Video | Tom Maholchic - Dr. M Charles Liberman - Dr. Bradley Welling

[Foncky]

I wanted to share this video from Massachusetts Eye and Ear (Boston):

"Tom Maholchic suffers from hyperacusis with pain: almost any noise is akin to stabbing icepicks or molten steel in his ears. At Mass. Eye and Ear, Dr. M. Charles Liberman, director of the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories, and Dr. Bradley Welling, chief of otolaryngology, are searching for a cure."



An article about Tom was written here last year : https://www.statnews.com/2016/02/18/noise-induced-ear-pain/

 

[Lex]

I have a similar kind of pain though his sounds worse I think.

"It was like another lifetime before this all happened." Exactly how I feel. My life is sharply divided into two parts, before and after.

I wish I could be as hopeful as he and his family are, though. I am a dead woman walking.

 

[Michael Leigh]

This unfortunate young man has a very severe form of hyperacusis. Like tinnitus this condition comes in different levels of severity. However, I do not believe everyone that has hyperacusis means the condition cannot be cured using sound therapy. In some cases specialist treatment wearing white noise generators to desensitise the auditory system may be required and backed up with counselling from a Hearing Therapist or Audiologist trained in the management and treatment of tinnitus and hyperacusis.

If hyperacusis is left untreated or a person resorts to wearing earplugs and other means of hearing protection excessively, then the auditory system's loudness threshold will be reduced and become even more sensitive to sound. The answer is to try and get the best treatment possible if self help doesn't work.
Hyperacusis is well documented on the Internet and the treatment for it is clear: use sound therapy.

I once had very severe hyperacusis that was cured in two years and the care of a Hearing Therapist and using sound therapy. That was eighteen years ago.

Michael

 

[Foncky]

I have a similar kind of pain though his sounds worse I think.

"It was like another lifetime before this all happened." Exactly how I feel. My life is sharply divided into two parts, before and after.

I wish I could be as hopeful as he and his family are, though. I am a dead woman walking.

Yep, before was like another life.

Even if we get better (I'm sure we will), the damage it did to us, to everything in our life, is tremendous and cannot be easily fixed.

That doesn't mean our new existence won't be interesting or enjoyable, but still. How can you imagine the human body can generate something so pervert, so dreadful and so incompatible with... life ? Until you experience it.

 

[Lex]

How can you imagine the human body can generate something so pervert, so dreadful and so incompatible with... life ? Until you experience it.

Which is why I can't blame Glenn Mitchell, Jason DiEmilio, Gaby Olthuis, Nick Williams, Yannick Cauchy, and the other nameless sufferers who quit on life. I'm pretty sure I'll be on the same list soon. Sick of this.

But of course, people are different. Some can find the strength and resilience to go on. Personally though, I don't like settling for less and I don't choose quantity over quality. I'm also too angry to find the grace needed for acceptance.