Are you concerned about the loudness tolerance test causing an aggravation of the hyperacusis and tinnitus?
No.
It's been a year since I had that test. They used to be 100% or very close. Now I think they should be lower. This can be done with or without background noise, with static, with noise in one ear, with headphones, speakers. You will get different results depending on how the test is done.
Have hearing aids ever been suggested for your hearing loss? An ENT suggested them to me today based on my noise induced hearing loss (which is still mild in both ears and moderate at certain frequencies in one ear). I obviously have concerns about amplifying sounds when I already hear sounds as too loud. She seemed to be thinking about hearing aids for tinnitus instead of hyperacusis. I know of a few people with hyperacusis who seemed to have benefited from hearing aids.
I asked about hearing aids to my ENT and they were not recommended due to hyperacusis. My ENT said that hearing aids are recommended for people with more hearing loss than me.
That's really bad advice, in my opinion...
I thought that you had experienced significant hearing loss, and that this resulted in your hyperacusis being offset to an extent. I think that hearing aids are effective for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. Apparently, people with severe hearing loss may not benefit from them. Mine is mild with a moderate dip in one ear (my bad ear) at a certain frequency.
Hearing loss becomes an issue when understanding other in certain circumstances like background noise is sometimes a problem. So classifications do not really matter, whether it is mild or moderate. Those are just cathegories ENTs use, but they look at the pure tone audiogram mainly, rather than the speech recognition test.
Regarding hearing loss I wanted to add that sometimes there is "distortion" or some frequencies (high sounds, for instance.. or low sounds) seem dimmed and others "enhanced"... and my current stage is that there is a very weird feeling of like sound hitting a "wall", this is, a "deaf" sound. The sound is not distorted anymore, there is no roundness to it, or deepness to the sound, there is just no sound.
In relation to wearing hearing protection in loud urban environments, are you referencing sirens, planes overhead, etc.? I walk in the early evening when it is quiet. I was wearing some cotton in my ears because it dampened the sound somewhat but not too much like foam earplugs that cause me to hear each footstep as loud due to the occlusion effect.
No one with hyperacusis should go to those events. There is a high risk of getting worse.
In general, I would agree to this if you have sound sensitivity such as loudness hyperacusis.
@Juan, curious about your thoughts on why such frequent audiometric tests? Do the results give you any actionable paths forward? Or more because you are just interested in knowing, and being able to track any changes over time?
Hey @MindOverMatter, I want to ask you. I went out for a really long drive (2 and a half hours), to go hiking. I had a really good time listening to the sounds of nature and all that other good stuff, but after I got back home, I found my tinnitus to be elevated in volume and the reactivity became more noticeable. I was wearing ear protection in the car too.
Hey Z,
I just want to know how my hearing evolves and changes, and whether there are changes in word recognition scores.
Yes, many, many times.
Wow, thank you for sharing this. This exactly describes my experience in the last 24 hours.
Awesome. I'm finally starting to get a better handle on this condition myself. In the beginning, a tinnitus increase would leave me panic stricken, but this time around, I've had solid stretches where my mind doesn't evoke a negative emotional reaction as much. And if I do have a negative reaction, it doesn't last very long. Happen recently with a thunderstrike recently.
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