voice did hurt me. To be honest, I am disappointed with my hyperacusis progress thus far. I expected it was only going to take a couple of months for me to get better. My symptoms have only improved slightly. But I have managed to deal with the condition better.
I did get a booster around this time. Probably closer to December. My 2nd dose of Pfizer gave me a setback in hyperacusis I feel. It lasted about 2 months over the summer.
Your profile says you've had tinnitus since 2012. I mean your original trauma that caused it. Did you also get hyperacusis then, or was this a more recent development?
I couldn't really pin it down to a single noise trauma. One day I just suddenly noticed my ears rang when everything was quiet. Probably had something to do with fireworks. I used to listen to loud music on my speakers for hours on end. Before my hyperacusis got chronic last year, I sometimes suffered from short periods of over sensitivity to sound. If I stopped listening to music for a couple of days, it always got better.
Besides the other things I've advised you in previous posts, you could consider making things right with your dad and asking him if he could take the kids with him for a while. Do other people besides your kids live in your house as well? Do you maybe have an ex partner you could contact? Don't worry about what your teachers think of you. Right now you should just seek help. Especially since you mention your son has certain issues. Maybe the government runs programs for these kinds of things? You could and should tell someone about your suicidal thoughts as soon as possible. Some medication might help you. Honestly I am very worried about the possibility of you hurting yourself.
How do you deal with hearing your voice so loudly when using hearing protection?
I am actually doing alright now. I used to avoid talking to people when my voice hurt, even with hearing protection. So I am actually kind of glad I can communicate with people somewhat normally now.
But one should talk only with someone whom one trusts about this. There are cases here that ended up in psych ward because of this and this does not help hyperacusis in any way. There are also no medications for hyperacusis, so one is just left with the option to avoid all triggering noises and take some supplements and hope that with the passage of time these hyperactive nerves or whatever it is calms down.
I have been suicidal as well, I know what it's like to feel completely hopeless and I recognize the signs when things could rapidly escalate. I didn't trust anyone in my environment with my feelings either, which almost cost me my life. Reading the posts of @GoatSheep, it is obvious he is in a very rough situation right now. He got a lot more going on than hyperacusis alone. But we as forum members can only give some advice and words of encouragement. So that is why I told him to talk to other people about his problems. I am not an American, but where I live, people rarely get locked away involuntarily in a psych ward.
My father is almost 70. He lives 8 hours away from me. There's no chance he would take on my children and completely uproot their lives.
Right but earplugs aren't really "sound deprivation." Most musician's plugs and even most foam plugs are only reducing and taking the edge off - hardly like you're in a sound isolation booth.
I guess it depends on which sound environment you're in. If we're almost always in a quiet setting, and use foam plugs, which can cut over 40 dB at 8 kHz almost no high frequency input makes its way to the brain. Low frequency sound penetrates more easily though.
There is no solution to this. Currently my voice hurts even if I whisper even if I wear earplugs. I tested and my wife's voice does not hurt as much as mine, although usually her voice hurts more. So I concluded that this happens because my voice travels through bone conduction directly to the cochlea and also vibration.
The pain is instant, I cannot even whisper. Sometimes I feel that breathing creates pain.
Hello Eleanor89. Could you tell us about your experience with hyperacusis and how it has improved over time? Were you originally using hearing protection that you weaned off of? What was the role of the sound generators, how did you manage that and do you think those were beneficial?SecretMoniker said:
How long did you have hyperacusis before you could communicate normally with people?
That's a tough question. In the summer of 2020, I developed chronic pain hyperacusis. Around that time, my own voice hurt when I tried to speak with people. Sometimes I managed to recover to a certain extent, only for me to screw it up again by carelessly exposing myself to sound. Around September 2021 my hyperacusis had seriously deteriorated. Around November I started wearing hearing protection all day long. I still struggled to communicate properly with people. Because of the pain, I tried to speak in an unnatural, forced manner which probably put a lot of strain on my throat. My friend that still visits me sometimes recently mentioned how my voice is much less loud than it used to be. So somehow I must have adapted the way I speak. For the last couple of months I can speak semi-normally to people again, albeit with hearing protection. Taking good care of my health probably played a big role in this too.
Thanks, I am happy that you recovered to a certain point. It seems that the severe cases, like us, are not easy to heal at all.
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